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Academic Progress Workgroup (Home)

This is the main site for the PESC Academic Progress Workgroup, focused on developing a set of community-based specifications covering data defintions, processes, events, reporting and work flows essential to Academic Progress Stakeholders.  Student success is dependent on accurate and sustainable processes, data gathering and communication linking learners to advisors, faculty, administrators, counselors, employers and other stakeholders.  Read some of the important publications reflecting the 21st century challenges for our industry. 

Data Quality Campaign's 10 Essential Elements for States
States have made remarkable progress in developing longitudinal data systems that can track student progress over time, from prekindergarten through 12th grade and into postsecondary education. This map shows how many of the 10 essential elements each state reports based on responses to the 2008 DQC survey of states about their current data collection systems. More About the 10 Essential Elements for States

Serving Adult Learners in Higher Education
CAEL's Principles of Effectiveness for Serving Adult Learners. This publication was developed by CAEL (Council for Adult and Experiential Learning), a national nonprofit organization and leader in pioneering learning strategies for individuals and organizations. CAEL advances lifelong learning in partnership with educational institutions, employers, labor organizations, government and communities. CAEL is known for its comprehensive approach to developing education strategies and learning systems for employers, designing workforce education programs, advocating for public policy at the state and national levels related to adult learning, and supporting educational institutions and adult learning professionals.

The path to a four-year degree
Community colleges promote nearly half of the nation's undergraduate students. Two-year institutions also are associated with low rates of transfer to four-year schools. The Other College from the Center for American Progress offers insight on persistence and degree completion gaps of community college students, with policy recommendations to address these deficits.

The impact of transfer, articulation policies
According to AcademyOne, there are over 70,000 articulation agreements nationwide. And, many states have introduced state-wide agreements. Do state transfer and articulation policies increase opportunities for students to earn a bachelor's degree? Community College Transfer and Articulation Policies: Looking Beneath the Surface from the Center on Reinventing Public Education explores this question, and provides input on how states might augment or change policies to expand higher education opportunities to more students.

Higher education's capacity to achieve college for all
Today, higher education produces 1.5 million undergraduate degrees with 20% of the FTE utilized (effectiveness measures). The average four year degree takes five years and often spans multiple institutions. As the national dialogue focuses on dramatically increasing higher education participation and degree completion, a report from the National Center for Education Statistics offers new data on higher education's capacity to achieve that goal. Read Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2007; Graduation Rates, 2001 & 2004 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2007.

Educating the 'forgotten middle'
Not everyone can or aspires to be a nuclear scientist, doctor or lawyer. Demand for "middle-skill" jobs-positions that require education and training but not necessarily a four-year college degree-is expected to remain robust over the next decade, according to the Brookings Institution. To meet this demand, The Future of Middle-Skill Jobs advocates additional investments in workforce education and training programs for traditional-age students and adults, greater involvement from local industry and more apprenticeship training.
Closing the Expectations Gap 2009
Things are improving. More states are on the right track to align high school standards and graduation requirements with higher education and work expectations, says a new report from Achieve. The next step is to move from setting standards to measuring whether they're being met. Closing the Expectations Gap 2009 shows only 10 states currently have assessments rigorous enough to measure whether high school students are meeting college- and career-ready standards.

Lumina special report on nation's college-attainment goals
Higher education has been elevated as a key topic on the national agenda in the last few months, spurred on in part by President Barack Obama's commitment to make American higher education "the best in the world." The President's goal aligns with Lumina Foundation's own 'Big Goal' to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality, two- or four-year college degrees and credentials from 39 percent to 60 percent by 2025.  A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education provides a detailed explanation of Lumina's goal, along with state-by-state degree-attainment data and statistics.

Skills certification system aligns education with job skills
The economic environment is stressing institutions and learners.  Is the call for clear pathways to the skills needed by employers and job seekers? That is the intent of a new certification system unveiled by the National Association of Manufacturers and its educational arm, The Manufacturing Institute. This certification system will focus on academic and workplace competencies required for employment in all sectors of manufacturing.

New ideas to boost access, attainment
Interesting ideas.  A college fund for every student, social insurance for college costs and an open-university concept model are among the higher education ideas proposed by the New America Foundation in 10 New Higher Education Ideas for a New Congress.

 
Reference: Some of the sources of this page are from a Lumina Foundation broadcast email to Stakeholders on 3.24.2009. Copied and linked here to support the objectives to evolve current solutions with respect to the global, state and regional challenges of student and academic credit portability. The impact on degree completion, resource utilization and capacity to address the wider goal of improving graduation rates is directly linked to how Academic Progress, Advising and Guidance is delivered.
 
Subpages (4): Artifacts Background, Area of Focus, Rationale Implementation Minutes