Copyright© 2007 by School Services of California, Inc.

                                      Volume 20                   For Publication Date: April 13, 2007             No. 8

Strategies for Readiness, Access, and Success 

Students need to be college ready and institutions need to increase retention and degree completion. These are just a couple of the policy suggestions laid out in a new report released by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE).

The report, “Thinking Outside the Box: Policy Strategies for Readiness, Access, and Success,” makes suggestions to states on ways to improve services to traditional-aged students and adult learners. The report is a final installment of a project of selected papers titled: Policies in Sync:  Appropriations, Tuition, and Financial Aid for Higher Education supported by a six-year grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education.  

The report suggested several policy strategies considered to be outside-the-box thinking for traditional students in each of four areas:  finance, regulation, accountability, and governance.  

According to the finance section of the report, states might consider base funding for graduating students who have demonstrated a high level of competence in the core curriculum, so that schools that graduate students with “college-ready” competencies receive additional funding. Under this regulation, states should require that all students have access to a rigorous curriculum and should provide the support those schools and districts need to meet the higher academic standards. In addition, states should outsource remedial education and mandate that students take at least one accelerated learning class. For accountability, states should incorporate student progress reports and use diagnostic tools to determine where a student is on the readiness path. Adult learning should be removed from K-12 education and placed within higher education or other state agencies to provide adult-learning programs. 

David A. Longanecker, executive director of WICHE, cautioned that, as states consider policy changes, they should not just blindly follow the lead of another state that has successfully adopted an “outside the box” solution. “Policy makers should carefully analyze their unique circumstances and whether someone else’s approach would truly fit their own goals and that of the institution.” 

For questions on this report, please contact the Policy Analysis and Research Unit at
(303) 541-0248 or jporter@wiche.edu. A copy of the report is available online at www.wiche.edu/Policy/Changing_Direction/Pubs.asp.

—Jamillah Moore, Ed.D.