July 17, 1997

Regents' committee recommends UC partnership with public schools

By Terry Colvin
UC News Service

A committee of the University of California Board of Regents today (Thursday, July 17) approved implementation of a plan to expand the university's outreach to California's public schools with the goal of qualifying more students for UC admission.

The plan, developed by UC's Outreach Task Force, would create long-term partnerships with selected high schools and their associated junior high and elementary feeder schools. The plan calls for partnership schools to double the actual number of UC-eligible graduates or increase the rate of UC eligibility by 4 percentage points, whichever is greater.

In accepting the plan at the Regents' meeting in San Francisco, the board's Committee on Educational Policy agreed that each of UC's eight general campuses should work intensively with a group of partner schools that would be selected based on significant educational disadvantage, such as low numbers of college-bound students or limited college preparatory courses. UC partner schools also would be chosen based on their potential for improvement and their willingness to participate in collaborative efforts with the university.

The plan, which was approved by the full board on July 18 (see recap of actions taken by board), will cost an additional $60.5 million annually and more than double the money UC spends each year on outreach programs. The task force in its report to the Regents called for all segments of education as well as corporations and private foundations to join in this effort.

"This plan will lead UC's outreach efforts into the next century," said UC President Richard C. Atkinson. "By better preparing all California high school students for college and by qualifying more students from all socioeconomic and ethnic groups for UC admission, the plan will help fulfill the Regents' directive to increase the participation of disadvantaged students at the university and maintain the diversity that our campuses have achieved over the last three decades."

The 35-member task force was established by the Regents following their adoption in July 1995 of a new admissions policy that eliminates the use of race, ethnicity, and gender. Recognizing the value of diversity in future student enrollment, the Regents commissioned the task force to identify ways in which outreach programs make prospective students aware of and prepared for rigorous UC study and to assure UC remains accessible to students from diverse backgrounds.

The resulting task force, which began holding meetings in February 1996, included Regents, faculty, staff and students from all UC campuses, representatives from business and industry, representatives from California's major educational sectors--K-12, the California Community Colleges and California State University--and state officials from the Department of Education and the Postsecondary Education Commission. The task force was cochaired by Richard A. Clarke, retired chair of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and C. Judson King, UC provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

"This plan represents a major change in the way UC seeks to solve a very old problem of qualifying for university admission more students from all sectors of the state's diverse population," Clarke said. "We are doing nothing less than preparing the future leaders of California to work in the global economy. The success of those enterprises rests on the academic training of students today."

King said, "The task force affirmed the value of the university's outreach efforts and adopted a holistic approach that would draw all levels of our education system into a close-knit organization to prepare students for university-level study," said King.

"A gap continues to exist between the very high standards of achievement required for UC admission and the uneven record of students from different socioeconomic, ethnic, racial, and geographic backgrounds in achieving UC eligibility," he said. "We believe this plan will narrow that gap significantly and make outreach a much more powerful tool for both preparing and recruiting a diverse student body."

The plan addresses a broad range of issues influencing student academic performance:

• School-Centered Partnerships: To effect broad and long-term change in the achievement patterns of disadvantaged students, the university will help schools add to their curriculum and update course content, promote innovative teaching techniques, and involve parents in the daily educational progress of students. Each UC campus will establish a regional consortium of educational institutions, including CSU and the community colleges, to direct resources toward a limited number of K-12 schools that have a higher proportion of educationally disadvantaged students, qualify a lower-than-average number of students for UC admission, and offer fewer college preparatory courses than more successful schools. About 50 high schools will be selected statewide to become UC partnership schools.

• Academic Development: UC will expand successful academic development programs such as Puente, Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA); and the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP). This would be accomplished by expanding the number of high schools and community colleges where these programs are offered. Additionally, the task force said UC should create academic development programs for students and their families in primary schools that increase awareness of college preparation early in a student's education.

• Informational Outreach: UC will initiate educational information programs targeted at disadvantaged students and their families to involve families more deeply in the children's planning and preparation for college and to encourage families to support school improvement.

• University Research and Evaluation: UC researchers will use their expertise more systematically to identify the root causes of educational disparity within the state's K-12 and postsecondary education systems and evaluate the effectiveness of UC's outreach efforts so that programs can be improved on an ongoing basis.

The task force said outreach efforts should help to create a learning environment in which all students, regardless of where they live and irrespective of race, gender, or family economic circumstances, have roughly the same opportunity to prepare for higher education.

Statewide, the plan said that the number of UC-qualified underrepresented minority students graduating from California high schools should increase from 4,000 to 8,000.

The goal for statewide UC academic development programs such as MESA and Puente will be to double their number of UC-eligible program graduates. Each UC campus would increase by 200 percent the number of outreach contacts it makes for counseling, tutoring, workshops, and school visits with elementary, middle school, high school, and community college students and families from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Longer term goals will be established to ensure the ongoing success of outreach programs. The UC president and chancellors will be responsible for achieving the goals.

The task force also called for a statewide convocation of educational, governmental, and business leaders to coordinate the many K-12 programs now under way throughout the state.

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