Richard Duran recently  stepped down as president of Oxnard College after eight years

Richard Duran recently retired as president of Oxnard College after eight years

The budget deal agreed to by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature last month has record increases for education, particularly community colleges. Some call it a windfall. Others call it catch up from deep budget slashing during the recession.

We call it an epic opportunity.

The infusion of money combined with untenable economic and racial inequity provides an extraordinary opportunity to slay some sacred cows and status quo thinking.

With the clarity and liberty of retirement and experience helping colleges use data to improve student success, we have some suggestions to maximize each dollar:

  • Don’t assume your college knows what to do to improve student success. Even eight years of leading Oxnard College as its president wasn’t enough to clearly identify where students struggled and how to fix it. We didn’t know what we didn’t know
  • Do closely examine student data. Oxnard leaders and faculty had our eyes opened to specific bottlenecks, such as those affecting students taking remedial or basic skills courses. Even though we had implemented several interventions that were promising, more needed to be done. We needed to redesign and scale up using a student-centered approach to remedial education so that students could effectively move to credit-earning work without losing precious time and money. By embedding tutoring into math and English basic skills classes, we created the intensive support students needed, when they needed it. Requiring students with jobs and families to seek out extra help outside of class is not a student-centered approach.
Brad Phillips, president and CEO of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Change.

Brad Phillips, president and CEO of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Change.

  • Do realize that the student population looks significantly different than it did just 10 years ago. One in two children under the age of 18 in California is Latino. The oldest graduate from Oxnard College class of 2015 was 67 years old; the youngest was 19. Our state’s greatest strength has always been the diversity of our people. Embracing the asset of diversity means focusing on cultural competencies and culturally relevant teaching.
  • Don’t just write checks to comply with the dictate from the state to spend the increased allocation for student success and student equity. The increased funding of $471 million spanning two years is a whopping increase. But large amounts of money alone aren’t going to advance student completion and small, non-scalable programs won’t move the big needle.
  • Do focus on research-based policies and practices, such as embedding tutoring through all remedial/basic skills courses and not letting students enroll after classes have started, which increases the risk of their falling behind.
  • Do engage students on their terms. Start where they are. More students than ever arrive on campus unprepared for college-level work. With such variation in demographics and education experience, one-size-fits-all support programs will not work in every setting or with every group of students.
  • Don’t cave to pressures to protect programs and practices that don’t contribute to students completing degrees. Use the data to make these determinations and be willing to make some hard choices, always focusing on implementing with fidelity the policies and practices needed to improve student success and equity.
  • Do listen to the data. The data showed Oxnard staff that basic skills students were not successful in completing the required sequence of courses. We restructured basic skills courses and created an entire division of transitional studies (basic skills), building a multidisciplinary foundation (including ESL, English composition, reading, and mathematics, and study skills) from which students can succeed at college-level learning, and began to follow up with students and identify what they needed to stay on track. This re-structure was met with resistance from some who wanted to keep things the same and not upset the current structure.
  • Do roll up your sleeves and lead by example. Engage faculty and staff at all levels to collaboratively set goals and make reviewing data and progress toward benchmarks an organizational habit. Hold everyone accountable for monitoring student progress and intervening quickly when they go off track.
  • Do scale one or two interventions in ways that engage each student early and often, such as a freshman year experience program that brings small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis, and teach students how to do college. When faculty and staff make a connection with a student, understand her story, his needs, and how to best meet those needs – that is the true meaning of equity.
  • Do exponentially expand culturally responsive teaching practices that research indicates can contribute to the academic achievement of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Culturally responsive teaching connects students’ cultures, prior experiences and learning styles to college-level work in ways that appreciate and work with what students already know and can relate to.
  • Don’t assume you know what students need. Talk to the students and gather the student voice about their experiences and their engagement with your institution. Learn from them.
  • Do use mobile technology to ask students directly what they are thinking and need to be successful. You may be surprised to learn that lower-income and diverse students are the most cell-phone dependent. For even the lowest income students, cell phones are often their only source of Internet access and communication with jobs and school. Use this technology to integrate the student voice, gathering insights about their thinking and experiences in your campus communication. If we don’t seek the student voice, who will?
  • Do match the budget decisions and interventions such as scaling up academic support, including library services, to keep on track those working towards a degree and preparing for transfer to a four year institution.

We applaud Gov. Brown and the Chancellor’s office for recognizing that the current system is struggling to support many of our students’ needs and for proposing this historic investment in community colleges. How we choose to use the new money will test our commitment to students and doing what’s right.

Our institutions can be key to job and economic growth in the state – helping unemployed, underemployed and high school students access affordable, valuable degrees and certificates that open doors to rewarding careers and transfer to the university system.

As college leaders in charge of the campuses receiving this much-needed funding to serve 2.3 million students every year, let’s use it wisely. We have an opportunity to build a more effective state community college system that truly delivers equity and opportunity in the Golden State. But only if we stop assuming we know what’s best for students, do the research to determine their needs and take time to connect with each and every student in ways that have never been done before.  Let’s get to work.

•••

Richard Duran recently retired after eight years as  president of Oxnard College. He is also a former president of the National Community College Hispanic Council. Brad C. Phillips is president and CEO of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Change.

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  1. Dawn Urbanek 9 years ago9 years ago

    I am concerned about the ability of our local community college Saddleback to be able to handle everything that is being passed to it. Now that most categorical's have been eliminated, our District is shedding a lot of programs by handing them off to Community College. I am unclear how a college that has had trouble giving students the classes they need to graduate in a timely manner will now be able to take on … Read More

    I am concerned about the ability of our local community college Saddleback to be able to handle everything that is being passed to it. Now that most categorical’s have been eliminated, our District is shedding a lot of programs by handing them off to Community College. I am unclear how a college that has had trouble giving students the classes they need to graduate in a timely manner will now be able to take on Adult Education, ROP and all the remedial classes that students currently graduating from High School will need. Also- I follow K-12 really closely. I am not sure if Community College is funded the same. But even though the state has increased funding for education a great deal- in K-12 the funding goal is to reach 2008 funding levels by the year 2021 which means many districts (mine) will remain severely underfunded into perpetuity. We receive $7,002 per student with that expected to climb to $8,500 by the year 2021. The State Budget was $102 billion in 2008 and is now $113 billion. So I would argue that the State is intentionally underfunding K-12 (especially if your District is a “wealthy” suburban district). The continued lack of funding coupled with forcing Districts to pay increased CalSTRS and CalPERS contributions will leave Districts like mine bankrupt. The continued lack of adequate funding is what is forcing K-12 Districts to shed programs and place that cost and responsibility onto Community College. The continued lack of funding is also the reason students are no longer being properly educated such that they now need one more year in High School to finish High School and are being forced to do that at Community College.

  2. Concerned Parent Reporter 9 years ago9 years ago

    Uh Oh, watch out for lots of recent H?S? Grads thaaaaaat wiiiiiiil reeeeeeely, reeeeeealy, neeeeeeed, reeeeeeemeeeeediiiaaaalllllllll help due to the possibilitymofmthemH?S? Exit exam being discontinued. the jr. Colleges will be hiring lots of remedial teaching teachers because of the puts to graduate children from h.s. who could not pass the exit exam..... . . . Another example of California's avoidance of the use of testing.... . . .so, how will a company know in the hiring process what a California HS diploma is … Read More

    Uh Oh, watch out for lots of recent H?S? Grads thaaaaaat wiiiiiiil reeeeeeely, reeeeeealy, neeeeeeed, reeeeeeemeeeeediiiaaaalllllllll help due to the possibilitymofmthemH?S? Exit exam being discontinued.

    the jr. Colleges will be hiring lots of remedial teaching teachers because of the puts to graduate children from h.s. who could not pass the exit exam…..
    .
    .
    .
    Another example of California’s avoidance of the use of testing….
    .
    .
    .so, how will a company know in the hiring process what a California HS diploma is equal to in terms of mastery of a subject by a person?
    .
    .
    .
    what will a highnschool diploma be worth?

  3. Carlene Ames 9 years ago9 years ago

    Thank you both for your explicit and exactly on point directions. I was particularly moved by your " untenable economic and racial inequalities" statement. That was what I fought against during the 38 years of my professional life as a secondary (6-adult) English/ EL/ special needs/ literacy teacher and k-12 curriculum and professional development administrator. I was eventually forced out due to intimidation, vandelism of my professional materials and classroom, the structural educational system of … Read More

    Thank you both for your explicit and exactly on point directions. I was particularly moved by your ” untenable economic and racial inequalities” statement. That was what I fought against during the 38 years of my professional life as a secondary (6-adult) English/ EL/ special needs/ literacy teacher and k-12 curriculum and professional development administrator. I was eventually forced out due to intimidation, vandelism of my professional materials and classroom, the structural educational system of untenable racial and economic inequalities and my health succumbing to these overwhelming weapons of evil. I adore teaching. My life has been of value, because I am and have been a teacher. Institutional racism and poverty are and have been the two key tools of racial and economic genocide in the U.S. and now beyond our borders. I pray that California is willing and able to begin to successfully turn these horrors around.
    I again thank you for your leadership and for your courageous, ethical points of view.

    Replies

    • Concerned Parent Reporter 9 years ago9 years ago

      why don’t you become more involved to,writ articles to help in changing the current educational climate?