[Please see UPDATE at end.] Yesterday, the OC Register threw Orange Coast College (OCC) a big fluffy softball in the form of the article "Orange Coast College tops in 4-year transfers”.
Indeed, OCC is tops when it comes to CSU transfers. Check out the rest of the top 25 “transfer” (to CSU) community colleges. They're listed in the article.
Alas, SOCCCD’s two colleges are nowhere to be found on that list. How come? (See update below. IVC is too small. Saddleback is not.)
Today, the Reg throws a somewhat harder ball at the same college: "Community college students stuck in rut”. OCC may be No. 1 in CSU transfers—and No. 3 in combined UC/CSU transfers—but that doesn’t mean that many students are transferring or that many students are getting degrees:
Students at California's community colleges are unlikely to earn associate's degrees or transfer to four-year universities, even if they enroll with those goals in mind, according to a new study from the Public Policy Institute of California.
Researchers studied student data over seven years and described "pervasive attrition" throughout the system, particularly among older, black and Hispanic students….
"Providing associate's degrees is a major function of community colleges, yet less than one-tenth of students … earned an associate's degree," according to the [report’s authors]…. "In addition, only about a quarter of students who were focused on transfer courses in their first year eventually transferred to a four-year institution."
…"This is not a report that says that community colleges are doing a bad job. They may just have students who are ill-prepared to achieve," said Hans Johnson, the research fellow who edited the report. "But there is an educational mismatch between what employers demand and what our system can supply. Employers are going to demand more college graduates than the state is able to produce."
…The statewide chancellor for the community colleges, Marshall Drummond, said many of the system's students arrive ill-prepared for college work and need to take remedial training, slowing the process.
University of California and California State University officials also blame poor preparation by K-12 schools for their student attrition
…OCC student Josh Aden remembers going to an academic counselor when he arrived on campus in fall 2004 and asking for help setting up a plan to see what he needed to transfer.
According to Aden, the counselor misdirected him into four classes that turned out to be nontransferable – a fact he didn't learn until he went to another counselor the following year.
"He said, 'Why are you taking these classes?' I said, 'Well, the other guy told me to take them.' He said: 'Don't take them. They are nontransferable. You don't need to be taking these classes.' "….
Hmmm. That doesn't sound so good. (To be fair: Aden is just one case. Proves nothing.) I'm so glad that I teach at the far superior South Orange County Community College District, a district so phenomenally kick-ass that the Chancellor--Raghu P. Mathur--has been rewarded with a salary well over a quarter million dollars a year! Imagine that!
On Monday, the Board of Trustees gave him more fabulous cash prizes!
--No, wait. The Reg article includes a list of the “top 25” community colleges re transferring to California's four-year institutions (i.e., CSU & UC combined).
OCC is No. 3. Good for them. Fullerton College is No. 8. Not bad.
Our own Saddleback College is way down there at No. 21. Hmmm.
IVC isn’t even on the list. [Well, its size takes it out of the competition. See below.]
--OK, OK. We're still kick-ass! I mean, consider the surge in enrollments we've been experiencing!
Well, no. I checked. There's no surge. We're definintely sans surge.
Increases in productivity? Nope. Sterling accreditation evaluations? Not. Um.......
I'm thinking, I'm thinking!
UPDATE (midnight):
Some who left comments (see) made valid points that require a more careful examination of the data. For instance, is it fair to expect IVC to make the top 25 in number of students who transfer when it is a relatively small college? Etc.
Below, is the ranked list of California community colleges that transfer the most students to the University of California and California State University systems, 2005-06—according to the Register’s article, Community college students stuck in rut.
I wanted to find enrollment data for these colleges, and so I went to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office website and found a page called Chancellor’s Office Data Mart. I could find no data concerning headcount (i.e., the number of students enrolled per college), but I did find data, per college, for “Full Time Equivalent Students." (FTES takes all courses taken and divides by a full-time student’s load of classes.)
I selected “annual 2005-6” and got data for all California community colleges. I focused only on “credit” FTES.
The upshot: below is the Register’s ranked list—plus FTES in each case. (I do hope I made no clerical errors. I rounded to the nearest 100.)
1. Santa Monica College (23,900)
2. De Anza College (23,100)
3. Orange Coast College (17,800)
4. Diablo Valley College (16,500)
5. Pasadena City College (21,500)
6. Mt. San Antonio College (22,000)
7. City Coll. of San Francisco (30,000)
8. Fullerton College (16,500)
9. El Camino College (15,300)
10. Riverside Comm. College (21,800)
11. San Diego Mesa College (14,000)
12. American River College (21,200)
13. Fresno City College (15,600)
14. Grossmont College (11,600)
15. Sierra College (13,200)
16. Palomar College (18,700)
17. Moorpark College (12,200)
18. Santa Rosa Jr. College (16,900)
19. Santa Barbara City Coll. (13,100)
20. Pierce College (12,400)
21. Saddleback College (13,800)
22. Glendale Community Coll. (11,900)
23. Sacramento City College (16,100)
24. Cerritos College (18,600)
25. East Los Angeles College (17,400)
Irvine Valley College has 7,000 FTES, and so, indeed, it is unreasonable to expect IVC to make this list—a list that comprises no colleges with fewer than 11,600 FTES.
Of course, the real issue is: how well does IVC do re transfers compared to other community colleges with similar FTES/enrollments? I have the transfer numbers for IVC (see Student right to know—rates), but I do not have comparison numbers.
How well does Saddleback College do re transfers compared to other colleges with equal or fewer FTES? I’ve taken the above list and ranked it by number of FTES:
1. City Coll. of San Francisco (30,000)
2. Santa Monica College (23,900)
3. De Anza College (23,100)
4. Mt. San Antonio College (22,000)
5. Riverside Comm. College (21,800)
6. Pasadena City College (21,500)
7. American River College (21,200)
8. Palomar College (18,700)
9. Cerritos College (18,600)
10. Orange Coast College (17,800)
11. East Los Angeles College (17,400)
12. Santa Rosa Jr. College (16,900)
13. Diablo Valley College (16,500)
14. Fullerton College (16,500)
15. Sacramento City College (16,100)
16. Fresno City College (15,600)
17. El Camino College (15,300)
18. San Diego Mesa College (14,000)
19. Saddleback College (13,800)
20. Sierra College (13,200)
21. Santa Barbara City Coll. (13,100)
22. Pierce College (12,400)
23. Moorpark College (12,200)
24. Glendale Community Coll. (11,900)
25. Grossmont College (11,600)
Again, the real issue is, how well does Saddleback College do re transfers compared to colleges with comparable FTES? Check this out:
Fresno City College (15,600) #13
El Camino College (15,300) #9
San Diego Mesa College (14,000) #11
Saddleback College (13,800) #21
Sierra College (13,200) #15
Santa Barbara City Coll. (13,100) #19
Pierce College (12,400) #20
Moorpark College (12,200) #17
Glendale Community Coll. (11,900) #22
Grossmont College (11,600) #14
I selected these ten colleges on the Register's list, with FTES from 11,600 to 15,600—roughly comparable to Saddleback College’s 13,800.
Within this group, only one college is ranked lower in transfers than Saddleback College. (Remember, too, that Saddleback College doesn't appear at all on the list of top 25 CSU transfer institutions.)
Of course, it is possible that there are other community colleges (with comparable FTES) that didn’t make the top 25. (See all California community colleges.) But it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m goin’ to bed.
12 comments:
Once again, I have to ask:
Chunk, why do you hate America?
Obviously, they wouldn't give this Mather such a big salary unless he was performing. You're leaving something out here.
What is it?
An even more curious point is that IVC and Saddleback both assess and screen the snot out of incoming transfer students sending them to remedial or Basic Skills classes. This, in spite of the fact, they score about as well as prepared students in general education classes. Perhaps the intentional roadblocking effect is having two negative impacts: it prohibits students from mainstreaming into the regular curriculum in a timely and satisfactory way as well as forcing the colleges to offer so many remedial classes they can't afford to offer an interesting and desireable set of classes that appeal to a broader range of new students?
Mathur is not performing you fool. He's doing what this board wants him to do. Most of the board should not be involved in education. Their about control. Also, while we cut classes OCC is adding classes. We lack leadership starting with Mathur.
All cc's assess students upon entry for their ability to read, write, and compute. Based on test scores, students move through the math and English courses beginning at levels that allow them to learn and succeed. But these test scores don't prevent students from enrolling in courses in other disciplines. Assessment is not a roadblock. It's accountability.
The top 25 list is counting sheer numbers of students transferring so of course the cc's with the largest populations will be on that list. Unfortunately, it does not reflect the percentage of students that transfer from any one student body. The fact that IVC isn't on the list doesn't mean that IVC isn't kick ass. It definitely is!! It's just that IVC has a relatively small student population. Comparing IVC with OCC is like comparing apples and oranges.
Applying the same logic, what is Saddleback College's excuse?
The OCRegister article quotes a student as saying that OCC has excellent counselors that give good guidance. Maybe IVC and Saddleback need to look at the acumen of their counselors instead of worrying so much about the politics of their chancellor.
Pace 9:46, (10:43), 8:41
I've added a few things to the post in response to your comments. Thanks for the input.
1. Perhaps the Reg should have made clearer that smaller colleges can't be expected to make the list. Or perhaps they should have provided a ranking of colleges by transfers per 100 students. That's much more relevant/fair.
2. Yes, Saddleback is in a different league, since it is a moderately large college (see data) and lots of colleges of similar size made the top 25 lists.
3. Didn't mean to slight OCC counseling. For all I know, OCC counseling is utterly, well, kick-ass.
The upshot: OCC deserves real credit for its transfers. Don't know about IVC, but Saddleback doesn't really shine in this regard. (See comparison figures.)
In the meantime: the whole system needs to confront the low rates of transfer. What exactly is going on here? How can we (and the students) do better?
thats journalism at its best.
good research and good job filling in the holes for the oh-so-incompetent register.
i love how we have the highest paid chancellor and almost the lowest ranked transfer rates. hmmmm. coincidence? i think not.
The transfer rate at IVC is at 27.2% so how does that compare to the other schools that lead the list in the Register?
You brilliant media critics seem to be missing a key point here: The oh-so-incompetent Orange County Register did not make up this information. It merely reported the results of a study that was recently released by the Public Policy Institute of California. Any issues with scope or "fairness" should be directed to the authors of the study. Your incompetent journalist reader.
Post a Comment