H. Martin Lancaster, President
North Carolina Community College System
October 29, 2003
Renaissance Hotel, Asheville, NC
The Importance of Accountability and Student Learning Outcomes in the NCCCS, or
What's an A-Plus Worth, Anyway?
Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to open your conference.
You have asked me to talk about the importance of accountability and student learning outcomes in the North Carolina Community College System.
Because this is, after all, the 21st century, and you are all in charge of cutting-edge instruction, I'd like to start with an interactive demonstration. I ask that the representatives of the following community colleges stand up.
- AB Tech,
- Coastal Carolina,
- Robeson, and
- Tri-County.
Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate you on achieving that student's dream -- a perfect report card! During academic year 2001-2002, your community colleges met or exceeded state standards in all 12 of the performance measures that make up the heart of our accountability system. Sounds like an A-plus to me!
You may be seated.
Now, I ask that the representatives of these three community colleges stand:
- AB Tech (again!);
- Tri-County (again!) and
- Blue Ridge.
Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate you on consistent excellence -- because your community colleges have been ranked as superior institutions in each of the three years we have published the reports. That puts you at the top of the class!
Please stay standing while I ask that representatives of all the community colleges who have earned superior rankings in any one of those three years join you in standing up. I'm not going to call out all the names, because that would take the rest of the afternoon, but I will note that the first year, five community colleges took home the "superior" grade. The next year, 26 did, and the current total is 31. Ladies and gentleman, I congratulate you on dramatic and continuing improvement, and I thank you for demonstrating so dramatically the value of consistent, measurable standards. You may all sit down.
One more and we're done. Everyone who represents any North Carolina community college or the System Office, please stand up.
Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate you and I thank you for earning for the whole system a "perfect score"-- another "A-plus"-- on vital measures at the heart of our mission to prepare North Carolinians for good jobs and productive futures. Every community college in North Carolina met or exceeded state standards -- and the standards are high -- for employment of graduates; employee satisfaction with graduates; business satisfaction with customized training; and student satisfaction.
Our mission says we offer education and training for the workforce, support economic development and provide services to improve the quality of life. These results in the area of workforce development say we do it well -- everywhere! You may ALL sit down now.
Why did I make you do this? Well, it's after lunch, and I figured we could use some aerobic activity to wake us up! More importantly, though, I wanted you to hear how proud I am of you and to see how the work you do in hiring and supervising faculty; juggling class schedules, and managing money in this era of the incredible shrinking budget meets any definition of excellence I can come up with.
- Perfect scores.
- Consistent performance.
- Dramatic and continuing improvement.
We do all that with rigorous performance measures specifically geared toward output -- what our students take from us into the next level. We don't focus on inputs -- how smart our students are when we get them, for example, or how tough our admission standards are, or how big the library is. (Click for current and archived Critical Success Factors reports.)
Our job is to teach all our students well then grade ourselves on whether they pass the licensing exam, get and DO the job, or get good grades at the university. We do this in part because the General Assembly quite rightly demands to know how well we use tax money to do the job we’re chartered to do.
SACS and other accrediting organization insist that we prove how well we serve our students. Otherwise, we don't deserve the "seal of approval" that comes with their name.
And we do this because, as professional educators such as you certainly know better than I, progress reports and consistent, tough standards are essential to successful learning. They also provide the facts and figures -- the evidence -- to back up our contention that we are North Carolina's most important educational resource in working toward economic recovery; that we are North Carolina's most important provider of lifelong learning; and that we are one of the country's finest community college system, not just one of the biggest.
Do we expect to be rewarded?
Well, sure. After all, students who do well get good grades. and they more often than not get first pick of good jobs or spots at good universities. Community colleges and the people like you who lead and teach in them have the right to rewards, too.
Public recognition is certainly one form of reward. I was delighted by the enthusiastic response of the media to the statewide release of the performance standards report this summer. The reporters and editors got the message. They understood how well you and your colleagues did, and they understood without being told that top results are especially remarkable and especially important in these difficult economic times.
I made sure that members of the General Assembly knew about this, too, by writing personal letters to each one whose district included a superior-ranked institution. That was almost everybody.
Were they impressed? Oh, yes. Did they tell me? Oh, yes. I hope they told you and your colleagues, too.
And I'm glad. But I'm sorry they were not able to find a way to fund an important element that was put into the law when legislators worked with us to develop new performance standards several years ago. The standards are paired with performance budgeting -- more money for the community colleges that earn superior rankings.
The hitch is that money has to be available. The first year, it was. It should come as no surprise to you, however, that the next year and the next, it hasn't been. Two years of reversions, permanent cutbacks, economic collapse AND skyrocketing demands on the basic instructional budget caused by the huge influx of laid-off workers have sucked up every available dollar and left all of you scrambling for people, space and scarce salary dollars.
How much money are we talking about? The most recent rewards for all our system's "A-pluses" should have been 11 million dollars -- think how much good that money would have done in the 31 community colleges that earned a share of it.
I genuinely sympathize with the members of the General Assembly and the executives who handle the state budget. They have to make awful choices, in an awful economic crisis -- and clean up after a hurricane, too.
However, I am honest enough to say that I am disappointed that the faculty, staff and students of our community colleges are not reaping the same rewards for excellence that our partners in public schools are.
We all know that North Carolina is several years into a comprehensive statewide testing program that ties teacher bonuses and other rewards to student success.
The public schools had a good year -- more schools and more teachers earned rewards than expected. The General Assembly appropriated 96 million dollars to cover the bonuses and needed 44 million dollars more.
Last month, Governor Easley directed the state budget director to find the money, period, saying, "The high performance of our schools in the ABC program was great news. Our teachers have worked hard to make significant progress and they deserve the bonus that they were promised."
Of course they did, and I would be the last person to say that the state should not make good on its promises to them. But I will also be the LOUDEST person to say that the state has made promises to you, too. They gave you a tough job to do. You did it well; many of you did it spectacularly. You need and deserve the extra resources you have earned to keep those improvements going for your students.
How can we make that happen? What I can do is continue to make sure that Governor Easley and members of the General Assembly know about the valuable work you do and how well you do it.
I am often puzzled by how much better known our work is outside our borders that it seems to be two blocks down Jones Street from my office. Next week, I will be in Thailand, helping them create a community college system from scratch. I hasten to add that no state tax dollars are used for my work in Thailand!
A few years ago, Thai officials toured several systems and chose ours as the model for what they wanted to do, and working with the State Department and the Kenan Institute, I've been honored to help them. At national conferences and meetings, my peers constantly ask me for the secrets to our success. We should all be working together to have an even higher profile at those professional sessions. We also need to work together to translate that terrific national reputation and the strong local support that each of your institutions has to action on the part of the people who control the state's purse strings.
I urge you to work with your presidents to be a part of the year-round effort to stay in touch with your legislators, county commissioners, business leaders and others who help pay for your good work. I urge you to make sure that your public information officers and foundation directors know how well you are doing your jobs, how important these results are, and what terrific public relations and fundraising tools they are!
Many of your institutions are doing superb jobs of incorporating superior rankings into college communications. You folks from AB Tech are blessed with a President who so values the use of this information that I swear he knew the results and had them at the printer before I knew the information had been tabulated. This is a GOOD thing, and I look forward to the day when every college is as enthusiastic and as effective in the use of this information.
We all know that words have power. Numbers do, too. The numbers that go with these performance measures have power even inside our walls, as we use them to identify strong points and pinpoint areas that need improving. We all want to keep doing better on some licensing exams, for example, and we would like to see more consistency across institutions in the performance of transfer students.
We have learned, however, that these numbers have tremendous power outside our walls. They make it possible for us to PROVE that the community colleges of North Carolina are doing what we are supposed to be doing for our state and for her people. They show that students who come out of North Carolina's community colleges get good jobs, make their employers happy, and pass their licensing exams. And they're doing better every year.
In other words, North Carolina's community colleges are doing what the great Dallas Herring envisioned they could do, when he did so much to establish our system more than forty years ago.
I leave you with his great commission to us:
…the doors to the institutions of North Carolina's system of community colleges must never be closed to anyone of suitable age who can learn what they teach. We must take people where they are and carry them as far as they can go within the assigned functions of the system.
Dallas Herring didn't say, "Let them in and then make sure they get out fast." No, he said, "Carry them as far as they can go."
Where our students go is the ultimate measure of our performance. I thank each of you for your determination to make sure they go where their dreams lead them.
Thank you.
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