Percent plans dilute diversity goals, says report

Percent plans established in California, Florida and Texas are ineffective as an alternative to race-conscious affirmative action plans, a recent study finds. The plans--which admit a certain percent of the highest-performing graduates of each high school to public universities in a state--were the subject of an analysis undertaken by the Harvard University Law School and Graduate School of Education and released by the university's Civil Rights Project.

Percent plans were put in place in the late 1990s after a circuit court struck down the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas Law School and after California voters banned the use of race in public university admissions decisions. They were touted by the Bush administration in February when it weighed in on two cases the Supreme Court will rule on in June. The administration took the position of being opposed to the race-conscious admissions programs at the University of Michigan undergraduate schools and law school, saying that while it valued diversity in higher education, it must be accomplished in race-neutral ways.

Although the plans are implemented differently in each state, the Civil Rights Project found that "it is incorrect to attribute any significant increase in campus diversity to a percent plan alone. A variety of race-conscious outreach, recruitment, financial aid and support programs appears to be central to the ability of some campuses to even partially recover from the loss of minority students that follows the abolition of affirmative action," the authors of "Percent Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three States' Experiences" write.

"In almost every case, even with these additional efforts in place, institutions have not been successful in maintaining racially/ethnically diverse campuses through percent plans. And, relative to the current college-age population in each of these states, none of the campuses reflects the students they are intended to serve."

In January, the AFT passed a resolution in support of the UM affirmative action plan, in which an applicant's race is considered as just one of many factors but gets extra weight in order to help the university achieve its goal of a diverse student body. The union joined the AFL-CIO in filing  an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in support of the university in the two cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger.

More than 300 organizations are represented in the 109 briefs filed in support of the university before the court. They include 70 corporations, most of the associations representing higher education institutions, and military leaders, such as former Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

For more information, go to www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu.

Why students are not prepared for college

Many high school students and their families have unrealistic notions about college, which can doom students to do poorly once they arrive on campus. Such notions also can lead to unnecessarily high levels of remediation and problems with students toughing it out long enough to pick up their degrees. A big factor in the disappointing performance of undergraduates, says a new report, is an overall disconnect between the postsecondary education world and the K-12 world.

This breach is documented in "Betraying the College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations." Based on a six-year national study for Stanford University's Bridge Project, the report begins by noting wonderful progress in the level of students' aspirations to attend college. For example, 88 percent of all eighth-graders--and 80 percent of African-American and Latino students--expect to advance to some form of postsecondary education after they graduate. But those good intentions get derailed by vague and conflicting information the students and their families receive from both education systems.

Can we blame students for thinking their high school diploma signifies that they have taken the courses and mastered the skills necessary to do college work? Yet what happens to many students, says the report, is that they move from one set of standards in the public school system to a completely different set three months later when they sit down to take their placement exams.

The Bridge Project focused on just six states--California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Texas--and found widespread misconceptions, especially among high school students who are on nonaccelerated curricular tracks and those who are from economically disadvantaged families. These students aren't reached by college counselors or even knowledgeable teachers. The project found that less than 12 percent of all students knew the high school course requirements for beginning freshman courses. Many believed that earning good grades in easy classes was a better preparation for college-level work than taking rigorous courses.

One big misconception, say the report's authors, Andrea Venezia, Michael Kirst and Anthony Antonio, is that "getting into college is the hardest part." Because 80 percent of college students attend what the authors call "broad access institutions"--community colleges and nonselective institutions--they need to know that for the majority of students completing college is the hardest part.

The report makes numerous recommendations for improving high school students' information about college and therefore their ability to succeed once there. The report is available online at www.stanford.edu/group/bridgeproject.