Boys & Girls Clubs of America count 4,000 community-based clubs serving more than 4 million young people through membership and community outreach. They provide a safe place to spend time during non-school hours and the summer as an alternative to the streets or being home alone—a place to play, have fun and learn.

Boys & Girls Clubs began in New England, when in 1860 three women in Hartford, Conn, organized the first club because they believed “boys who roamed the streets should have a positive alternative.” Nearly 50 years later, several Boys Clubs decided to affiliate and the Federated Boys Clubs was formed in Boston with 53 member organizations. In 1990, the group’s name was changed to Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) sees New England's Boys & Girls Clubs as key potential partners to instill college aspirations and preparation among the young people who participate in activities at the venerable community organization. N.H. state Sen. Lou D'Allesandro and Burlington, Vt. lawyer Michael Wool (with an assist from Boys & Girls Club of Burlington Executive Director Mary Alice McKenzie), are two NEBHE board members who are passionate champions of the organization. They take a closer look at the challenges and innovations at two New England Boys & Girls Clubs: Boys & Girls Club of Manchester, N.H. and Boys & Girls Club of Burlington, Vt.

Vital in New Hampshire

Lou D’Allesandro

The Boys & Girls Clubs of America are a vital asset to our nation's youth. New Hampshire's own Boys & Girls Club of Manchester is one of the organization's 53 original agencies, incorporated in 1907 as a private, nonprofit serving youth from ages 6 to 18.

The clubs seek to reach out to all youth, with special concern given to those most in need. They provide programs and services that inspire and enable members to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring individuals. A program staff of 12 full-time youth development professionals works directly with the children, providing help with homework, computer instruction, conflict resolution education, peer pressure resistance training and a variety of other programs and activities. Providing the children with this safe place to learn and grow and giving them the opportunity to develop these ongoing relationships with caring adult professionals enables them to develop strong character and skills that will help them succeed in the future. Nearly 2,500 members were served by the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester during the 2010-11 school year.

The core programs offered by the clubs are divided into five areas: Character and Leadership Development; Education and Career Development; Health and Life Skills; The Arts, and Sports; and Fitness and Recreation.

The Character and Leadership Development program empowers youth to support and influence their club and community, sustain relationships with others, develop a positive self-image and respect their own and others’ cultural identities.

The Education and Career Development program enables youth to become proficient in fundamental educational disciplines, apply learning to everyday situations and embrace technology. The Power Hour Program and Homework Helpers are two examples of programs that encourage education and career development.

In 2005, the club initiated a Building Better Lives Capital Endowment Campaign with the goal of expanding and renovating the main clubhouse. The initiative was made successful, in large part, by a $1 million donation from actor Adam Sandler. Sandler, a Manchester native and former member of the Boys & Girls Club, said he had many fond memories of his time spent at the club. This money was especially crucial to the organization as it helped it launch fundraising efforts for the expansion project. The significance of Sandler’s donation is that he never forgot where he came from and the difference the Boys & Girls Club made in his life. His is just one example of how the Manchester Boys & Girls Club makes a lasting impact on the lives of the children it serves.

In addition to its main clubhouse, the Manchester Boys & Girls Club also includes two successful afterschool programs located at two of the city’s elementary schools. The afterschool sites operate Monday through Friday until 6 p.m. The main clubhouse is open Monday through Thursday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. and until 10 p.m. on Fridays, providing young people with a safe environment in which to engage in a variety of activities.

The new design of the facility allows the club to offer a new delivery-of-service format with more program structure. This helps in tracking individual member program participation, which will help determine the impact the club is having on its members. Education and academic success is a large part of this initiative. The club now offers a half-hour mandatory homework time each day for all members. It also offers special homework help and tutoring for those members who need extra support. The club tracks its members’ progress and issues progress report cards.

It is an ongoing challenge to instill the importance of education among our youth. The programs offered by the Boys & Girls Club seek to do just that. Education is essential in gaining the knowledge and skills to succeed in a continually changing and competitive world. Those who are taught to value education at an early age are most likely to seek a higher education in the future. An important aspect of building hope and opportunity among our youth is the discussion of what education can do as we mature and move ahead. At the Boys & Girls Club, children learn the importance of higher education while developing the skills, confidence and hope they need to pursue their goals.

A hard-working mentor who is invested in the future of our children is a truly invaluable resource. The knowledge that can be gained at this organization can lead to infinite opportunities for our youth. As the U.S. continues to evolve, the importance of education is intensified. As President John F. Kennedy said, "Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource." The work that the Manchester Boys & Girls Club does to prepare its members for higher education is key to offering the young people an opportunity to achieve the American dream. Strengthening the correlation between boys and girls clubs and higher education will only enhance this opportunity as we all strive for a better future.

———————————

Knowing How to Go in Burlington

Michael Wool and Mary Alice McKenzie

Board members of the Boys & Girls Club in Burlington, Vt., in 2005-06 took an unflinching look around our club’s neighborhood and honestly concluded that as a community we were all failing the children most in need of our help. The club’s board members recognized that it is wonderful to keep kids safe and provide them with healthy and fun programs during the afterschool hours. However, have we really done right by these children if they are not ultimately succeeding in becoming self-supporting adults?

What we saw was that the children who were coming to the club were children of former Boys & Girls Club kids and they were experiencing lives that were economically worse than their parents’ lives had been. In short, we acknowledged that the generational poverty that had always existed in our neighborhoods had significantly deepened.

As we analyzed the situation further, we discovered that a very small percentage of our club kids attended any postsecondary education after graduating from high school. There were other reasons for the worsening poverty in the families but the lack of adequate education was a common theme. Currently, 40% of our club kids identify themselves as other than Caucasian. In the neighborhoods we serve there are 19 different languages spoken. We have children from Somalia, Sudan, Nepal, Bhutan, Turkey, Iraq and many other countries. The diversity of our club kids is much different from the diversity of Vermont. Burlington is the site of a Refugee Resettlement Office and therefore we have a much higher percentage of New American children than the rest of the State. The board decided that the Boys & Girls Club could play a critical role in helping our club kids prepare for and commit to accessing postsecondary education or training so that they too could better participate in the American Dream. As a result, our “Know How To Go” program was born.

We realized some successes with Know How To Go. We help numerous club kids access college. However we learned many hard lessons along the way. We learned that starting our program at the 6^th grade level was way too late. By the time we started talking with kids in the 6^th grade about their plans for the future, too many of them were already so alienated from education that it was impossible to effectively re-engage them. We also learned that by the time they had reached 6^th grade, many of the kids had experienced academic failure to such an extent that they entered the 6^th grade with the expectations that they would fail. We also learned that many of our children were not learning about the importance of homework while they were in the K through 5^th grades and when they entered 6^th grades they could not compete with their better-prepared peers.

We also learned that even if our kids graduated from high school with grades adequate to be accepted into college, these kids could not handle college level work so they became overwhelmed and dropped out. The bottom line was that we learned that if we were to be serious about this effort we needed to raise serious and sustainable funds, we needed to dedicate more resources to hiring educationally qualified staff, we needed to retool our program to begin at the earliest age we serve kids and we needed to forge relationships with schools and teachers.

We spent a year redesigning our program and in fall 2011 we introduced our new educational effort: the Boys & Girls Club Early Promise Program. Our Early Promise Program begins at the kindergarten level and follows club kids through the grades and into postsecondary education. Our program includes homework help for all club kids, intensive tutoring through Sylvan Learning Centers, a less intensive but equally important Reading Buddies effort with the help of many college students and mentors, and small group tutoring conducted by club staff who are also licensed teachers.

We also have a very strong partnership with the Vermont State College System (VSC) and with St. Michael's College. The VSC is an active participant in helping us find the appropriate higher education venue for our club kids who graduate from high school. We also work very closely with the colleges on helping club kids easily access all the remedial help available so that they can better develop the academic skill they need in order to perform college-level work. St. Michael's is helping us on two important aspects of our Early Promise Program. The St. Michael's Education Department is developing a curriculum design that includes incorporating their education students into our Early Promise Program. In addition, St. Michael's is helping us collect, organize and analyze our data so that our program is credible and useful as we learn more about how to help low-income children rise above the poverty level through effective education.

We know our efforts are in their infancy. We know that we will need to constantly reassess our program in order to get the results we want for our children. We recognize that breaking the cycle of poverty through education is a long-term goal that is hard to achieve. However, we are every bit as passionate about helping our children succeed against so many odds as we were when we embarked on this journey. Perhaps we are even more passionate now that we have witnessed first-hand how many obstacles are thrown in front our children by the well-intentioned but increasingly disenfranchising system of public education that our children experience. One thing we know for sure is that every one of our children matters, and we are absolutely committed to doing whatever it takes to help them achieve the education needed for a self-sustaining life in the America of today.

In 1999, the Vermont State Colleges (VSC)—comprising Castleton, Johnson and Lyndon state colleges, the Community College of Vermont and the Vermont Technical College—initiated a systemwide planning process that identified multiple strategic initiatives, including several designed to improve outcomes assessment and accountability. One initiative called for the establishment of common graduation standards for all students across the five colleges, at both the associate and bachelor’s levels. The board of trustees wanted to provide a “guarantee” to the public and employers that every graduate of the VSC could demonstrate essential skills for success after college.

The chancellor established a systemwide steering committee to oversee the graduation standards initiative. The committee included faculty representatives from each college and academic deans, and was co-chaired by the academic vice president of the system and the president of one of the four-year colleges. Faculty on the committee were expected to serve as liaisons to the faculty assemblies on each campus, to allow for broader faculty input and to facilitate endorsement of the committee’s plan. Likewise, reports were provided frequently for the state colleges’ Council of Presidents, the chancellor and the broader VSC community.

Areas of competency

The steering committee ultimately proposed six areas of competency: writing, quantitative reasoning, information literacy, oral communication, civic engagement, and critical thinking. Facing significant opposition to the entire initiative from a vocal group of faculty, the steering committee formed faculty-majority subcommittees to define the outcomes and propose assessment strategies for each standard. Several months into this process, civic engagement and critical thinking were permanently tabled as the subcommittees were sharply divided about the feasibility of valid assessment in those areas. This elevated the political challenges associated with assessing a limited set of skills rather than a broad set of learning outcomes such as those identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities through Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP).

Unexpectedly, it was easier to come to agreement about specific language for defining learning outcomes than about what to call the entire set of competencies. Faculty vehemently opposed the initial label of “minimum competencies,” on the grounds that it potentially conflated expectations for collegiate learning with those at the high school level. Faculty ultimately agreed to the term “graduation standards.”  Of course, this semantic shift did not mitigate the challenges associated with establishing appropriate performance levels for the standards, made politically charged given the VSC’s public access mission and that over 60% of students are the first in their families to attend college. Many expressed concerns about creating barriers to graduation. But by far, the most controversy centered on the assessment tool itself.

Fundamental methodological questions were debated. Would faculty design the assessments or would the VSC select commercially available instruments? Who would set the standards for passing? Would all students be assessed or would a sampling technique be employed? At what point in time would students be assessed? Ultimately the steering committee recommended a politically acceptable compromise—adoption of common statements of learning outcomes across the five colleges and agreement on a set of parameters for assessing the outcomes (including that every student would be assessed), while allowing each college to develop and implement campus-specific assessments for each standard. This plan satisfied the demands of the board of trustees and chancellor for common learning outcomes and a “guarantee” of minimum competency, and provided a mechanism for faculty buy-in at the campus level.

Implementation

The academic vice president in the system office worked closely with the college presidents and academic deans to ensure progress on the development of local assessments. The implementation timeline was staggered over a five-year period, beginning with the development of a writing assessment that met the requirements established by the steering committee. One college already had in place an institutional writing proficiency exam, and another had in place portfolio-based writing assessment. These models and others were shared among faculty and provided a foundation for the timely and relatively smooth implementation of writing assessments across the system.

The other three areas proved more difficult to implement. There was wide disagreement about the level at which students should demonstrate proficiency in quantitative reasoning, especially for students in STEM fields as opposed to those majoring in the humanities. There was disagreement about how to differentiate minimum competency in information literacy from what might be expected of high school graduates. Finally, there was ongoing confusion about how to differentiate expectations at the associate and bachelor’s levels. Concerns arose about the potential for wide variation across colleges in the performance levels being assessed, as well as in the overall quality of the assessments.

Several years into the implementation process, the academic vice president in the system office and academic deans at the colleges designed and implemented a process to regularly review the assessment methods and results at the colleges. In addition to annual monitoring of results across all assessments, one competency is evaluated comprehensively per year on a rotating basis. Faculty from across the colleges go together in a retreat format to reconsider the common learning outcomes, analyze local assessment methodology and results, and make recommendations to the presidents and chancellor for improving the process. This provided a mechanism for faculty to have a significant role in the ongoing improvement of the assessment system, while supporting the broader strategy of engaging faculty in assessment as part of the regular work of teaching and learning.

Given that writing was the first area to be implemented, it was also the first to be evaluated. As a result, revisions were made to the learning outcomes, as were recommendations for improving the reliability and validity of the local assessments. Writing faculty from across the system shared student writing samples and assessment rubrics, a process they found both useful and engaging, particularly given the opportunity for expanded colleagueship beyond the small departments in VSC colleges. Most recently, the assessment of information literacy was reviewed, which identified  areas of concern in the current approach, including the wide variability in expectations across departments within colleges.  Additionally, there was agreement that the standards and implementation are not rigorous enough in relation to intellectual property and the ethical use of information

Results and lessons learned

Given that all students would be assessed across all standards, the instruments developed by faculty at each college were, in theory, high-stakes. The VSC policy remains that no student can graduate without demonstrating competency in all four graduation standards. However, as assessments were implemented and have now been in place for several years, very few students fail to the pass the assessments in time to graduate. Students routinely require multiple attempts to pass (and benefit from a variety of academic supports in place to help them), but none of the colleges limited the number of times a student could attempt demonstrating competence. The de facto pass-rate, then, remains nearly 100%.

The perception of a high-stakes model may have brought about low standards (as did the original concept of “minimum” competencies). But the most consequential decision was to allow for the design of local assessments within a system-level model. This approach provided for substantial faculty ownership of the process but precluded any cross-college analysis or national benchmarking with similar institutions (although two colleges use a nationally normed online assessment of information literacy). Equally significant was the decision to measure competence at a single point in time rather than at multiple points in order to measure learning gains over time. While the notion of measuring the “value added” by a college degree is fraught with methodological problems related to isolating the effects of the institution (versus those resultant of maturation or experiences outside the institution), it has become the gold standard in outcomes assessment, particularly at a time when popular books such as Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Arum and Roksa, 2011) have raised questions about the extent to which students learn anything at all in college. Further, measuring competence at a single point in time provides little insight into how students acquire skills and the extent to which particular curricular or pedagogical approaches impact learning gains.

To a large extent, the approach did not take advantage of the opportunity to aggregate and analyze system-level data to improve teaching and learning. Despite having a single administrative information system across the colleges, inadequate attention was paid to developing robust data-collection and analysis systems to support the graduation standards initiative. The strategy of early compromise was critical to ensuring faculty engagement in the assessment process, but it leaned too far in the direction of local autonomy. This manifests an inherent tension in higher education system leadership: supporting strong, unique colleges while maximizing the benefits of the system.

In other respects, the assessment approach did maximize the benefits of being a system. VSC policy remains that meeting the graduation requirements at one college also meets the graduation requirements at any other VSC college, despite the variation of assessment methodology. This benefits transfer students and encourages community college students to continue their studies in the VSC. Other benefits of the assessment model include systemwide awareness of national trends in assessment and accountability, faculty agreement on essential learning outcomes for all VSC graduates, and increased student awareness of performance expectations for college graduates.

Perhaps most valuable has been the annual systemwide retreat devoted to analyzing assessment methods and results in particular areas. In order for an assessment model to ultimately succeed as a means of improving learning outcomes, systemic processes must be in place at all levels to continually monitor, evaluate and strengthen the approach. The annual review process could potentially be enhanced through student involvement, reflecting the growing body of literature speaking to the potential benefits of engaging students in the study of teaching and learning. But by bringing together faculty from across colleges, systems have the opportunity to establish what the Carnegie Foundations calls “networked improvement communities,” which provide for highly structured, cross-functional, cross-institutional inquiry. Finally, the decision to focus on a limited set of outcomes, while for some creating the perception of diluting the greater purpose of a college education, provides the opportunity for in-depth analysis of how students learn a discrete set of skills commonly viewed as essential for success in and beyond college.

Carol Moore is the past president of Lyndon State College and currently works as a consultant. Karrin Wilks is the past senior vice president of the Vermont State Colleges and currently serves as university dean for undergraduate studies at the City University of New York.

****

Vermont State Colleges Chancellor Tim Donovan announced that Steve Gold of Montpelier was appointed interim president of Lyndon State College, succeeding Carol A. Moore who retired after 13 years of service at Lyndon. Gold has served at commissioner and deputy secretary levels in both the Dean and Douglas administrations. Moore, a NEBHE delegate since 2002, wrote recently for NEJHE about college retention.

****

Harris N. Miller resigned after four years as president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, whose nearly 2,000 member institutions enroll 1.5 million students. Over the past year, the sector has faced increased scrutiny from Congress and the Education Department and stepped-up criticism from advocacy groups.

****

Emmanuel College appointed Joyce A. De Leo, currently chair of the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School, to become Emmanuel's vice president of academic affairs on Aug. 1.

Connecticut

In Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy and a Democratically controlled Legislature racked up a record of accomplishments as the 2011 legislative session came to a close on June 8.

Malloy’s biggest challenge was to close a $3.2 billion shortfall. In the end, a balanced budget of $40.11 billion for the next two years was achieved with spending cuts, the largest tax increase in Connecticut’s history of $1.5 billion and concessions of $1.6 billion over two years from labor, which still remain uncertain. Malloy has warned that failure on the part of labor to come up with concessions will result in up to 4,700 state workers being be laid off. Approximately 60% of the tax increases will come from the income tax. The sales tax will increase from the current 6% to 6.35%, with the end of some exemptions including the exemption on clothing.

The General Assembly’s accomplishments include passage of:

* A bill to reduce energy costs by creating a centralized power authority combining public utilities and environmental protection into a single agency. The new Department of Energy and Environmental Protection which will be headed  by Daniel Esty, a former energy advisor to President Barack Obama.

* A measure purported to increase economic opportunities by creating the Connecticut Airport Authority, a quasi-public agency to oversee Bradley International Airport and five smaller airports in the state.

* A bailout package of $864 million to expand and renovate the ailing University of Connecticut Health Center, which includes UConn's medical and dental schools and the John Dempsey Hospital. The plan, called Bioscience Connecticut is projected to create 3,000 new jobs.

* Funding for a research and technology park at the UConn Storrs campus that will create thousands of jobs. The $170 million package will include construction of a 125,000 square-foot, multilevel facility with research labs and incubator space for business.

* A bill mandating that private employers offer employees paid sick days. Connecticut is the first state in the nation to do so.

* A bill that grants in-state tuition for undocumented students who reside in Connecticut. The state now joins 10 other states that have passed similar measures.

* A bill to decriminalize possession of marijuana which will reduce fines and court costs for people in possession of less than a half ounce of marijuana.

Higher Education

Under Malloy’s budget proposal, the budget of the Connecticut State Universities would be cut by as much as 25% over two years. The first 10% would come from the state budget and the remaining cuts would come from merging the state universities with the Connecticut Community Colleges, Charter Oak State College and the Department of Higher Education which would be governed by a Board of Regents and one administrator. The Connecticut General Assembly’s Program Review Committee issued a report, which detailed skyrocketing tuition, and high administrative costs at the Connecticut State University. Lawmakers gave their blessing to the proposal which affects 100,000 students and more than 6,700 employees and is reported to save $4.3 million over two years, cutting 24 positions. UConn was not part of the plan. University and college officials are still waiting for the details of the merger.

A bill to provide $200,000 to develop a strategic plan for higher education that would include the UConn failed to pass.

Connecticut Community Colleges

Officials at the state’s community colleges are considering ending the longstanding "open door" admissions policy because of a projected $44.3 million budget deficit over the next two years. The Malloy administration and legislators cut community colleges by $13.2 million. In addition, pending cuts in staffing levels as a result of state employee concessions requested by the governor, stand to impact instructional levels. Also, officials are hoping not to raise tuition beyond the 2.3%  increase approved earlier in the year. With rising enrollments, budget cuts and cuts in staffing levels, those that will be hurt the most are low-income and minority students who stand to be shut out of the only point of entry they have to higher education.

State Scholarships

As part of his plan to reduce the state deficit, Malloy proposed cutting 25% of the Connecticut Independent College Scholarship Program at a time when cutbacks have been slated for federal student aid programs including Pell Grants. The program is currently funded at $23.4 million and serves more than 6,000 Connecticut students. After strong objections and outrage was expressed by parents, students and Connecticut college presidents, some of the funding was restored and three proprietary schools and Yale University will no longer be served by the program in the next two years. According to Judith Greiman, president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, the budget now calls for an appropriation of just over $18 million in FY 12 and just over $16 million in FY13. Those funds will be allocated to nonprofit colleges and universities. The overall percentage cut to the program is 23% in the first year but only 14.8% to nonprofit institutions. The second year is a 31% cut overall but a 23.8% cut to the nonprofit institutions. In the interim, Greiman expects to work to recover funds for the program.

K-12

The good news is that Malloy kept his campaign promise not to cut local aid which includes the largest portion going to education aid. He provided $540 million over two years in new state funding to Education Cost Sharing Grants.

The bad news is that education reform measures failed to gain passage. While the state applies for the third round of federal Race to the Top funds, state legislators sent a bill to the governor’s desk that effectively delays school-reform measures. Additionally, Malloy has gone six months without appointing a new commissioner of education.

The General Assembly killed a measure that would have changed the age to enter kindergarten to 5 years by October 1. The legislation would also have required that all students be enrolled in kindergarten by age 6. Currently, Connecticut parents can defer a child's enrollment until age 7. Some lawmakers responded that the issue was whether there would be funds to provide alternative preschool programs for students who didn’t make the cutoff.

Other casualties of the session included a bill proposed by Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Education, to require teacher performance evaluations in school districts every two years. Now, any action to review and revise the practice of laying off teachers who were the last to be hired and consequently the first to be fired will be postponed indefinitely. Also, a number of bills to address school finance failed to make any headway in the session.

Vermont  Legislative Session

Newly elected Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and a Democratically controlled legislature closed a $176 million gap in the budget without raising broad-based taxes and completed a 17-week legislative session ahead of schedule, adjourning on May 6. Shumlin worked with legislators to set an economic agenda for the future by passage of the following:

* A bill to reduce healthcare costs while providing health insurance for every Vermont citizen. The legislation establishes a framework to create a single-payer health care system under the direction of a five-member council. The council will define benefits, cost-containment measures and set up insurance exchanges as required by federal law. A plan to fund the measure is to be submitted to the governor by 2013.

* A telecommunications bill to expand broadband coverage and cell-phone service  throughout the state by investing in expanding fiber-optic lines and wireless networks.

* A jobs bill that will allow emerging industries and businesses to have access to capital and credit. The bill is designed to stimulate manufacturing jobs, improve internships and expand job-training programs for young people. Additionally, the bill focuses on Vermont’s agriculture sector and provides for marketing and promotional efforts to be directed toward the Buy Local program and diversification in Vermont’s farming community..

Higher Education

The University of Vermont and the Vermont State Colleges managed to survive further cuts and were level funded in Shumlin’s budget. For FY12, UVM received $36.7 million and the state colleges received 23.1 million.

Scholarships

The budget provided $1.5 million in additional scholarships to the UVM, the state colleges and the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.

K-12

The Vermont General Assembly passed and the governor signed a law that would erase a state-imposed limit that allows only 50% of 3- and 4-year-olds in Vermont school districts to enroll in pre-K. Proponents say lifting the cap will lead to reduced costs for special-education programs.

Carolyn Morwick is a consultant at NEBHE and former director of the Caucus of New England State Legislatures.