Double the Numbers: Increasing Postsecondary Credentials for Underrepresented Youth (review)

This edited work gives us an overview of what some states, institutions, and programs around the country are doing to increase the number of underrepresented students who successfully complete college. In 26 short chapters, it showcases some of the most successful programs already implemented as well as models that could be followed by others who want to increase the success of their underrepresented students. The authors of each chapter make important suggestions about how to connect policy and practice to benefit all students.

Although the 36 authors represented in this volume have different perspectives on programs and strategies to more adequately prepare underrepresented students, they generally agree on the need to provide these students with a rigorous, college preparatory curriculum, regardless of their eventual vocations. Several authors also agree that many American youth understand the importance of earning a college degree and that this belief creates high aspirations for attending college. There is also broad agreement that students do not lack the desire to attend a postsecondary institution so much as that their K-12 schooling leaves them ill-prepared to do so.

To address this problem, the authors suggest several core strategies: (a) Teachers should have high expectations for all students, (b) Students need a challenging high school curriculum, (c) High schools and college standards and requirements need to be aligned, and (d) It is the responsibility of states and schools to ensure that graduating high school students are prepared either for work or for further study in a postsecondary institution.

In the first section, "Strategies for Improving Postsecondary Success," Robert Schwartz (Chapter 1) introduces the concept that multiple pathways can lead all students to increased postsecondary options by preparing them for further learning, albeit in different venues. Creating small high schools is a reform that may partly fulfill Schwartz's definition of what a high school is supposed to do—to attend to the particular needs of each student. This reform seems to have enthused educators, administrators, and parents. According to Joe Nathan (Chapter 5), these small high schools have higher test scores, higher graduation rates, and lower absenteeism.

One impediment to postsecondary attendance is that many students are unaware that meeting high school graduation requirements is not the same as meeting college entrance requirements. Since most high schools and colleges do not align their standards and requirements, many students are unprepared to apply to college. Mike Kirst and Andrea Venezia (Chapter 4) argue that assessments should "indicate to students the relationships between their scores and the level necessary for college preparation and course placement without remediation" (p. 69). The main goal of assessment should be to help students master challenging standards that ensure their preparation to succeed in a postsecondary institution.

Several of the authors in this section agree that, to help students gain the skills and the knowledge required for success, a single core curriculum tied to high standards is needed for all students. Peter Ewell (Chapter 7) suggests electronic portfolios to organize students' samples that will be benchmarked against established standards. He also suggests "a set of institution-level performance indicators . . . to monitor the performance of all publicly funded institutions" (p. 110). David Longanecker (Chapter 8) and Arthur Hauptman (Chapter 9) suggest that financial incentives can be important policy levers to prod institutions to improve student performance.

The second section, "Lessons from the Field: Innovations in Systems, States, and Schools," discusses different programs and options that states and schools might implement to help underrepresented high school students be better prepared for postsecondary options. All of the suggestions offered will help institutions spend fewer resources in remediation and more on core instruction and will also help many students to finance their college educations.

An important theme is the need to use data to help schools and students make better, more cost-effective, decisions. Hans L'Orange (Chapter...