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Dave Larsen writes about higher education.Home > Blogs > On Campus > Archives > 2008 > March > 27 > Entry
Master Plan for colleges to be released Monday
I’m sure the state’s colleges and universities are anxiously awaiting to hear how the 10-year master plan for the University System of Ohio is going to dramatically change their plans in the next few years. I know I am. I’ve been covering this for 9 months. I’m sure the staff of the board of regents, who are working until 2 a.m. some nights this week editing the thing, can’t wait either. One of the staff members said he was dreaming about the thing in his sleep. Definitely working too hard. I hear V-8 juice is the secret antidote to getting through a long work day.
Details of the long-awaited 10-year master plan for Ohio’s public colleges and universities will be released by Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut on Monday, March 31, his office said today. Fingerhut plans to release the 100-page plan online early Monday morning. That’s right, 100 pages. Pretty meaty stuff, I hear. I’ll have details here on the blog about 7 a.m. Better grab some V-8 juice.
Speaking of education reform: Before you read more on this, head over to my colleague Scott Elliott’s blog to read about a potentially controversial list of reform ideas from Gov. Ted Strickland’s office for the state’s K-12 system that Dayton Daily obtained today. One idea on the list: Eliminating the Ohio Graduation Test.
Monday is the deadline for Fingerhut to submit the plan to Gov. Strickland, who ordered Fingerhut last summer to devise a statewide plan to add 230,000 students in the next 10 years to increase the number of Ohioans who earn degrees, diplomas and certificates to help stimulate Ohio’s economy.
The statewide master plan for the University System of Ohio, drafted by Fingerhut over the last nine months, will lay out a road map for the state’s institutions to do that. The bulk of enrollment growth in both two- and four-year colleges is expected to come from the adult work force.
Making it easier for those students to attend college by providing more flexibility, helping them pay for it by asking their employers to foot the bill, and dealing with a needier population are goals for the master plan.
But such an influx of nontraditional students will create challenges for Ohio’s 23 community colleges and those four-year universities whose incoming freshman often are first-generation college students. Ohio has 13 public four-year universities, including Wright State University, Miami University and Central State University in the Dayton region.
Remedial courses at community colleges are expected to swell as adults head back to college during a time when slightly more than one-third of Ohio’s recent high school graduates who go on to college are already enrolling in remedial math, according to board of regents data.
Some of the unanswered questions college officials and trustees have concern how the increased enrollment will be financially supported when state funding for institutions is not expected to increase. College officials have also speculated how the master plan will enable potential students to earn degrees from institutions outside of their communities.
Also, lot of campuses are not clear about what their “Center of Excellence” is expected to be. Some are worried that duplicative programs will be expected to get stripped out of their curriculum.
But hey, all the speculating can stop Monday. You can find it at the University System of Ohio website. But if you don’t feel like reading 100 pages of material, I’ll summarize it here.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Higher education politics
Comments
By mskiles314
March 27, 2008 9:53 PM | Link to this
Here’s an idea, how about pick something and STICK WITH IT. Proficiency wasn’t around 10 years, OGT has been around 4 I think. The OGT was NEVER tested for reliability or validity and thus should not be a high stakes test. I’m not against end of course tests, but there better be state standards for course content that are reasonable. Also, for science classes, there better be funding to homogenize lab content and equipment. Course time differs from school to school too. Some districts have some science double blocked, others do not. I think the state should set minimum amount of time too. Oh, and then lets keep the format around for at least 15 years before the pendulum swings in some other direction.By Mary
March 28, 2008 7:12 AM | Link to this
From what I have read so far, I am disappointed the emphasis seems to be on pumping higher numbers of students into an elongated system, rather than improving education quality and relating education to any meaningful work. The book “Ivory Tower Blues” discusses such overcredentialing of jobs and how it works against education and society. It appears the focus of these efforts is to shore up a steady stream of ripped off customers/students and taxpayers. So far, I have seen nothing that addresses quality and efficiency of the education system. Why do we need to subsidize education for 13 years in K-12, then another 4 years or so in colleges to perform meaningful tasks across a spectrum of skills? Are our citizens that dense? Do that many really need college and a lifetime of debt to support an inefficient system of education and training?By Rich
March 28, 2008 8:44 AM | Link to this
Couple of things about Strickland’s college and K-12 reform plans that puzzle me — first, why does it take ten years to implement systemic reforms in the state university system? Strickland won’t even be in office in ten years. As many as three other governors could potentially occupy the governor’s chair by that time! Second, as the flip side to the first comment — is it possible to ask for a LITTLE stability in K-12 education in this state? I believe it’s true that since NCLB, school report cards, state indicators and proficiency or achievement tests came along, our schools literally haven’t had two years in a row where they were expected to test and report the SAME THINGS. Always something new, or “improved”, or more extensive — for example, just look at the ever-increasing number of state indicators reported each year on the state report cards! Yes, you can argue that any individual element is justified and ought to be tested or reported — but just try to deal with this administratively, or as a classroom teacher! (As a former school board member, with a wife who is a 4th grade teacher, I know first-hand it’s a problem.) Finally, here are a couple of modest questions — since we understandably expect a common level of knowledge and performance for all K-12 students across Ohio (and demand accountability from teachers and administrators), why has no one ever proposed any similar demands on our state university system? If universities across Ohio teach similar classes, why don’t we closely inspect THEM to be sure that necessary content is being taught, and that students are actually performing, just as we do in public primary and secondary schools? If not, why not? Why is this model inappropriate for state universities? (Just asking!)By Oldprof
March 28, 2008 9:05 AM | Link to this
I agree—stability and consistency is a value. As to Rich’s comments about how we guarantee “that necessary content is being taught, and that students are actually performing, as we do in public primary and secondary schools”—well, Rich, we only do that in K-12 for a few subjects, and they’re not necessarily the important ones (no test, for example, of a student’s listening skills—which happen to be the most fundamental for learning other subjects). One reason we can’t guarantee 100% conformity in higher ed is that over 50% of the courses are now taught by part-timers who (research has shown) receive little administrative oversight, spend less time on course preparation, are mostly unavailable to students outside of scheduled class time, are on the average rated lower than full-time faculty on student evaluations, and receive a rate of pay equal to between $100 and $150 a week per class taught. That said, Ohio does have a garbled system of course equivalencies (transfer module, transfer assurance guides, and the couse applicability system) that does provide a set of standards for course content when appropriate—understand that in some upper-level and most graduate courses, the subject matter gets quite specialized and we shouldn’t expect two professors to cover very much of the same material.By Rich
March 28, 2008 10:39 AM | Link to this
Oldprof, I already recognize the points you’ve made. I was purposely being a bit obtuse — but the larger question remains. Looking at the minimal amount of state money that actually flows into our university system, one begins to wonder how this still qualifies as a STATE university system. What is that number, anyway? I seem to recall that it’s somewhere between 10% to 20% of a typical state university’s budget, but wouldn’t swear to it without further research. Your point about testing only some subjects in K-12, as though those are the only important ones, is certainly accurate. In that sense, the idea floated in this news story of dumping the OGT in favor of a broader picture of student preparation for life beyond high school is a good one. I also agree that transfers between state universities have been unnecessarily cumbersome for years. My state rep., Shawn Webster, sponsored a bill which was enacted by the Gen. Assembly essentially forcing transfer of credits between schools. Very good, if only for the fact that students & parents won’t have to pay twice for the same classes. It does, though, bring up my issue of how one ensures same or similar courses in two schools have same or similar content and performance expectations. It isn’t something that can easily be dismissed — if we force transfer of credits, how does one know that these are truly equivalent courses? Who sets the standards and makes this determination? I would suspect it’s the Ohio Board of Regents, but they’re now reduced to an advisory role. Is it now Eric Fingerhut, Strickland’s czar of higher education? I’m asking out of literal ignorance. As confusing as K-12 education is in Ohio, it’s even more opaque at the university level — but is arguably just as important for our state’s future as K-12. You refer to transfer assurance guides, something I’ve never heard of before. I’d like to know more about these — are these just guidelines? Who sets up and enforces them? Finally, the points you made about specialized upper level and graduate course are pretty obvious, and I wasn’t trying to imply that inter-school comparisons of all courses would be desirable, or even possible. It does still leave open the whole question of how the taxpaying public, parents, and students evaluate performance of our universities. We are all now accustomed to this for K-12. Just take one indicator that’s recently made news — graduation rate. Our high schools are clearly being held accountable for this, and discrepancies between “real” and reported graduation rates are being discussed avidly. Does anyone pay any attention to a real assessment of graduation rate for a typical university? The truth is, we don’t — except for sporadic interest in graduation rate for athletes. Again, I certainly recognize that this is even more complex, and less controllable, than for high school students. But that doesn’t make it unimportant or something to be dismissed. Just from the financial aspect alone, the public and private money invested in failed college students can be massive. Beyond that, the effects on the lives of failed students can be even more dire. (I know these aren’t especially novel ideas — just want to spark more dialogue on extending current practice and reform proposals in K-12 to our university system.)By Lenny Pepperidge
March 28, 2008 11:57 AM | Link to this
Congrats to Strickland and Fingerhut for finally having the political courage to attempt to undo the mess that Jim Rhodes created in our state’s higher education system. In the early sixties Rhodes removed any structure and differentiation from Ohio’s higher eduation system an pursued a philosophy of quantity over quality, competition between the campuses and a false veneer of no qualitative differences among the campuses. At the same time, California was doing just the opposite—organizing their state universities into a rational, hierarchical system that recognized that some universities had different functions and operated at a higher quality level than others. What has each system resulted in for their states, taxpayers and economies. Ohio has a bloated, redundant mess with some of the highest tuition in the country. California has a gold standard of public higher education systems, an immense engine for economic growth and tuition levels lower than the national average. 45 years down the road, it’s clear the Rhodes’ policies were misguided and are far overdue to be abandoned.By Leon Harrison
March 30, 2008 5:28 PM | Link to this
Leon Harrison could and would be the perfect Director of Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center, out at WSU. Howboutchoo? Need us white nice guys try to apply? Posted by: Old Cold Warrior Date: March 30, 2008 05:08PM How much does this job pay, by the way? How much does this black cultural center cost? How much in additional tuition for parents and students who are bitchin’? Is this center education or agenda-driven political-activist indoctrination? Need us nice white guys try to apply? Wright State University is supposed to be “EO/AA employer”, meaning Equal Rights? Leon Harrison has done a lot of multicultural mingling, for a few decades or so, especially with coworkers and fellow and female soldiers. He as paid more than his fair share of reparations to pay for the past racist and slavery sins of our nation, and he tries to be a nice white guy. He no longer makes babies that he can no longer support, of course, not being married and being divorced.