Massachusetts stepped up its oversight of the state’s community colleges with legislation enacted last month that ties funding to student performance levels and gives state leaders more control over individual campuses. The move came as public officials wrestle with the challenge of boosting graduation rates at two-year colleges, where only about 20 percent of students nationally graduate within three years, a rate that is even lower at Massachusetts campuses.
Enrollment at community colleges has soared in recent years, and President Obama has identified improving student outcomes at two-year campuses as key to preparing Americans for the jobs of the 21st century economy.
While the new Massachusetts legislation represents a concrete step to address the problem, it’s nothing compared with an initiative now getting underway in New York. The City University of New York will launch a community college next month that will be the most ambitious effort to date to design a two-year college with the goal of seeing students through to graduation. The New Community College, profiled in yesterday’s New York Times Education Life supplement, will bring together nearly every strategy that has been employed by two-year schools to boost student success. (The generic name is temporary; the school could take on the name of a generous donor.)
For starters, every student must attend a detailed information session and have a one-on-one interview with a counselor to make sure they understand the demands that will be made of them. They also must attend full-time, at least for the first year, frequent tutoring and counseling sessions, and follow a fairly prescribed course curriculum. While many community college students lose time — and squander limited federal student aid funding — by taking remedial classes that don’t count toward graduation because they are deficient in basic math and English skills, the New York college will only offer credit-bearing classes that keep students on track to graduate. Remedial coursework will be built into the classes, along with the more advanced, standard curriculum.
As this 2007 CommonWealth story describes, several of these measures have been included in initiatives to improve student success in recent years. But the stakes are much higher at the new school, say community college experts, because it is bringing together at one campus all the steps that appear to be helpful in boosting graduation rates. “The important thing about the New Community College is not any one thing they’re doing, but that they’re all of them together,” Thomas Bailey, who directs a community college research center at Columbia University, tells the Times. “This will be a chance to see what happens if you do them together, consistently, over a longer period of time.”
–MICHAEL JONAS
BEACON HILL
Secretary of State William Galvin’s public records divisions says the city of Lowell acted legally in withholding the resumes of all the candidates for the city treasurer’s job, the Sun reports.
The Republican argues that 17-year-olds should be given the right to vote.
The Berkshire Eagle argues that, generally speaking, the new sentencing and crime provisions are good ones. The MetroWest News, however, says that the governor should veto the bill.
Banker & Tradesman columnist Scott van Voorhis knocks the familiar sight of the Legislature “scrambling to pass a bevy of complex bills at the last minute like a bunch of drunken college students frantically cramming a semester’s work into a week.”
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Lynn is considering more restrictions on tobacco sales to keep cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers, the Item reports.
Arrests of local zoning and planning board members prompts debate about whether the quality of candidates would improve if officials were appointed instead of elected, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
Stoughton looks for ways to make its town meeting more efficient, the Brockton Enterprise reports.
The Berkshire Eagle didn’t think much of Howie Carr’s recent column about “Potholegate,” the kerfuffle over Gov. Deval Patrick’s request to have potholes near his Richmond home filled prior to fundraising visit by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Cambridge’s redevelopment board wants to know how to deal with all the approvals it handed out over the two years it met without a quorum.
CASINOS
Springfield’s mayor, Domenic Sarno, really wants a casino there.
New Bedford Standard Times columnist Jack Spillane worries that traffic problems from a Taunton casino will make it much more difficult for South Coast residents to access the Boston area.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Ted Kennedy’s sons are feuding with his widow, Vicki, over the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the US Senate, but they don’t want to publicly diss her themselves so they authorize friends to anonymously dish to the Globe’s Frank Phillips.
The Obama Administration’s welfare waiver initiative stirs opposition, Governing reports.
ELECTION 2012
A Sunday Globe take-out casts doubts on US Rep. John Tierney’s claim that he knew nothing of the illegal gambling activities of his two brothers-in-law. Meanwhile, Libertarian Daniel Fishman jumps into the race against Tierney and Republican Richard Tisei, the Gloucester Times reports.
Gardy Jean-Francois, with many of the signatures on his nomination papers ruled invalid, says he will run a sticker campaign against Rep. Robert Fennell of Lynn, the Item reports.
New York magazine wonders why Mitt Romney has difficulty talking about things that matter most to him.
Democrats worry about the Obama campaign’s inability to raise money as fast as it spends it.
RELIGION
Walter Kirn, in The New Republic, offers a moving and nuanced essay on Mormonism.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A recent Brookings Institution study finds Greater Springfield ranks 92 out of 106 metro areas in the number of H-1B visa requests which go to international workers.
The ranks of America’s poor are expected to rise to a level unseen since the 1960s, the Associated Press reports (via WBUR).
A new report says Boston Internet and digital economy firms are receiving only about half the investment dollars as those in New York.
EDUCATION
The statue of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno is taken down and put into storage, Time reports.
A Globe editorial calls the state-sanctioned turnaround blueprint announced last month a “coherent plan” to improve the Lawrence public schools.
HEALTH CARE
Prostate cancer: To screen or not?
Doctors are concerned about the escalating number of teens and young adults brought to the ER for mixing alcohol and energy drinks, the Patriot Ledger reports.
TRANSPORTATION
The Globe’s Dante Ramos applauds a new pedestrian bridge linking Cambridge and Charlestown. CommonWealth’s Jack Sullivan featured the bridge in his report on federal stimulus spending in Massachusetts.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
A bid to expand a state subsidy for renewable energy is coming under attack, the Globe reports. CommonWealth offered an in-depth look at the net metering issue in 2011.
Lobsters that come in different colors are coming up more frequently in local catches.
In an editorial, the Patriot Ledger argues that Hanover residents shouldn’t resist federal help in cleaning up the site of an old fireworks plant.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Boston police collected more than 400 hours in overtime pay over the last two years for court appearances that were not requested by prosecutors, reports the Globe.
MEDIA
Keller@Large argues that the media should resist repeating the name of the Aurora shooter for the same reason TV producers avoid filming fans who run onto the field in the middle of games.