Pierce College took upon a grand role Wednesday afternoon as host for the revealing of the new Student Success Scorecards.
The California Community College Chancellor, Dr. Brice Harris, unveiled the scorecards during a press conference and broadcasted in a live stream over the internet in the Great Hall at Pierce, which was selected as the representative for the Southern California community colleges.
“These things aren’t easy to pull off,” said Dr. Harris.
The scorecards mark the next step towards the improvement of higher education by making student progression information as well as momentum points in addition to transfer and completion rates available to the public,, according to Harris.
“If something is important it should be measured,” stated Los Angeles Community College District Chancellor Daniel La Vista.
Senior Vice President of Education and Workforce Development David Rattray described the community colleges as the engine of success in California.
“Two thirds of all new jobs are going to require something beyond high school,” said Rattray who continued on discussing the importance of improving level of education in the community colleges.
The new scorecards are unique from anything else in the nation because of the in-depth research and level of information broken down demographically by gender, age and ethnicity/race; as well as college prepared or unprepared, according to Harris.
“[The scorecards] are specifically designed for the colleges to benchmark against themselves,” stated Dr. Harris.
With the scorecards being available to students, parents, and faculty they will create an opportunity to heighten improvement in the community colleges by putting their success out for everyone to see.
“The schools with low scores are going to spend energy to fix these problems,” said Dr. Harris.
La Vista described the scorecards quoting the Oxford Dictionary definition for transparency, being a high-powered microscope that the 112 California community colleges should use as tools to see in what areas the school can improve in.
“The true outcome will be two to three years later when we can see improvement down the road,” stated Dr. Harris.
Vice President and acting President Anna Davies used some of the data from the scorecards showing that 70% of students who reach the 30 unit progression mark move on to finish.
“It’s great to show the hard work of the faculty and staff is translating into success,” stated Davies.
Davies also explained how Pierce has taken the necessary steps to already improve these numbers with their summer bridge programs for graduating high school seniors and GO days where the campus holds orientations and workshops for new students.
“We are pleased with our progress but there is still work to be done,” said Davies.
The scorecards for all 112 community colleges in California were made available for access yesterday on the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office website.
“As goes California, so goes this country,” La Vista said. “But I say as goes the community colleges, so goes California.”
http://scorecard.cccco.edu/scorecard.aspx