Pathnotes, Volume 4, Number 1

What Every College Access Practitioner Should Know

About Indiana’s P-16 Plan for Improving Student Achievement

Presentation by Karen Rasmussen, Indiana Commission for Higher Education, and IPCN Convener

October 24, 2003

Four days after this presentation, on October 28, the Indiana Education Roundtable adopted Phase I of Indiana’s P-16 Plan for Improving Student Achievement. Phase I provides a strategic framework and outlines steps to be taken in support of Plan goals. Phase II will set priorities and identify costs associated with the Plan’s implementation.

The P-16 Plan identifies 10 key components of improving student achievement:

· Academic Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

· Teaching and Learning

· School and District Leadership and Governance

· Early Learning and School Readiness

· Eliminating Achievement Gaps and Ensuring Academic Progress for All Students

· Ensuring College and Workforce Success

· Drop Out Prevention

· Higher Education and Continued Learning

· Communication

· Effective Use of Technology and Efficient Use of Resources

For each of these, the Plan provides a context, including other Indiana actions, and describes the steps to be taken to improve student achievement. Most likely to be of interest to college access practitioners are the next steps summarized below. The entire P-16 Plan is available online at http://www.edroundtable.state.in.us/what’s_new.htm.

Academic Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

· Align K-12 curriculum, instruction and high school requirements with college and workforce expectations and clearly communicate these expectations to students, parents, and educators.

Early Learning and School Readiness

· Identify and promote family and community literacy efforts.

· Provide parents with information and training to support their children’s learning and to strengthen school involvement skills.

Eliminating Achievement Gaps

· Equip school leaders, teachers, and parents with data and research to dispel achievement gap myths and shed light on the damaging practice of expecting less of poor and minority students.

· Involve families as partners in creating programs and policies to close the achievement gap.

· Implement preventative strategies and intervention services to ensure students do not fall behind or fail before being provided extra help.

Ensuring College and Workforce Success

· Insist on a high-quality, rigorous academic curriculum for all. Make Core 40 the default high school curriculum.

· Communicate with parents and students the advantages of completing the more rigorous coursework required for Core 40 and Academic Honors.

· Encourage students with progressive exposure to the world of work through connected learning experiences.

Drop Out Prevention

· Improve academic foundation skills through rigorous curriculum, differentiated instruction, and early intervention programs that ensure the typical gaps in achievement between poor and affluent children do not develop.

· Develop mentoring programs for students at risk of failing.

· Establish rigorous academic alternative programs.

Higher Education and Continued Learning

· Maximize the potential for college degree completion by aligning college and university admission standards, remediation policies, and state-provided financial aid with the preparation needed to succeed in college.

· Structure enrollment growth in a manner that is most efficient and effective by expanding the Community College Partnership to all 23 Ivy Tech campuses and enhancing “passport” programs between four-year and two-year colleges and universities.

· Maximize the 21^st Century Scholars Program for low-income middle school students by increasing the participation rates of eligible students.

· Support efforts that target hard-to-serve rural areas of the state.

The full PowerPoint Presentation may be downloaded from http://inpathways.net/p16plan.htm.