The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office announced April 9 a new online accountability tool that shows a clear picture of student academic progress in each of the state’s 112 colleges.
The Student Success Scorecard is intended to aid colleges in assessing their own programs by charting a record of progress over time, according to a press release from the chancellor’s office.
“What’s important here is this is a conversation about student success based on data, not anecdote,” said Linda Thor, chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza community college district, in a recorded teleconference.
She said the new scorecard has already created conversation on De Anza and Foothill campuses and in the community about ways to improve current college programs.
In the conference call, Chancellor Brice Harris emphasized that the system is not intended to compare colleges.
“These colleges are very different institutions serving very different populations … so the scorecard really is seen as a way to have an institution work hard to improve itself,” Harris said in the teleconference. He described it as a tool to make the colleges more accountable to the public.
The survey is an updated, more transparent version of the former Statewide Accountability Report of Community Colleges, according to Harris’ office. The refined survey profiles each college and reports its students’ academic success by demographic groups.
De Anza College has many departments to assist students such as the Student Success Center, Student Success & Retention Services, Academic Skills Center and Counseling and Academic Services.
“The strategy is to flood the students with help: counseling, tutoring and a sense of community,” De Anza President Brian Murphy told The San Francisco Chronicle.
“A lot of faculty and staff work really hard to build community among students,” said Diana Alves de Lima, co-director of De Anza’s Student Success Center.
De Anza has a culture that cares about students and a leadership willing to devote the resources to that, she said.
The California Community Colleges Student Success Scorecard is available online at: http://scorecard.cccco.edu/scorecard.aspx
