Does a P-20 council need to have authority to enact policy changes?

I have received this question at least a couple times. However, many P-20 council members I've spoken to do not support the need for such authority. They underscore the value of reaching consensus on recommendations to the legislature or state board, and having the commissioner of education, postsecondary leaders, and any other agency heads on the P-20 council go back to their offices to implement what the council agreed upon and state policymakers enacted.

Maryland P-20 Council Now Established through Statute

In 2007, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley issued an executive order to create the P-20 Leadership Council of Maryland. This year, S.B. 286 creates the group through statute. In fact, the language of the executive order and statute are very similar, though one key difference is the addition of two Assembly and two Senate members through S.B. 286.

In case you missed it: New SREB report on college completion

Earlier this month, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) released a report, Measuring Success by Degrees: The Status of College Completion in SREB States, that evaluates college entrance, persistence and completion rates in the 16 SREB states. While the data reported are specific to SREB member states, the policy recommendations to improve college-going and completion are applicable to any state in the nation.

This report follows upon an excellent SREB report released a few months ago that identifies a number of very thoughtful policy recommendations for raising college completion rates. In fact, if you have time to look at only one portion of either of these reports, I'd suggest the appendix of the earlier SREB report (starting on page 19), which lists numerous policy approaches to increase college access and completion rates, and productivity and cost-efficiencies.

What defines "success" for a P-20 council?

Part II of the discussion started in the Dec. 10 post: An individual working with the state of North Carolina on strategic planning for their education coordinating entity recently asked me, "What makes a coordinating entity effective?" I wondered if this question might be interpreted as, "When will a council know when it has achieved "success"?

It's likely that the answer to this question varies depending upon the political climate in a given state, but common responses might be:

(A) Ability to:
(1) identify where the breaks the pipeline are for students (i.e., there may be several possible reasons for high remediation #s in college math, but not all reasons may be the real reason. Trying to address all possible reasons may result in an unnecessary overexpenditure with minimal effectiveness);
(2) achieve consensus on solutions to alignment issues among agencies with authority for early learning, K-12 and higher education;
(3) based on this consensus, develop actionable recommendations targeted to true root problems, that hold significant chances for improvement in alignment. Some would argue any recommendation worth the council’s time should be something an agency cannot do independently of the others;
(4) successfully get these recommendations into enactment into policy, programs or practice;
(5) set numeric goals benchmarking improvement in P-20 alignment, assign staff responsibility for working toward goals, and quantify progress toward achievement of those goals over time.

(B) Ability to:
(1) develop public demand for alignment efforts from their elected leaders and
(2) communicate to the public the actions taken to improve alignment, and progress toward achieving goals. Some councils’ efforts, fairly or unfairly, have been decried as “window-dressing”. Showing the importance of this work and demonstrating the entity’s efforts are improving outcomes for students can deflect this.
(3) make the entity’s progress such a pivotal and effective element of education reform that it will not be dismantled or put on hold every time there’s a change in the gov, chief, PS leadership, etc. I think this is one of the reasons some P-16 councils like Indiana’s have lasted for so long and been such a force for educational progress in their state.

(C) Ability to work effectively with other state-level groups that may be working on related issues. In at least a few states, there appear to be commissions, committees, etc. working on parallel tracks to the coordinating entity. If it’s not politically feasible for these groups to be combined (i.e., if legislature has appointed one and gov. has appointed the other), then at least for the efforts to be seen as bipartisan and gain traction, entity needs to seek any and all possible means to work with rather than against other group.

(D) If a council is from a geographically or demographically diverse state, a coordinating council’s success may partially hinge on including members from these diverse populations—so that there is a vision of statewide ownership, rather than “people from the state capitol” who may or may not represent concerns and interests statewide.

Indiana's 2011 P-16 Resolutions

Last week, Indiana's Education Roundtable, the state's P-16 council, endorsed two components of the state's 2011 education agenda--on educator quality and accelerated learning (including allowing students to begin postsecondary studies at the end of 11th grade). A department of education press release provides the context for these resolutions.

Generally speaking, the endorsements are not overly detailed or prescriptive, but do indicate that the governor, chief, and P-16 council are in agreement on what they'd like to see happen in the 2011 legislative session.

What Makes a P-20 Council Effective?

I recently received this question from someone working with North Carolina on strategic planning for the state's education coordinating entity. There are probably two ways to interpret this question: (1) What defines “success” for a coordinating council, and (2) What are the attributes of a council that make it likely to achieve alignment across education sectors? Some answers to the 2nd “attributes” question are in this ECS white paper on avoiding P-20 "landmines". There's also a two-page tool to help state leaders think through the political feasibility

More in later posts on this and other questions from the North Carolina conversation.

AZ Report Suggests Need for Improved Alignment

An article in today's Arizona Republic highlights a new report that has found 4 out of 5 high school graduates in that state fail to earn a certificate or college degree 6 years after high school graduation, and more than half never enroll in college. The study used state and federal postsecondary data to track several cohorts of AZ HS grads, beginning with the Class of '04. According to the article:

"The study by the Arizona Board of Regents suggests that the state needs to increase its efforts in K-12 to get more students into college and that colleges need to increase their graduation rates."