Richard Duran and Brad Phillips
July 2, 2015

Richard Duran recently stepped down as president of Oxnard College after eight years

Richard Duran recently retired as president of Oxnard College later 8 years

The upkeep bargain agreed to past Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature concluding month has tape increases for educational activity, specially community colleges. Some call it a windfall. Others call it catch up from deep budget slashing during the recession.

Nosotros telephone call it an epic opportunity.

The infusion of coin combined with untenable economic and racial inequity provides an extraordinary opportunity to slay some sacred cows and status quo thinking.

With the clarity and freedom of retirement and experience helping colleges use data to better student success, we have some suggestions to maximize each dollar:

  • Don't presume your college knows what to practice to meliorate pupil success. Fifty-fifty 8 years of leading Oxnard College as its president wasn't enough to conspicuously place where students struggled and how to fix it. We didn't know what we didn't know
  • Practise closely examine student data. Oxnard leaders and faculty had our eyes opened to specific bottlenecks, such as those affecting students taking remedial or basic skills courses. Fifty-fifty though nosotros had implemented several interventions that were promising, more than needed to exist done. Nosotros needed to redesign and scale up using a student-centered arroyo to remedial education then that students could effectively motion to credit-earning work without losing precious time and money. By embedding tutoring into math and English basic skills classes, we created the intensive back up students needed, when they needed information technology. Requiring students with jobs and families to seek out actress help outside of class is not a student-centered approach.
Brad Phillips, president and CEO of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Change.

Brad Phillips, president and CEO of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Change.

  • Do realize that the educatee population looks significantly different than information technology did just x years ago. One in 2 children under the age of 18 in California is Latino. The oldest graduate from Oxnard College class of 2022 was 67 years onetime; the youngest was 19. Our country's greatest strength has always been the diverseness of our people. Embracing the asset of variety means focusing on cultural competencies and culturally relevant instruction.
  • Don't just write checks to comply with the dictate from the land to spend the increased allotment for educatee success and student equity. The increased funding of $471 one thousand thousand spanning two years is a whopping increment. But large amounts of money lone aren't going to advance student completion and pocket-sized, non-scalable programs won't move the big needle.
  • Practice focus on research-based policies and practices, such as embedding tutoring through all remedial/bones skills courses and not letting students enroll after classes have started, which increases the risk of their falling behind.
  • Exercise engage students on their terms. First where they are. More than students than ever get in on campus unprepared for college-level work. With such variation in demographics and pedagogy experience, one-size-fits-all support programs will not work in every setting or with every group of students.
  • Don't cavern to pressures to protect programs and practices that don't contribute to students completing degrees. Employ the data to make these determinations and exist willing to make some hard choices, e'er focusing on implementing with fidelity the policies and practices needed to improve educatee success and equity.
  • Do listen to the information. The information showed Oxnard staff that basic skills students were non successful in completing the required sequence of courses. Nosotros restructured basic skills courses and created an entire segmentation of transitional studies (basic skills), building a multidisciplinary foundation (including ESL, English composition, reading, and mathematics, and report skills) from which students can succeed at higher-level learning, and began to follow up with students and identify what they needed to stay on rails. This re-structure was met with resistance from some who wanted to go on things the same and non upset the current structure.
  • Do roll up your sleeves and lead by case. Appoint kinesthesia and staff at all levels to collaboratively ready goals and make reviewing data and progress toward benchmarks an organizational habit. Hold everyone accountable for monitoring student progress and intervening rapidly when they go off rail.
  • Do calibration i or 2 interventions in ways that appoint each student early and often, such as a freshman year feel plan that brings small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular footing, and teach students how to do college. When faculty and staff make a connection with a student, understand her story, his needs, and how to all-time encounter those needs – that is the true pregnant of equity.
  • Do exponentially expand culturally responsive teaching practices that inquiry indicates can contribute to the academic achievement of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Culturally responsive educational activity connects students' cultures, prior experiences and learning styles to college-level work in ways that appreciate and piece of work with what students already know and can relate to.
  • Don't assume you know what students need. Talk to the students and gather the student voice about their experiences and their engagement with your institution. Larn from them.
  • Practice use mobile technology to ask students directly what they are thinking and need to be successful. You may be surprised to learn that lower-income and various students are the most jail cell-telephone dependent. For even the lowest income students, jail cell phones are often their only source of Internet access and communication with jobs and school. Use this technology to integrate the student phonation, gathering insights about their thinking and experiences in your campus communication. If we don't seek the student voice, who will?
  • Exercise match the upkeep decisions and interventions such every bit scaling upward academic support, including library services, to keep on track those working towards a caste and preparing for transfer to a four year institution.

We applaud Gov. Brown and the Chancellor's function for recognizing that the current system is struggling to back up many of our students' needs and for proposing this historic investment in community colleges. How nosotros choose to employ the new money will test our delivery to students and doing what's right.

Our institutions tin can be key to chore and economic growth in the state – helping unemployed, underemployed and high school students admission affordable, valuable degrees and certificates that open doors to rewarding careers and transfer to the academy system.

As college leaders in charge of the campuses receiving this much-needed funding to serve two.3 1000000 students every year, let's utilize it wisely. Nosotros have an opportunity to build a more effective state customs college system that truly delivers disinterestedness and opportunity in the Golden State. Just only if we stop assuming nosotros know what's best for students, practise the research to determine their needs and accept time to connect with each and every pupil in ways that take never been washed before.  Permit'due south get to work.

•••

Richard Duran recently retired after 8 years as  president of Oxnard College. He is also a former president of the National Community Higher Hispanic Council. Brad C. Phillips is president and CEO of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Change.

The opinions expressed in this commentary stand for solely those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing various points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

To become more reports similar this 1, click hither to sign up for EdSource'south no-cost daily email on latest developments in didactics.