What Analyzing 5,000 Transcripts Has Taught Me

10 Things I’ve Learned from Analyzing 5,000 Transcripts

Michael Horton

As part of a data project being completed and my transcript analysis project, I have had the opportunity to analyze more than 5,000 senior transcripts.  It took a great deal of time, but the lessons learned were worth it.  Here are some of the things that I’ve learned from these transcripts that might help schools prepare more students for college.

In California, the minimum requirements to qualify to attend a state college are called the “a-g requirements” where “a” is History, “b” is English, “c” is math, “d” is science, “e” is language other than English, “f” is visual and performing arts, and “g” is college prep electives.  See here for more information http://www.ucop.edu/agguide/a-g-requirements/. 

1)      The “a-g” requirements sound simple, but once it comes down to analyzing transcripts it gets complicated.  There are so many validation rules and “if/then” scenarios that I frequently had to call on my colleagues to double-check certain transcripts.  If this process is difficult for educators, imagine what it must be like for students and their parents!

2)      The bane of “a-g” completion is “D” grades.  Out of the more than five thousand transcripts that I analyzed, there were many, many hundreds that missed completion by one or two semesters of “D” grades.  Because four years of English is required and there are few options to make up a bad grade, a “D” in English is almost a college death sentence for students.  Consider a variety of options to provide students opportunities to make up these grades.

3)      For many students, 12^th grade is not very challenging.  I literally saw students who had TA, Office Assistant, Work Experience, and a non-college-prep elective on their schedule.  The research shows a huge increase in degree completion for students who take math in 12^th grade.  The need for remediation in college can often be directly linked to a non-rigorous senior year.

4)      Teacher assistant positions should be used sparingly.  Nobody has room in their schedule for a TA period.  Those who are struggling to graduate should be completing as many credits as possible.  Those who will graduate, but not qualify for college should be in courses preparing them for the workforce or community college.  Those who are headed to the university should be in Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, and other rigorous courses to prepare them for freshman year.  We can find other ways to deliver passes to classrooms than to take away academic opportunities for our students.

5)      If students are allowed to make scheduling mistakes, some of them will.  Students should be well versed in “a-g” by the end of middle school, “a-g” approved courses should be clearly delineated on registration materials, and the number of courses that are not “a-g” should be minimized.

6)      Every student should have a 4-year plan in high school that is reviewed and revisited at least once a year, preferably twice a year with an adult.  Even better would be a 6 or a 10 year plan created in middle school that goes all the way through the end of a 4-year degree.  I was told the story of a valedictorian who did not complete the a-g requirements and I reviewed the transcripts of a student who passed 6 AP courses and didn’t complete.  A regularly reviewed plan could have prevented these cases.  One of the reasons that AVID has a 95% a-g completion rate is that the AVID teacher regularly reviews progress towards college readiness.

7)      Transcripts tell the story of a school’s priorities.  It was clear that at some schools, graduation was the priority, not a-g completion.  For many students, the difference is small, but the change in their life could be huge.  A focus on a-g completion could change the lives of a significant percentage of students.

8)      Counselors are incredibly important to increasing both graduation rates and a-g completion rates.  Administrators would be best served by doing everything in their power to ensure that counselors are freed up to work directly with students as often as possible.  This sounds obvious, but is not common practice in my experience.  Research shows that nationally, counselors spend less than 60% of their time working with students.  And it’s likely that this number is even smaller in California and has gotten even lower in the last couple of year.

9)      There are two reasons why a student might miss a-g completion: 1) They took the courses and did not pass  2) They didn’t take the courses at all.  Since there are two different responses to these problems, it’s important to analyze which is causing completion issues at your school.

10)  Analyzing transcripts at a school has several benefits: 1) The school knows the actual a-g completion rate  2) The participants become very familiar with the a-g rules  3) Actions can be taken to prevent future “almost completers” and 4) Barriers to completion can be identified and fixed.

What have you seen as barriers to students being prepared for college?

  Answer in the comments section below.

Post 20: How Did That Happen? Connors and Smith

 

 

One of the most frustrating things for teachers is when they don’t understand what administration expects.  My first year teaching, I was in this situation.  My evaluator would come in and do an observation and have some corrective feedback.  I would address the feedback and await her next visit with enthusiasm, “She’s going to be happy this time!”  Alas, the next time, she would have a different criticism.  And the cycle would repeat.  I’d address that criticism and welcome her back with high hopes for her to crush those hopes with a different criticism.  I was willing to do whatever she asked of me.  The problem was . . . I had no idea what she was asking of me.  If she had explained her expectations, I would have been happy to rise up and meet them.

Roger Connors and Tom Smith write about expectations in their book, “How did That Happen?  Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way.”  The book opens with a diagram showing the “Inner Ring” and “Outer Ring” of the Accountability Sequence.  The first half of the book deals with the Outer Ring.  This is where the leader Forms, Communicates, Aligns, and Inspects the expectations.  This is similar to the Good to Great Hedgehog Concept.  The principal’s expectation should be the central message of every classroom visit, very professional development opportunity, and every leadership team meeting.

Let’s say that the expectation is that teachers will improve student/teacher relationships throughout the school year.  First, the principal should define what that means and how it will be done.  The process may be that each teacher is expected to know each student’s name, refer to the student by name, greet students at the door on the way into class, and use more positive praise then negative correction.  The principal should come up with a thorough plan how this will be regularly communicated by creating a catchy motto, posters, PowerPoint backgrounds, letterhead, an advisory committee, a newsletter, and progress reports. 

Next, the school systems should be aligned to allow these items to come to fruition.  The first week of school might be block scheduled so that teachers can have activities to get to know their students.  Passing periods might be lengthened so that teachers can regroup after one class and prepare to greet students at the door.  Each teacher might get a set of table tent name cards for their students to create the first week of school.  The computerized attendance system could be set up with photographs of students to make the connection of names and faces easier.  Department meetings and faculty meetings should have regular time set aside to remind teachers of the importance, the research behind, and the progress towards meeting these goals.  New teacher training should include a section on student/teacher relationships to keep the culture alive.  A section of the internal intranet site should be dedicated to sharing data, research, best practices, and anecdotes about relationship building.

Then, a system should be set up in order to observe whether the movement is occurring, whether it’s working, whether it is sustaining, and what next steps might be necessary.  This doesn’t have to be the principal alone.  In the spirit of Instructional Rounds, mixed groups of teachers, administrators, students, and parents might walk around together to observe progress.

Maybe this all sounds like over-kill, but this is what is necessary if change is really going to happen and cultures are to be changed.  Otherwise, teachers will get “initiative fatigue” from the surface skimming of a new, poorly-formed initiative every year or even month.

What expectations do you have that are so important that they should be formed this way?  How have you Formed, Communicated, Aligned, and Inspected to ensure thorough implementation?  Tell your story in the comments section below.

Here is a video of Tom Smith, one of the authors of "How did that Happen?" and "The Oz Principle" talking about the book.