Talking Points
Talking Points For College and University Presidents and Other Officials
Source: Dr. Arnold Mitchem, Council for Opportunity in Education
• President Bush's FY 06 budget that will be released on February 7 is expected to eliminate two important programs — Talent Search and Upward Bound — that have provided upward mobility for low-income Americans for forty years. The President proposes to use the money from these programs as part of expanding No Child Left Behind to the high school level.
• If this recommendation is accepted, _____ young people in the (state/district/area) would be denied college access services each year.
• Last year, Talent Search and Upward Bound placed 74,100 young people in college.
• (Institution) has hosted TRIO programs for ___ years and commits its own resources to make sure that they are successful.
• It is not prudent to replace programs with a forty-year track record and broad-based support with an untested experiment that has already generated significant opposition.
• Talent Search and Upward Bound are an important part of the college's outreach to our local community. We want to make sure that all students in ______ can have access to _____ and, absent these interventions, this is not possible.
• Talent Search and Upward Bound students have been successful at our college (include data).
• Talent Search and Upward Bound have produced many successful alumni (give examples).
Rearding PART
Why Should Upward Bound Students Be Punished for the Department of Education Failures as Noted in OMB’s Upward Bound “PART Score?”
What is “PART?”
“PART” is an assessment rating system developed by the Office of Management and Budget to “grade” the effectiveness of Federal agencies and federally funded programs. It has four components: Program Purpose & Design, Strategic Planning, Program Management, and Results. The most heavily rated section is “Results.” Under “Results” Upward Bound received a 17% score.
Fully 50% of the Results score can be attributed to the fact that “The Department of Education recently finalized its goals and targets for Upward Bound but does not yet have information to measure program progress.” (OMB PART Score, p. 450) This is true despite the fact that colleges sponsoring Upward Bound programs have been submitting individualized data on long-term program outcomes for over ten years. The Department just has not bothered to analyze it.
Why Can We Evaluate our Children and Youth but Not Educate Them?
OMB has rated 56 programs through the PART rating system. Only two have been rated effective – the National Center on Education Statistics and the National Assessment. Despite the fact that the Department of Education’s Budget totals $69.4 billion, no program educating students has been rated effective.
Regarding Mathematica
Things Most People Don’t Know That Are Demonstrated in the Department of Education’s Evaluation of Upward Bound by Mathematica Policy Research
- Students who enroll in Upward Bound have impressive high school graduation and college attendance records – when compared to other low-income students.
- 89% of UB participants graduate from high school (Mathematica, 2004, p. 26), compared to approximately 68% of low-income 18 to 24 year olds (U.S. Census Bureau).
- More than 2/3rds of UB participants attend any postsecondary institution (Mathematica, 2004, pp. 36-37), compared to 54% of all low-income students (Adelman, 2004).
- Nearly 50% of UB participants attend a four-year institution (Mathematica, 2004, pp. 36-37), compared to 22% of low-income students (Condition of Education, 2002).
- Mathematica’s evaluation of Upward Bound didn’t ask what most people think of as the important policy question: “Do students who receive pre-college services such as summer programs and tutoring and rigorous academic coursework on Saturdays and after school do better than students that don’t?” Rather, it asked: “Do students who are accepted into Upward Bound (whether or not they actually receive Upward Bound services) do better than students who are not accepted into Upward Bound (whether or not they receive Upward Bound-like services from Math/Science Upward Bound, state and privately fundedpre-college programs, or Talent Search).
- Enrollment in Upward Bound was shown to have a positive impact on completion of mathematics courses in high school. Participation in UB increased the mathematics credits earned by all students (Mathematica, 2004 pp. 26-7, pp D3-5), but particularly for those with lower initial educational expectations and White and Hispanic participants. This is particularly important for the chances of postsecondary education success, as research has shown a strong positive correlation exists between the math courses taken in high school and students’ ultimate educational attainment (Public Policy Institute of California). In addition, taking more math in high school is critical to attending a four-year institution, as most four-year colleges and universities require more high school math in order to be admitted (Riley, 1997).
- Enrollment in Upward Bound impacts a student’s chances of attending a four-year college – and that, in turn, impacts his or her chances of earning a baccalaureate degree (Mathematica, 2004, pp.36-39, 46-49, 52-53). By starting out a four-year institution, students are given the best chance to earn a bachelor’s degree; research has shown that students who begin at a four-year institution are nearly six times as likely to have completed their bachelor’s degree within six years compared to those who begin at a two-year institution (Tinto, 2004).
[TOP | Current Issues]