Media Mentions
Tips for families working and learning from home
March 23, 2020 | By NBC15 News
For families with young children, University of Wisconsin-Madison educator and family engagement researcher Lorena Mancilla offers advice on how to create spaces and establish routines for learning and working effectively from home.
UW-Madison said in a press release Friday, with 40 U.S. states now closing public schools to slow the spread of COVID-19, parents have had little or no time to plan for keeping their children home 24/7. Suddenly, and in some cases overnight, families are figuring out how to live, learn and work - together and separately - all under one roof.
Many parents who haven't heard from their children's schools about alternatives to classroom instruction may be wondering if they also need to take on the role of an at-home substitute teacher.
Mancilla offers these tips for working and learning from home:
Set up separate spots in the home, as space permits, for children to learn and parents to work.
Keep the family's regular weekday schedule for waking up, bedtime and meals.
Gather resources for children to engage with, such as toys, games, books, online videos and drawing materials.
Schedule frequent breaks for kids and parents to move around, play and exercise.
Expect the unexpected.
Mancilla suggests starting slowly and setting daily goals. For example, select a one-hour learning activity for day one, followed by a two-hour activity on day two, and so on.
CLICK HERE for more suggestions and resource links.
Meet Your Immigrant Neighbor: Ruslana Westerland
March 9, 2020 | By Leigh Mills, Ch. 15 NBC News at 4
Ch. 15 New at 4, March 9, 2020
Nicholas Hillman: How students and teachers approach college in ‘education deserts’
February 27, 2020 | By Laura Edghill
From World
Sunshine Bible Academy Superintendent and Principal Jason Watson wishes his students had better access to college representatives. The private Christian school in Hand County, S.D., serves 75 students, nearly two-thirds of whom live on campus. The universities within a four- to five-hour driving distance are scattered in different directions, making tours impractical for many families.
“It’s not overly convenient for our students to go on college visits or to have reps from colleges visit us,” Watson said.
Sunshine Bible Academy is in what scholar Nicholas Hillman of the University of Wisconsin calls an “education desert.” The lack of nearby higher education options can put students at a disadvantage after high school. But I found some schools that are working to counteract those negatives to give students more options.
States like Idaho, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Dakota have magnificent sprawling landscapes, but that sprawl means colleges and universities are few and far between. Researchers with the Jain Family Institute recently analyzed the entire nation by ZIP code and plotted the concentration of community colleges and public and private universities on an interactive map. In Nevada, for example, unless students are near Reno or Las Vegas, they won’t find a community college for hundreds of miles.
College attendees in education deserts must deal with inflated prices at universities that have a monopoly in the region and with the increased prevalence of high-pressure recruiting for online for-profit colleges, according to the Jain researchers. That can affect whether students go to college at all, Hillman wrote in a 2016 report: “The [farther] a student lives from a college or university, the less likely he or she is to enroll.”
Schools like Sunshine Bible Academy and Dakota Christian School in Corsica, S.D., are trying to bridge the gap between rural education and college. The two schools estimated they send about half of their graduates to four-year colleges, while the other half might pursue an associate’s degree, technical certification, military service, or enter the workforce directly.
“I think we have a certain number that know exactly what they want to do, and they go to a tech school or go right into the workforce,” Dakota Christian School CEO Jeremy Boer said. “Then we have a few that kind of want to experience something new, so they move to Sioux Falls or something like that.”
Bismarck State College in neighboring North Dakota takes a flexible approach to reach a far-flung population of future students.
“Knowing that we are in a more rural area, we try to keep our classes as affordable and as accessible as possible,” said Karen Erickson, the school’s dean of enrollment. “So I think that helps a lot with attracting students because we have a lot of classes and programs that both can be completed online or on campus.”
Erickson pointed out that in his neck of the woods, distance is not always as much of a limiting factor as city folk might think.
“It’s not unheard of that somebody commutes 60 miles one way into work or for educational opportunities,” he said. “It’s something that people in the more rural states are very familiar with because driving 60 miles here, maybe at 75 to 80 miles an hour, might be only a 40-minute commute.”
Gloria Ladson-Billings announces new inductees to the National Academy of Education
February 27, 2020 | By Annemarie Mountz
Greg Kelly, senior associate dean for Research, Outreach, and Technology and distinguished professor in the College of Education, is one of 15 people nationwide to be elected to the National Academy of Education (NAEd) in 2020, and the first-ever member from Penn State. He will be formally inducted during the NAEd annual meeting in November. Election to membership in the academy is one of the highest honors accorded to educational researchers by their peers.
"This diverse group of scholars are at the forefront of those who are improving the lives of students in the United States and abroad through their outstanding contributions to education scholarship and research," said Gloria Ladson-Billings, president of NAEd, in making the announcement.
"It is certainly a great honor to be recognized by prominent colleagues from around the country," said Kelly. "I look forward to serving the National Academy and advancing the value of educational research."
Kelly’s research focuses on science and engineering education. His desire to increase access to and participation in these disciplines led him to study how to demystify science and engineering for students. Kelly’s focus on discourse and epistemic practices in K-12 education anticipated changes in research directions leading to current national reform efforts focused on scientific discourse and practices.
His research brings together the fields of sociology and anthropology of science with sociolinguistics to examine ways that teachers and students from elementary school to college frame disciplinary knowledge, negotiate uses of evidence and engage in inquiry practices. A number of his studies offer methodological innovations by considering how discourse processes and actions are situated in broader cultural and social practices.
Kelly has authored approximately 100 research articles and chapters including contributions to major international handbooks across a range of topics including inquiry, discourse, epistemology and learning, and epistemic cognition.
Kelly’s commitment to rendering knowledge and institutions accessible also relates to his leadership as senior associate dean, although in a more indirect way. He strives to improve access to knowledge by supporting his colleagues' research, building educational programs and using technology in effective ways for educational purposes.
"I believe the associate dean for research should lead by example, so I have worked hard to maintain a research agenda while serving the college in this capacity," Kelly said.
Kelly has indeed maintained his research productivity despite serving in leadership positions at Penn State for over half of his academic career. In addition to his roles as department head and associate dean, he has been dedicated to advancing knowledge through work in professional organizations and research journals. For example, he served as associate editor for the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and for Science & Education; the Learning Section co-editor for Science Education; co-editor for the Review of Research in Education; and editor-in-chief of Science Education.
Kelly joined Penn State's College of Education as a full professor in 2004 and became head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in 2007. He was named associate dean for Research, Outreach and Technology in 2010, and was elevated to senior associate dean and distinguished professor in 2018.
In 2018, Kelly was honored with the Dr. John J. Gumperz Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Scholarship by the American Educational Research Association (AERA). In that same year, he received the University Faculty Way Paver Award from the Council of College Multicultural Leadership at Penn State.
The NAEd advances high quality education research and its use in policy and practice. The academy consists of U.S. members and international associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship related to education. Nominations are submitted by individual academy members once a year for review and election by the organization’s membership. In addition to serving on expert study panels that address pressing issues in education, members are also deeply engaged in NAEd’s professional development programs.
Jerlando F.L. Jackson to deliver keynote address at statewide diversity conference
February 19, 2020
Drawing more graduate students of color than ever before, an upcoming “Turning Fellows into Faculty” conference at NIU remains the only program of its kind in Illinois.
At least 70 Diversifying Faculty in Illinois (DFI) Fellowship recipients and other graduate students of color interested in the professoriate as a career path are expected at the fifth-annual statewide conference. The program will take place Friday-Saturday, Feb. 28-29 in the Holmes Student Center.
“I am elated with pride at how much this conference has evolved,” said conference coordinator Janice Hamlet, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Communication and a senior faculty mentor in the Office of the Provost.
“This is geared toward DFI fellows interested in becoming tenure-track professors, to expose them to all the types of institutions and opportunities available to them,” she said.
The upcoming conference will include students from 15 different institutions throughout the state—an “all-time high,” Hamlet said.
Hamlet started the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences event in 2015 to increase diversity among the professoriate. The DFI program annually provides competitive fellowship awards to about 100 students of color in Illinois.
A proponent of the program, Hamlet saw the need to recruit, encourage and educate those fellows to become professors in Illinois to counter the lack of diversity prevalent in universities nationwide.
“We need to do a more intentional job of recruiting faculty of color, so this conference is a way to try to contribute to increasing diversity among the professoriate,” Hamlet said.
The first conference drew 18 DFI fellows, and the program has grown more successful every year.
This year’s event will include research posters and digital presentations by some of the DFI fellows on Friday, Feb. 28. A welcome dinner will feature former DFI fellow and NIU Assistant Professor Shondra Clay, Ph.D., of the College of Health and Human Sciences, with the keynote speech, “Never Settle, Go Further, Reach Higher: From DFI Fellow to Tenure-Track Professor.”
Following the dinner, the NIU Black Graduate Student Association will sponsor a social for the DFI fellows.
The Saturday, Feb. 29, workshop sessions, hosted by NIU faculty and higher education leaders from throughout the state, will include information on job market trends, the diversity of academic institutions, positioning yourself as a scholar in your discipline, creating and maintaining a hassle-free curriculum vitae, faculty roles and responsibilities, mentoring, establishing an online presence and preparing for interviews.
Other sessions will focus on “Negotiating Race, Gender, Sexuality in the Academy,” “Combating Cultural Taxation in Higher Education,” “Dr. Mom: The Challenges and Triumphs of Juggling Both Worlds,” and “Invisible Labor by Faculty of Color: Another Part of the Cultural Tax.”
Jerlando F.L. Jackson, Ph.D., from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present the Saturday, Feb. 29, keynote address, “Planning for Success: Being Strategic about the Promotion and Tenure Process.”
“Although we’re trying to promote the professoriate, we don’t paint a rosy picture for them,” Hamlet said.
“We let them know, as faculty of color, they’ll have challenges. For example, believe it or not, in this day and age, they will have students in their classes who will be surprised to see them there as professors. They may even have colleagues who are not as welcoming as they should be. Because of this conference, these prospective professors won’t be shocked by these challenges but will be prepared and committed to not only surviving but making a positive difference in academia.”
Op-Ed: Sacramento’s army of interns deserves to be paid
February 19, 2020 | By Victoria Pfau
From the Los Angeles Times
There are interns in almost every office at the Capitol in Sacramento, and very few of them are paid. They answer phones, write press releases, research legislation and track constituent requests. The privilege of gaining experience — and an advantage in their later job hunt — will cost most of them hundreds, even thousands of dollars in living expenses and lost wages from the paying jobs they forgo. Work experience when you’re starting out is theoretically more valuable than a paycheck, but that doesn’t make it any easier to pay rent, student fees or your lunch tab.
In 2019, California passed landmark legislation protecting workers’ rights by expanding collective bargaining and addressing worker misclassification and workplace harassment. Yet the unpaid interns that keep Sacramento lawmakers’ offices running are proof that state government’s commitment to labor rights comes up short inside its very own walls.
No state agency tracks internships, paid or unpaid. Some universities and nonprofits sponsor paid public-service internships; assembly members and senators may, on their own, pay interns as well. But most of this work, especially at the district office level, is unpaid; some internships don’t even include academic credit.
Last summer, I was an intern in the district office of a state senator. I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity, but there was one problem: It was unpaid. Taking the position limited the hours I could work at my part-time summer job. Like many college students, I work in the summer to help pay for tuition and living expenses. As a public policy major, I felt like I had no choice but to take the hit. I knew that without the experience, I would jeopardize my chances of landing a job in my field after graduation.
I spent hundreds of dollars just on gas to get from my home to the district office. I was fortunate that I could live with my family and my living expenses were minimal. For those who move to Sacramento for an unpaid internship, the cost-benefit calculation is likely to be much rougher. Imagine being accepted for a prized position but ultimately turning it down because you can’t afford to work 10-30 hours for free.
Matthew T. Hora, a professor and director of the Center for Research on College-Work Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, surveyed students at five colleges and universities about why they chose not to intern as undergraduates. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents cited cost barriers related to tuition and living expenses. Their quandary could prove a big long-term disadvantage. The B.A. Rudolph Foundation found that only 17% of college students have a job offer at graduation; however, among those with internship experience, 51.7% graduate into work.
All the statistics add up to an advantage for those who already have an economic leg up. Intern Bridge, Inc. — a for-profit firm that researches internships nationally and helps companies and schools set up programs — found that students from families whose household income was more than $120,000 are more likely to be unpaid interns than students coming from families who make $80,000 or less. I observed this dynamic at the state senator’s district office. Some of my intern peers didn’t have to juggle part-time summer jobs. Not surprisingly, Intern Bridge also found that nearly 70% of white students but only 53% of Latinos participate in internships, with African Americans at 59.5% and Asian Americans at 63.2%.
In 2018, the advocacy group Pay Our Interns convinced Congress to pass legislation that created a fund to pay House and Senate interns. Until then, in Wshington, as in Sacramento, paid internships were rare, a constant casualty of budget cuts.
Now the House allots $25,000 to each member’s office for internships; the figure for senators is based on the population of their states. In the first year of the program, the maximum stipend for House interns in Washington was only $1,800 a month; the Senate, when it pays, is more generous. It’s a start.
Pay Our Interns is researching internship programs in state legislatures. We know a few states have robust programs: Arizona, Indiana, New York and Maryland. There is every reason for California to join them. Setting aside money, by law, to pay stipends to interns is a worthy investment in the next generation of leaders. And it’s only right to make it possible for all students, no matter their family income, to take advantage of such an opportunity.
Victoria Pfau is a junior at UCLA and chairs the Student Advisory Committee for the Pay Our Interns California Action Fund. She earned her associate degree at Los Angeles Mission College. Victoria@payourinternsaction.org
Wisconsin ACT scores reveal glaring disparities, DPI, UW work to address
February 18, 2020 | By Erin Gretzinger
From The Badger Herald
As a new analysis captures persisting disparities in Wisconsin’s ACT scores for college readiness, state officials and researchers work to understand and combat issues within the educational achievement gap.
In a recent analysis conducted by the Wisconsin Policy Forum on Wisconsin ACT data from the past few years, researchers found “areas of concern” with declining and stagnant college readiness scores of high school juniors.
While the study noted Wisconsin is doing relatively better compared to other states, the WPF said Wisconsin’s decreasing working-age population and rising demand for occupations requiring higher education pose a threat to the state’s economic climate. Another cause for concern — the glaring socioeconomic and racial disparities present in ACT data.
“It’s important to note Wisconsin high schoolers still fare better on their overall ACT scores than nearly all other states that require all students to take the test,” the WPF study stated. “But within those statewide scores are gaping disparities, particularly on the basis of race, that demand urgent attention.”
Wisconsin has fourth largest decline in higher education funding for UW System, state technical collegesA recent report highlighted the state of Wisconsin as having the fourth largest decline in higher education funding in the Read…
While the state’s overall ACT dropped slightly from 2018 to 2019, the WPF’s analysis said the decline in levels of college readiness for math, english and science are of greater concern. These benchmark levels serve as indicators for how students will fare in college courses.
The gaps in the college readiness benchmarks are most prominent among racial lines, especially in english, where there was over a 43% gap between white students with 57% at the benchmark level compared to only 13.3% of Black students. Similar trends were found between economically disadvantaged students and other racial minorities across other subject areas.
“Few policy challenges are more critical to Wisconsin’s economic health than meeting the growing demand for college-educated workers,” the WPF stated. “At the same time, few policy solutions are as obvious as the need to boost the pipeline of high school graduates from within the state, particularly among minority and economically disadvantaged populations.”
University of Wisconsin Professor of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies Eric Grodsky said many of the inequalities in secondary and higher education can be contributed to shortcomings that take place early in the education route.
Grodsky said students are screened for literacy knowledge and skills when they come into kindergarten, and these results reveal earlier trends of disparate educational impacts, creating the gaps that grow into the high school and college years. Another significant factor is connected to Wisconsin’s disproportionate poverty rates among African Americans and other minority students, according to Grodsky.
“Wisconsin is also home to some of the biggest disparities in child poverty by race, ethnicity and median family income,” Grodsky said. “A lot going on outside the schools sets the stage for what we see inside the schools.”
Grodsky said these early educational experiences shape students’ levels of preparation for higher education, leaving African American students at a disadvantage to their non-Hispanic white peers.
Grodsky said higher education institutions play a large role in closing these gaps by reaching out to minority students. At UW, Grodsky said the admissions’ comprehensive review of applicants’ files gives students who have experienced disadvantageous situations in their education the chance to level the playing field.
“It entails looking at test scores and grades, but also looking at the totality of students, opportunities and circumstances around those test scores and grades,” Grodsky said. “I think that enables places like Madison and many others to be more nimble in trying to extend opportunities to students who may not have fared as well in primary or secondary school.”
Secretary Deputy of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Mike Thompson said while Wisconsin ranks nationally, the stagnant scores and lack of improvement are cause for concern.
Thompson said the DPI is working to address the readiness gaps among minority students with key programs in early education and beyond to encourage equity at all stages of education.
“Quite frankly, our whole effort here is around equity, which means you give kids what they need, when they need it in order to achieve,” Thompson said. “We have a lot of kids that come to school … that face a lot of challenges, and schools are trying to meet those particular challenges kids face.”
Thompson said the DPI is working on raising awareness at the local level in school districts to address different needs of students in early education. For students coming into the school system behind their peers, Thompson said providing the resources they need in the vital time between kindergarten and second grade proves pivotal in making a difference.
The programs the DPI is implementing include english efficiency programs, additional training for early education teachers and after school programs to extend learning opportunities outside the classroom. Thompson said another core aspect of programming is identifying outside factors influencing students’ performance.
“Another huge area that we’re focusing on is additional resources for school districts to meet some of the other challenges that impede kids’ learning, such as trauma that they have come to school with,” Thompson said. “We know that a large number of kids, because of those particular issues, can’t really concentrate on learning and the learning environment.”
Thompson said other options include diversifying the workforce to provide role models, developing programs fostering soft skills and independence, and “early alarm” systems to identify struggling students. Additionally, Grodsky said focusing on financing higher education for lower-income students is another huge piece of the puzzle to leveling the playing field.
Grodsky is working on research with the DPI, looking at application patterns to institutions of higher education. While there are no clear cut solutions, Grodsky said educational reform holds a lot of promise to close gaps across the spectrum of disparities in Wisconsin.
“Minority student or not, education is key. And higher education is playing an important role in providing economic opportunities to young people entering the workforce,” Grodsky said. “A stepping stone to success in the graduate and professional fields is success in college.”
Internships can ease the path from college to career — but they often don’t.
February 12, 2020
From The Chronicle of Higher Education
It’s becoming increasingly clear how critical internships are in landing a job after college and accelerating one’s career. So I was very interested when I learned that Matthew Hora, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies the path from college to career, had turned his attention to internships because I knew he would challenge some common assumptions.
Hora’s expertise and background is unusual for a person in this field: While economists usually dominate the discussion about the world of work, Hora is an anthropologist. His qualitative approach attempts to shed light on the messy process by which companies hire talent and people seek out work.
For example, his book, Beyond the Skills Gap: Preparing College Students for Life and Work, poked at the common assumption about why American companies (and especially Wisconsin companies) are dealing with a skills mismatch or a skills shortage — that they can’t find workers with the necessary training to fill positions, particularly in manufacturing, the trades, and various “middle skills” jobs. (You know the refrain: “Who needs all these highfalutin college grads when we need welders!”)
Hora unpacks that assumption to show that the “skills gap” might actually be a result of broader trends in the job market and peculiar biases at companies. A workplace is a culture, Hora notes, and employers often look for people who will fit into that culture, regardless of their technical skills. Maybe companies are looking for “purple squirrels” — candidates who are impossibly perfect for the position, who need no training. Maybe employers are looking for hard-working kids from Wisconsin farms, not the city kids from Milwaukee — preferences that signal some possible racial bias. Maybe the problem is less of a skills gap and more of a wage gap — Wisconsin companies are just not offering as much as employers in Chicago or Houston.
Lately, though, Hora and researchers at his Center for Research on College to Workforce Transitions have turned their attention to internships. Their importance to the college-to-career pipeline is well known. Hora points out that studies indicate that applicants are more likely to get a call back from prospective employers if an internship is listed on the resume, and students who had an internship in college were more likely to be employed and getting paid more five years after graduation, compared with students who didn’t have an internship. (Hora cites some statistics in an article this month in Fast Company, and his center has reviewed the research on internships.)
But Hora argues that internships can counterbalance, reflect, or drive larger inequities. Part of that gap in earnings, for example, might be explained by the fact that employers are increasingly using the internship as a kind of test run for future employees. In some ways, Hora told me during a recent visit in Madison, you can’t blame them. “Hiring is difficult, it takes a long time, it's expensive, and you don't always make good choices,” he said. “I get the rationale. It's just there's issues and problems with that that aren't talked about enough.”
Much of the discussion about internships centers on pay and exploitation. But which students find out about internships in the first place? What resources do you need to do one?
For starters, many internships are not widely advertised, Hora says, so you have to be something of an insider to find one. Right away, that narrows the pool.
But even well-advertised positions can be out of reach for a lot of students. “It’s very uncommon for a student to say that there is only one obstacle they’re facing in accessing an internship,” Hora says. “It's often a combination of things.” According to his research, many students work to pay for college and support families while in school, and few can quit a full-time position to land a part-time or temporary one. Many internships require transportation, and nearly 20 percent of the students who had not landed an internship in Hora’s study said the lack of a car was a barrier. And internship opportunities are often clearest for students majoring in business, engineering, nursing, or other fields with direct paths into work; for students majoring in social sciences, arts, and humanities, finding internships can be difficult.
These factors disproportionately affect first-generation students, Hora says, which means that “the whole reproduction-of-privilege thing is highly problematic.”
Within colleges themselves, Hora notes, the organization and approach to internships is starting to cause tensions. Some colleges are seeking to centralize internship efforts, but individual departments worry that trend will interfere with relationships they have with employers. And while college administrators are starting to push internship requirements, given the demand from parents and students, Hora often hears career-services counselors complain that institutions aren’t providing the resources needed to set students up with those opportunities.
Colleges and employers can start to address these issues by being more intentional about how internships are set up and supported. Internships should not be considered a one-size-fits-all solution for giving students work experience, he says. Students should have more of a role in designing internship opportunities, to address some of the barriers above.
While students should offer input on internships, colleges also need to guide students on how to engage an employer in an internship. Students are aware that an internship is an important thing to list on a resume, but if they approach it as they might approach a required course — as an obligation or mere hoop they have to jump through — they could end up squandering the experience. This is particularly true when it comes to cultivating so-called soft skills, says Hora. There is a widespread assumption that internships naturally confer soft skills, but Hora is skeptical, given how difficult it is to teach those skills. Internships need a “deliberate focus” on those attributes.
Clearly, given the limited number of internships and the challenges in landing them, students need other kinds of real-world learning and work experience. Microinternships — with shorter durations and fewer work demands — could be one way to provide opportunities to more students.
But there might be solutions in well-worn practices at colleges. In Australia, Hora says, colleges are starting to shift toward work-integrated learning, like problem-based learning courses, undergraduate research, and other techniques that colleges have been doing for decades.
“It's not just repackaging them,” he says. “It's kind of recognizing that those opportunities that are linked to authentic problems from a nonacademic professional setting, if done well, can be just as good as an internship.”
Entry-level workers can lose 6% of their wages if they don’t have this
February 1, 2020 | By Matthew T. Hora
From: Fast Company
When her college started requiring students to complete an internship in order to graduate, it created a serious dilemma for Janelle.
“I wouldn’t be able to do classes, do the internship, and work to make money—which is kind of important because I’m basically just paying for school as I can,” Janelle said in an interview for a study of internships during her junior year in South Carolina.
Janelle is by no means alone. Of the 1,060 students at five colleges and universities who answered “no” to having taken an internship for our University of Wisconsin at Madison-based College Internship Study survey, 676—or 64%—stated that they had actually hoped to take an internship but could not. The schools were located in Maryland, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.
The inability to take internships is a problem because internships serve as an important signal that students are ready to enter the workforce. In a recent study, students who listed an internship on their résumé received 14% more offers for an interview than those who did not. And evidence is growing that internships also lead to lower rates of unemployment after graduation, higher wages, and even better grades than students who don’t have an internship. More specifically, students who had an internship have 15% lower unemployment, 6% higher wages five years after graduation, and final-year grades that are 3.4% higher than those who did not have an internship.
These impacts on students’ academic success and career prospects are one of the main reasons that internships are being promoted as a “high-impact” practice that colleges and universities should encourage all students to pursue. But our data indicate that such advocacy is problematic. What we found is that access to internships—at least the ones that are unpaid or that pay very little—favor wealthy students who can more easily forego a paycheck in order to get the valuable experience.
We found five significant obstacles that make it difficult for some students to take an internship.
1. THE NEED TO WORK PAID JOBS
The most commonly reported obstacle that prevented students from taking an internship was the simple fact that they had to continue to work their full- or part-time job. Sixty percent, or 405, of the students who wanted to take an internship but could not cited this obstacle.
Among all college students, 43% percent of full-time and 81% of part-time undergraduate students work. These jobs help to pay for the constantly rising cost of tuition, as well as groceries, housing, and transportation. And for the growing numbers of older students who support relatives and have bills to pay, it is simply not practical to quit a well-paying and secure job for a short-term internship that would probably pay less.
2. TOO MANY CLASSES
Fifty-six percent—or 376 students—among those who told us they couldn’t work an internship cited a demanding course load as the reason why. This was especially true for students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, where courses require laboratory time and lots of homework.
A demanding course load was most frequently reported by full-time students and those who work part-time. Considering that 71% of college students who work part-time jobs actually put in 20 hours or more, time is still scarce for these students. As one student noted, such a life leads to “back-to-back-to-back scheduling” with little time for self-care, much less an internship.
3. OPPORTUNITIES MAY BE SCARCE
Students from the social sciences, arts, and humanities frequently reported having difficulties locating an internship, much less one that was paid. With research indicating that students in arts and creative disciplines have fewer paid internship opportunities, many students in these fields face the dual obstacle of too few openings and the lack of a decent paycheck.
For the 45%, or 301 students, in our study who did not take internships, the lack of internship opportunities in their field or even their place of residence was a major obstacle. But it would be a mistake to think that the challenges of finding an internship were limited to the art history and English majors. One student in a physics and applied math program in Wisconsin explained that he had not taken an internship simply because “There aren’t any here offered for me in my field.”
4. UNPAID OR POORLY PAID INTERNSHIPS
Thirty-three percent, or 224 of the students who could not take internships, cited the lack of pay as the reason why. As Janelle stated, “My biggest struggle is most of them are unpaid—I am 26, getting married in a year, trying to do adult things, and not getting paid for several months is just not something I can afford to do right now.” Quite simply, working for free or for a low wage is simply not feasible for many college students.
On top of coming with low or no pay, many internships—particularly those in finance, government, arts, and media, or political science—are located in expensive cities that require relocation, big rents, and high daily living expenses. While national data on the prevalence of unpaid internships are not available, 34% of the student interns in our study worked without a paycheck. Besides the lack of pay being a deal breaker for many students, the evidence also indicates that unpaid internships are negatively correlated with students’ future wages and employment outcomes, which highlights the problematic nature of unpaid work for college students.
5. LACK OF TRANSPORTATION
Transportation was an obstacle for 19% or 129 of the noninterns in our study. For these students, not having a car effectively limited their options to on-campus internships or those accessible by public transportation.
When thinking about these obstacles, it’s important to keep in mind that some students face two or more of these intersecting obstacles at once. This, in turn, leaves students from wealthy, well-connected, and privileged families in a better position when it comes to securing internships that could be a critical link to their first job.
As Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, stated in an op-ed about America’s “internship-industrial complex,” the current state of affairs cannot last, because too “many promising young people with limited means are denied the chance to rise as high as their talent will take them.” This is why in the College Internship Study we are also documenting promising strategies that our partner institutions are pursuing to make internships more accessible for all college students, such as course-embedded projects, undergraduate research, and even micro-internships, that provide students with short-term projects that employers need completed but also introduce them to the world of precarious “gig” labor.
Until colleges and universities devote more resources to creating support systems for students struggling with these obstacles, the realities of working another shift, demanding coursework, and the lack of a car will keep too many students from “opening the door of opportunity” that an internship represents.
Matthew T. Hora is an assistant professor of adult and higher education and director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
African Americans Take on More Education Debt—And the Payoff Is Complicated
January 28, 2020 | By Jaymes Pyne and Eric Grodsky
When seeking graduate and professional degrees, African Americans take on over 50% more debt than white students. On the upside, African Americans also see a bigger payoff to earning such degrees. Whether or not that payoff is enough to make up for the additional debt burden is unclear.
These are some key takeaways from a study we released in January 2020 in the journal Sociology of Education that examined graduate school debt. We are researchers who study issues of inequality and disadvantage in education. Our findings come at a time when there is an ongoing public debate about whether higher education is worth the cost. We believe these debates represent a paradox for African Americans who are seeking education beyond a bachelor’s degree.
On the one hand, graduate school enables African Americans to climb into higher income brackets. But this upward economic mobility comes at a steep upfront financial cost.
Large differences found
For 2016, we estimate that the average white graduate student borrowed about US$28,000 while an average African American graduate student took out $43,000 to pay for their education, even when they had comparable levels of parent income, education and other resources important for educational attainment.
We found that African American graduates with an advanced degree had higher pay increases than their white peers – but not necessarily higher pay.
While a 2016 master’s degree graduate who is white could expect an 18% bump in earnings for their degree, African American master’s degree graduates could expect around a 30% bump in earnings compared to having a bachelor’s degree alone, according to our study. Among doctoral degree holders, white graduates could expect around a 55% bump compared to a 65% increase in earnings for African Americans with doctoral degrees.
Among those with professional degrees – needed to become, say, an eye doctor or a lawyer – white graduates earned 120% more than their bachelor’s degree counterparts who were also white. By comparison, African American graduates earned 142% more than those with a bachelor’s degree who are African American.
It may be tempting to conclude that African American students should aim for an advanced degree. But the reality is more complicated than that. That extra bump African American advanced degree earners get simply puts their pay close to that of their white peers with the same degree. African American advanced degree holders are not typically making more than their white peers, even though they borrow much more to earn those degrees.
Let’s take the case of average white and African American advance degree graduates with identical incomes and identical monthly student loan payment amounts of $300. Given a constant 6% interest rate compounded monthly, it would take the average white student just over 10 years to pay off the principal and interest of their $28,000 in student loans. By contrast, it would take the average African American student 21 years to pay off the principal and interest of their $43,000 in student loans with the same $300 rate.
For these reasons, taking on large amounts of student debt may perpetuate racial inequalities across generations. For instance, debt can make it more difficult for highly educated African American parents to support their own children’s educational aspirations. If a person who has a child right after graduate school invested $300 per month to their child’s college fund versus paying off their own student debt, with a 4% rate of return they could expect to have roughly $44,000 toward their child’s college education in 10 years.
The bigger picture
With student debt nearing $1.6 trillion dollars nationally, people worry that student debt is the next financial bubble that could topple the U.S. economy. They also worry that student loans may be financially crushing an entire generation.
But our research suggests that when it comes to the nation’s $1.6 trillion student debt problem, it pays to look beyond just student loans for four-year degrees. We found that nearly half the nation’s student debt is held by households where at least one member has an advanced degree. These are households that typically enjoy relatively high incomes.
For that reason, any talk about student loan debt should take into account the debt held not just by people with four-year degrees. If disparities in student loan debt are going to be addressed, they must be addressed among people who hold graduate degrees, too.
Dramatic fallout: Telling the story of a play labeled ‘Indecent’
January 26, 2020 | By Gena Kittner
From Wisconsin State Journal | Madison.com
5 obstacles that stop many students from taking an internship
January 24, 2020 | By Matt Hora
From The Conversation
When her college started requiring students to complete an internship in order to graduate, it created a serious dilemma for Janelle.
“I wouldn’t be able to do classes, do the internship and work to make money – which is kind of important because I’m basically just paying for school as I can,” Janelle said in an interview for a study of internships during her junior year in South Carolina.
Janelle is by no means alone. Of the 1,060 students at five colleges and universities who answered “no” to having taken an internship for our University of Wisconsin–Madison based College Internship Study survey, 676 – or 64% – stated that they had actually hoped to take an internship but could not. The schools were located in Maryland, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
The inability to take internships is a problem because internships serve as an important signal that students are ready to enter the workforce. In a recent study, students who listed an internship on their resume received 14% more offers for an interview than those who did not. And evidence is growing that internships also lead to lower rates of unemployment after graduation, higher wages, and even better grades than students who don’t have an internship. More specifically, students who had an internship have 15% lower unemployment, 6% higher wages five years after graduation, and final year grades that are 3.4% higher than those who did not have an internship.
These impacts on students’ academic success and career prospects are one of the main reasons that internships are being promoted as a “high-impact” practice that colleges and universities should encourage all students to pursue. But our data indicate that such advocacy is problematic. What we found is that access to internships – at least the ones that are unpaid or that pay very little – favor wealthy students who can more easily forego a paycheck in order to get the valuable experience.
We found five significant obstacles that make it difficult for some students to take an internship.
1. The need to work paid jobs
The most commonly reported obstacle that prevented students from taking an internship was the simple fact that they had to continue work their full- or part-time job. Sixty percent, or 405, of the students who wanted to take an internship but could not cited this obstacle.
Among all college students, 43% percent of full-time and 81% of part-time undergraduate students work. These jobs help to pay for the constantly rising cost of tuition, as well as groceries, housing and transportation. And for the growing numbers of older students who support relatives and have bills to pay, it is simply not practical to quit a well-paying and secure job for a short-term internship that would probably pay less.
2. Too many classes
Fifty-six percent – or 376 students – among those who told us they couldn’t work an internship cited a demanding course load as the reason why. This was especially true for students majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, where courses require laboratory time and lots of homework.
A demanding course load was most frequently reported by full-time students and those who work part-time. Considering that 71% of college students who work part-time jobs actually put in 20 hours or more, time is still scarce for these students. As one student noted, such a life leads to “back-to-back-to-back scheduling” with little time for self-care, much less an internship.
3. Opportunities may be scarce
Students from the social sciences, arts and humanities frequently reported having difficulties locating an internship, much less one that was paid. With research indicating that students in arts and creative disciplines have fewer paid internship opportunities, many students in these fields face the dual obstacle of too few openings and the lack of a decent paycheck.
For 45%, or 301 students, in our study who did not take internships, the lack of internship opportunities in their field or even their place of residence was a major obstacle. But it would be a mistake to think that the challenges of finding an internship were limited to the art history and English majors. One student in a physics and applied math program in Wisconsin explained that he had not taken an internship simply because, “There aren’t any here offered for me in my field.”
4. Unpaid or poorly paid internships
Thirty-three percent, or 224 of the students who could not take internships, cited the lack of pay as the reason why. As Janelle stated, “My biggest struggle is most of them are unpaid - I am 26, getting married in a year, trying to do adult things and not getting paid for several months is just not something I can afford to do right now.” Quite simply, working for free or for a low wage is simply not feasible for many college students.
On top of coming with low or no pay, many internships – particularly those in finance, government, arts and media, or political science – are located in expensive cities that require relocation, big rents and high daily living expenses. While national data on the prevalence of unpaid internships are not available, 34% of the student interns in our study worked without a paycheck. Besides the lack of pay being a deal-breaker for many students, the evidence also indicates that unpaid internships are negatively correlated with students’ future wages and employment outcomes, which highlights the problematic nature of unpaid work for college students.
5. Lack of transportation
Transportation was an obstacle for 19%, or 129 of the non-interns in our study. For these students, not having a car effectively limited their options to on-campus internships or those accessible by public transportation.
When thinking about these obstacles, it’s important to keep in mind that some students face two or more of these intersecting obstacles at once. This in turn leaves students from wealthy, well-connected and privileged families in a better position when it comes to securing internships that could be a critical link to their first job.
As Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, stated in an op-ed about America’s “internship-industrial complex,” the current state of affairs cannot last, because too “many promising young people with limited means are denied the chance to rise as high as their talent will take them.” This is why in the College Internship Study we are also documenting promising strategies that our partner institutions are pursuing to make internships more accessible for all college students, such as course-embedded projects, undergraduate research and even micro-internships, which provide students with short-term projects that employers need completed but also introduce them to the world of precarious “gig” labor.
Until colleges and universities devote more resources to creating support systems for students struggling with these obstacles, the realities of working another shift, demanding coursework and the lack of a car will keep too many students from “opening the door of opportunity” that an internship represents.
African Americans take on more debt for grad school – but the payoff is also bigger
January 23, 2020 | By Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Jaymes Pyne, Stanford University
When seeking graduate and professional degrees, African Americans take on over 50% more debt than white students. On the upside, African Americans also see a bigger payoff to earning such degrees. Whether or not that payoff is enough to make up for the additional debt burden is unclear.
These are some key takeaways from a study we released in January 2020 in the journal Sociology of Education that examined graduate school debt. We are researchers who study issues of inequality and disadvantage in education.
Our findings come at a time when there is an ongoing public debate about whether higher education is worth the cost. We believe these debates represent a paradox for African Americans who are seeking education beyond a bachelor’s degree. On the one hand, graduate school enables African Americans to climb into higher income brackets. But this upward economic mobility comes at a steep upfront financial cost.
Large differences found
For 2016, we estimate that the average white graduate student borrowed about US$28,000 while an average African American graduate student took out $43,000 to pay for their education, even when they had comparable levels of parent income, education and other resources important for educational attainment.
We found that African American graduates with an advanced degree had higher pay increases than their white peers – but not necessarily higher pay.
While a 2016 master’s degree graduate who is white could expect an 18% bump in earnings for their degree, African American master’s degree graduates could expect around a 30% bump in earnings compared to having a bachelor’s degree alone, according to our study.
Among doctoral degree holders, white graduates could expect around a 55% bump compared to a 65% increase in earnings for African Americans with doctoral degrees.
Among those with professional degrees – needed to become, say, an eye doctor or a lawyer – white graduates earned 120% more than their bachelor’s degree counterparts who were also white. By comparison, African American graduates earned 142% more than those with a bachelor’s degree who are African American.
It may be tempting to conclude that African American students should aim for an advanced degree. But the reality is more complicated than that. That extra bump African American advanced degree earners get simply puts their pay close to that of their white peers with the same degree. African American advanced degree holders are not typically making more than their white peers, even though they borrow much more to earn those degrees.
Let’s take the case of average white and African American advance degree graduates with identical incomes and identical monthly student loan payment amounts of $300. Given a constant 6% interest rate compounded monthly, it would take the average white student just over 10 years to pay off the principal and interest of their $28,000 in student loans. By contrast, it would take the average African American student 21 years to pay off the principal and interest of their $43,000 in student loans with the same $300 rate.
For these reasons, taking on large amounts of student debt may perpetuate racial inequalities across generations. For instance, debt can make it more difficult for highly educated African American parents to support their own children’s educational aspirations. If a person who has a child right after graduate school invested $300 per month to their child’s college fund versus paying off their own student debt, with a 4% rate of return they could expect to have roughly $44,000 toward their child’s college education in 10 years.
The bigger picture
With student debt nearing $1.6 trillion dollars nationally, people worry that student debt is the next financial bubble that could topple the U.S. economy. They also worry that student loans may be financially crushing an entire generation.
But our research suggests that when it comes to the nation’s $1.6 trillion student debt problem, it pays to look beyond just student loans for four-year degrees. We found that nearly half the nation’s student debt is held by households where at least one member has an advanced degree. These are households that typically enjoy relatively high incomes.
For that reason, any talk about student loan debt should take into account the debt held not just by people with four-year degrees. If disparities in student loan debt are going to be addressed, they must be addressed among people who hold graduate degrees, too.
Does America Really Want More Black Teachers? If So, Supporting HBCUs is the Answer.
January 21, 2020 | By Tina and Trina Fletcher
From Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
During last year’s September 12th presidential debate held at Texas Southern University, an HBCU in Houston, Senator Kamala Harris, a graduate of Washington, DC’s premier HBCU Howard University, introduced her plan to allocate “$2 trillion [dollars] into investing in our HBCUs for teachers”. According to her campaign website, “teachers of color are significantly underrepresented in our education system.” Harris’ plan and promise were timely given the fiscal challenges some HBCUs face due, in part, to ongoing inequities in federal and state funding. According to Howard University education professor Dr. Deena Khalil, “…any one of [the major research institutions] receive more than all of the Black colleges combined.”
Black Teachers Matter.
In 2016, the National Center for Education Statistics reported 75% of students who earned a Bachelor’s degree in education were White and according to scholar Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings’ book Crossing Over to Canaan, America’s teacher educators are 88% White. Nonetheless, a 2016 study by Cherng and Halpin found that students of all races prefer teachers of color. Additionally, the study found that students have a more positive rating of Latino and Black teachers, in particular. Despite these findings, Black teachers make up less than 8% of the teacher workforce and that percentage is declining. These findings are particularly significant because scholars also argue that teachers of color have higher expectations for their students and are more culturally sensitive. Thus, the need for more teachers of color, especially Black teachers, is a necessary call to action. As Dr. William Hayes, a Black male principal with Morehouse College (HBCU), Harvard University, and Vanderbilt University credentials puts it, “[Teachers of Color] are not afraid to articulate [to students]: You are Black, you are Latino; it’s not going to be easy for you, but we want you to be successful…”
A national call to action for more Black teachers is especially necessary when considering research shows Black teachers are less likely to suspend or expel students of a shared race. Thus, increasing the number of Black teachers can aid in eliminating the school-to-prison pipeline, a system 2019 national Teacher of the Year (TOY), Rodney Robinson, knows too well. The first Black male TOY since Thomas Fleming in 1992, Robinson teaches social studies in a Richmond juvenile detention center. Ironically, Fleming also taught social studies in juvenile detention center, an important coincidence considering the disproportionate impact the pipeline has on Black boys. As he travels the nation speaking to people with decision-making power, Robinson, a graduate of Virginia State University (HBCU), has made it his mission is to help increase the number of Black male teachers who currently make up just 2% of the teacher workforce.
Why HBCUs are the Answer.
According to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE,) HBCUs trained one-third of African American teaching candidates. And for the 25% of education majors who aren’t white, training to become teachers at PWIs can have a negative impact. In a 2001 Journal for Teacher Education article, scholar Christine Sleeter stated “for preservice students of color in predominantly White programs, the overwhelming presence of Whiteness can be silencing.” This has led some scholars to suggest the recruitment of Black teachers should start and be heavily focused around institutions with large percentages of Black students, HBCUs. A unique opportunity within the HBCU teacher preparation community includes single sex institutions Spelman College and Bennett College, both female focused, and Morehouse College, male focused, as they are well positioned to help increase the number of Black teachers because they “consistently strive to meet the needs of prospective Black educators.”
It Took a Village. Now, it will Take a Nation.
National calls for more Black teachers are not new. Both Carnegie and Holmes reports of the 1980s called for more teachers of color and in 2011, former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, made a national call to increase the number of Black male teachers while visiting Morehouse College in Atlanta. Several power players responded. The Walton Family Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation have all funded initiatives or organizations focused on increasing and supporting Black educators. In fact, the Kellogg Foundation has gone as far to support and fund an extensive framework for teacher education at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and a 3-year project focused on introducing high school Black males to teaching through HBCU partnerships. As a result, several grassroots organizations have launched and grown including the Black Male Educator Convening, Profound Gentlemen, and the Leading Men Fellowship, to name a few.
Increasing the number of Black teachers will take more than foundation support and verbal promises from presidential candidates. Policy makers and universities must rethink teacher preparation in its entirety. Admissions and certification requirements along with other burdensome hurdles that disproportionately impact HBCUs and the overall pipeline of teacher production must be reconsidered. Education leaders, philanthropist and funding operators must continue to lift this topic in front of and behind closed doors in order to increase the number of Black teachers in America. If America is really interested in diversifying its teacher workforce, everyone at the table must decide that HBCUs are a vital piece of the puzzle and support them accordingly.
Tina L. Fletcher is an education policy doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania where she studies the recruitment and retention of Black male teachers and the school-to-prison pipeline. She is a former high school social studies teacher. Dr. Trina L. Fletcher is an assistant professor of Engineering Education at the Florida International University where her research focuses on HBCUs and their production Black STEM degree holders.
The Fletcher twins are natives of Arkansas and hope to improve the state’s education system through innovative solutions and strategic partnerships.
Education deserts: How geography impacts access to higher ed
January 13, 2020 | By Matt Zalaznick
A new map published by the Jain Family Institute seeks to draw more attention to another college access hurdle: geography.
Considering most students go to college close to home, the Institute’s researchers have developed the “School Concentration Index” to measure the number of options students have in different parts of the country and how a lack of competition in more rural areas may impact affordability.
“Tuition-free public universities alone cannot resolve inequalities in access across the country—indeed, rather than ‘choking out’ for-profits, the distribution of public colleges and universities appears to create markets for them in areas without a proximate public option,” the Institute’s researchers wrote in a blog accompanying the interactive map.
“Stark geographic disparities call for reconsidering and reassessing the demand and supply forces that are at play in the higher education market,” they wrote.
An October report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy found that “nearly 41 million American adults live 25 miles or more from the nearest university or college, or in areas where only a single community college offers accessible public higher education.”
The report, however, highlights strategies used in rural communities in California, Indiana and Texas, that have worked to expand postsecondary opportunities.
And around the country, organizations such as College Possible and College Advising Corps have extended virtual advising to rural high schools students to help them with the college search and application process, according to the Hechinger Report.
Rural students also could be getting a little help from Congress. A new bill, The Success for Rural Students and Communities Act, would support partnerships between school districts, colleges and the business community to help students enroll, graduate and find jobs, according to the Associated Press.
University of Wisconsin researcher Nicholas Hillman has identified education deserts in urban and suburban areas as well. In 2016, he told University Business that two of the largest education deserts in the nation existed in Columbia, South Carolina, and the area around Lexington-Lafayette, Kentucky.
Each community features a flagship state school (University of South Carolina and the University of Kentucky), but their acceptance rates had fallen below broad-access. The smaller private schools in those communities didn’t cover the access gap, Hillman told UB.
“The access issue has been hijacked by economists who believe that if we get better information into the hands of consumers, they will shop around,” Hillman said. “But that doesn’t fit into the reality of working-class families.”
