Of course a "top college" is made so by far more than the results of one survey; nonetheless the high ranking is a credit to Kaua`i CC’s ability to serve students. “The ranking highlights some of the great work and accomplishments of our faculty, staff, and students, and Kaua`i CC can be proud for our achievements in best educational practices and student success,” says Chancellor Helen Cox.
“The CCSSE information provides a very clear view of how Kaua`i CC students perceive their college experience, and that's a helpful lens for those at the college to use to find out what they are doing well, and a useful way for the community to see how the college is doing,” said Cox.
Kaua`i CC excelled in the Support for Learning, Active & Collaborative Learning, Academic Challenge, and Student Effort categories, followed closely by First-year Retention Rate. “We take pride in creating a supportive learning environment that helps students both learn important skill sets and reach their dreams,” Cox said.
CCSSEE, according to the article, “tracks the numbers of books and papers students are assigned, the amount of interaction with faculty, the hours spent preparing for class, and the quality of support services. Colleges that connect with their students and challenge them to do good work get particularly high marks. . .This shows that excellence is not an accident—the best community colleges have deeply ingrained cultures of academic achievement.” Excellence is indeed, no accident at Kaua`i CC.
Posted by:
Cammie Matsumoto
Cammie Matsumoto
Original (4 Sep 2013). Kaua`i Community College is pleased to announce that it was ranked 16th out of 50 best colleges in the third publishing of Washington Monthly’s “2013 College Ranking.”
In an article appearing in the Washington Monthly by Kevin Carey, director of the Education Policy program at the New America Foundation, the rankings were “based entirely on measures of best educational practices and actual student success.” Significantly, five of the eight measures of the ranking came from the highly “respected” Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) stated the article.
“We are delighted to earn this recognition! The ranking is an acknowledgement of the hard work of our faculty and staff to create a supportive learning environment that helps students both earn important skill sets and reach their dreams,” said Helen Cox, Chancellor.
Kaua`i CC excelled in the Support for Learning, Active & Collaborative Learning, Academic Challenge, and Student Effort categories, followed closely by Student Effort and First-year Retention Rate.
CCSSE, according to the article, “tracks the number of books and papers students are assigned, the amount of interaction with faculty, the hours spent preparing for class, and the quality of support services. Colleges that connect with their students and challenge them to do good work get particularly high marks. . . This shows that excellence is not an accident—the best community colleges have deeply ingrained cultures of academic achievement.” Excellence is indeed, no accident at Kaua`i CC.
Posted by:
Cammie Matsumoto
Cammie Matsumoto
In the comments section of the published article, there is an official statement from Kay McClenney, Director for the Center for Community College Engagement, which produces the CCSSE. Ms. McClenney makes it clear that her organization opposes the use of its data to "rank" colleges and refers to the results themselves as "spurious." The official statement from their website says:
ReplyDelete“CCSSE opposes using its data to rank colleges. Each community college’s performance should be considered in terms of its mission, institutional focus, and student characteristics. Because of differences in these areas—and variations in college resources—comparing survey results between individual institutions serves little constructive purpose and likely will be misleading.”
(McClenney's full letter is pasted below.)
KCC may have benefited this year from whatever "spurious" calculation they used to obtain this ranking, but it's just as likely that at some point in the future we won't; luckily, there are plenty of truly good things happening on our campus without having to resort to trumpeting false ones like this.
Kimo Perry
* * * *
CCCSE Responds to the Washington Monthly Community College Rankings
In response to the Washington Monthly’s purported rankings of U.S. community colleges, the Center for Community College Student Engagement once again confirms two longstanding policies: commitment to public reporting of survey results and opposition to the use of those results in ranking colleges.
As has occurred in the past, the Washington Monthly created the rankings in large part through misuse of data drawn from the CCSSE website and then manipulated in ways not transparent to the reader. The ranking method thus is based on an undisclosed calculation combining CCSSE results and IPEDS data. There are so many things about this approach that are statistically wrong that it is impossible to overstate how spurious the results really are.
The Community College Survey of Student Engagement was developed in 2001 to provide information about effective educational practice in community colleges and to
assist institutions and others in using that information to promote improvements in student learning, persistence, and attainment. From the beginning, the Center has been committed to the public reporting of survey results, a practice for which the organization and community colleges participating in the surveys have been widely praised. Public reporting is a significant benefit to the colleges because it supports benchmarking of effective educational practice; in addition, by their participation in CCSSE, hundreds of community colleges every year demonstrate their commitment both to transparency with regard to institutional performance and to accountability for improvement of educational quality.
The Center’s website has long displayed this statement:
“CCSSE opposes using its data to rank colleges. Each community college’s performance should be considered in terms of its mission, institutional focus, and student characteristics. Because of differences in these areas—and variations in college resources—comparing survey results between individual institutions serves little constructive purpose and likely will be misleading.”
[CCCSE’s Policy Statement on Responsible Uses of Survey Data is displayed at http://www.ccsse.org/datapopup.html]
The one general point on which the Center and Washington Monthly’s writers can agree is the critical importance of community colleges’ work—in California and across the nation— to serve a remarkably diverse student population at significantly higher levels of effectiveness. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see how the magazine’s rankings contribute anything constructive to that work.
Kay McClenney
Director, Center for Community College Student Engagement
E-mail:
kmcclenney@ccsse.org
Putting this public relations (propaganda) on the Kauai Community College home page is a disservice to both our students and the public at large and models "worst practices" in critical thinking. Please turn this embarrassing faux pas into a "teachable moment".
ReplyDeleteEd Coll
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