Arkansas Legislative Council Higher Education Subcommittee – August 20, 2009
Posted on August 20th, 2009
Date & Time: Wednesday, August 20, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Location: Room 171, State Capitol
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/11993/I7729.pdf
Attachments: none
1:32 pm – Meeting called to order by Senator Gilbert Baker.
1:33 pm – Mrs. Tara Smith, Coordinator for Financial Aid at the Department of Higher Education is providing an update on proceedings of the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship Advisory Council.
1:34 pm – The new rules for the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship will be released in October. Demand is expected to be larger than supply. I think that in the past, supply has been more than demand. Rep. Pennartz is asking by how much will supply fall short of demand further details on that and new rules for non-traditional students to be provided later in another presentation.
1:38 pm – Non-traditional students is a broad topic and definitions have broken it down into several categories.
1:40 pm – Senator Broadway is providing clarification on details of the maximum expenditures set based upon highest probabilty of getting results in the shortest amount of time.
1:42 pm – Stanley Williams, Deputy Director of [could not hear and is not on agenda, I think it is Arkansas Dept. of Higher Education
] is discussing the amounts and methods of distribution of the ARRA Funds for Higher Education. He expessed displeasure in working with the Federal Adminstrators of the program.
1:44 pm – The first funds must go to the restoration of reduction in funding to Public Schools and Institutions of Higher Education.
1:45 pm – Funds remaining after restoration of any funding reduction goes to the public schools based on their relative shares of funding under part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
1:47 pm – The presenter has a powerpoint slide with a spreadsheet that we cannot read and have not copy on our desk. I really wish this stuff (powerpoints included) would be provided to the committee before we get here. How can legislators properly review information if we are provided it at the last minute. This is ridiculous.
1:49 pm – Apparently reporting requirements for stablization funding is extensive and the rules (federal strings attached) are legion.
1:51 pm – These funds are distributed at the discretion of the Governor of each state. These funds will likely begin to be released next week. Apparently the funds will not be released in advanced of expenditures. The schools will have to spend the money then be reimbursed.
1:53 pm – Rep. Mike Burris is asking a couple of great questions. He wanted to know if the schools could be guaranteed that they would be reimbursed and wanted to know how a school could spend money that they do not yet have.
1:55 pm – Sen Kim Hendren said that as a car dealer, he could help explain that… [laughter]
1:56 pm – Facilities Modernization, Renovation and Repair Guidelines: Funds may not be used for maintenance. Funds may not be used for new construction. Funds may be used for modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities whose primary purpose is instruction, research, or student housing.
2:00 pm – The federal government is only going to release funding in two parts.
1) 81.8% Education Stabilization Funding for Arkansas – $363,053,000
2) 18.2% Other Governmental Services Arkansas – $80,777,000.
2:03 pm – A lot of questions about the breakdown. The copies of the spreadsheet mentioned earlier is being distributed AFTER the discussion has concluded and we moved to the next agenda item.
2:08 pm – We are currently discussing the Institutions’ Remediation Cut Scores and Scholarships. There are six schools that have required a higher than a 19 on any section of the ACT of its equivalent in order for a student to enroll in college-level coursework.
2:10 pm – Rep. Mike Burris is asking if the increase in cut scores would inhibit participation. It appears that it may impact scholarships.
2:12 pm – Sen. Hendren directly asked Dr. Purcell if this [cut scores increase] was a good deal. Dr. Purcell smiled. As an administrator, it is not recommended for him to render judgements of opinion rather than simple communication fact. A smile was the about the best response he could responsibly provide. We have been informed that ACT recommends the cut score be at 22 instead of the 19 that we use. No school on the list has their cut score above 21.
2:16 pm – Rep. Clemmer pointed out that we would not be doing students any favors if we admit them to college level coursework if they are not prepared to succeed.
2:19 pm – ACT recommends that in order to have a 70% chance of making a “C” in college mathematics, the student needs to have scored at least a 22 in the mathematics section of the test. Rep. Reep asked if that was true, why have we not adjusted accordingly. Good question.
2:21 pm – Sen. Broadway is making the point that although we have shown flat performance on the in ACT scores we have a much higher rate of test takers. He concludes that means we are going pretty good. I am not sure I concur because the increase in test takers originally occured several years ago. Therefore the baseline should have dropped at that time and resulting increases would have been evident afterward. We are indeed doing better than other states in how many are taking the test and the larger number of test takers does indeed mean that we can be proud that we scored as well as we did. But the failure of Arkansas schools to see an increase in performance after the large increase in test takers indicates that we are not improving like we should be.
2:28 pm – There is a chart up about the lowest and highest remediation rates by institution. I wish I could show you that. Sen. Baker asks the rhetorical question about what would be the effect would be if we did not allow four year colleges to provide remediation based upon the information provided. I can barely see the information, so I really don’t know what is going on.
2:31 pm – Rep. Abernathy is making the point that providing remediation at two-year college is much cheaper than providing it at a four year college. Sen. Baker said it would be even cheaper if it was provided in high school. Much laughter.
2:34 pm – From what I can tell, apparently, the evidence suggest that it may be much more effective to require remediation to be performed at the two-year college level.
2:37 pm – 44% of our high schools have a remediation rate above 50%
2:39 pm – Another powerpoint slide that nobody can see. Much grumbling among legislators about that fact. How damn hard is it for this to be printed out and provided to us? This is a slide of the public school districts with the lowest remediation rates.
2:41 pm – Sen. Hendren is asking if we are going to get these reports and will they be released to the press so we can get this information out to the people. Dr. Purcell said that is what “needs” to happen.
2:42 pm – There is many questions about the school remediation rates chart doesn’t show the percentage of test takers at the school. Rep. Stewart made the point about one of the school has some of the highest performance is under pressure to be shut down because of low enrollment numbers.
2:51 pm – Rep Roebuck is talking about the “One Stop Shop” for scholarship applications. That is a great thing that we have done.
2:54 pm – Three Non-Traditional Groups mentioned above is Near Completers, Earn-in, and Delayed/Returning Adults.
2:57 pm – Near completers are those who are within 25% or less of coursework from completion. $4 million set aside for this group to be divided equally between 4-year and 2-year degrees.
3:00 pm – Delayed/Returning Adults are those non-traditional students who meet entrance guidelines without remediation but do not meet near completers criteria. $4 million set aside for this group to be divided equally between 4-year and 2-year degrees.
3:10 pm – Earn-in Students are not funded until 2010 to 2011. These students must attend college and complete remediation, then begin to earn a GPA of 2.5 on 12 hours of courses toward their degree.
3:21 pm – Wow… sorry… network connection was messed up. Rep. Roebuck gave a report on the recommendations of the Task Force on Higher Education, Remediation, Retention and Graduation Rates.
3:26 pm – We are currently discussing the calendar of items related to the upcoming budget session. I will post that calendar later.
3:29 pm – Meeting ajourned.
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