The University of California has a long-standing commitment to the goal of enrolling a student body that encompasses the diversity of the state of California. The University values and seeks diversity. Diversity at the University contributes in a direct and positive way to the educational experience, and also serves to provide opportunity and social mobility to all sectors of society.

In its earliest years, the University focused on geographic diversity by recruiting students from around the state to attend the Berkeley campus. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the focus on diversity shifted primarily to academic development among racial and ethnic minority groups with low rates of University eligibility.

In July 1995, the University of California Board of Regents passed resolution SP-1, a policy eliminating consideration of race, ethnicity, and gender in admissions. Recognizing the potential impact of SP-1 on diversity in future student enrollment, The Regents established the Outreach Task Force to identify ways in which outreach -- programs to help make prospective students aware of, and prepared for, the educational opportunities of the University -- could be employed to assure that the University remains accessible to students of diverse backgrounds. The charge to the Task Force as specified in SP-1 is 

In SP-1, The Regents indicated that this Task Force should include broad statewide representation. Thus, the Task Force is comprised of 35 members, including representatives from the UC Board of Regents; faculty, staff, and student representatives from all UC campuses; representatives from business and industry; representatives from the state’s major educational sectors, including K-12, California Community Colleges, and the California State University; and officials from state of California agencies, including the California Postsecondary Education Commission and the California Department of Education.

A. Task Force Findings

The Task Force began its deliberations in February 1996 and immediately initiated a review of the University’s current outreach goals, strategies, programs, and activities. In the course of this review, the Task Force collected both statewide and national data on student achievement and the effects of outreach programs aimed at college readiness.^,

 1. Educational Disadvantage: The data reviewed by the Task Force revealed that a significant obstacle to expanding minority enrollment in higher education is educational disadvantage. Review of performance indicators, school-by-school, shows a continuing pattern of differing outcomes for racial and ethnic groups in California’s school system, with groups least represented in higher education remaining most concentrated in the lowest-performing schools. Almost 4 out of every 5 students in these schools are either African American, American Indian, or Latino -- groups with historically low rates of UC eligibility and enrollment. While factors outside of the schools also influence these outcomes, it is clear that the role of the schools is critical and that school improvement provides the most effective single means by which the University can assist in providing equitable opportunities for UC access by all students. These findings suggest that University outreach programs must develop a comprehensive, well integrated plan coordinated with schools if these programs are to continue to be a force for diversity within a post-SP-1 environment. Elements of this plan should address school culture broadly, including instruction, curriculum, advising, student engagement in learning, and parent involvement. Early intervention also was identified as an important element to be emphasized in this process.

B. Four-Point Strategy for UC Outreach

In response to these findings, the Task Force proposes a four-point outreach strategy that includes short-term, intermediate-term and long-term efforts to assist students in overcoming educational disadvantages while also attracting to the University a student body broadly representative of the state:

1.  School-centered Partnerships: Each UC campus should work intensively with a select number of regional partner schools to help improve opportunities for college preparation and to foster a school culture that promotes academic success and high educational standards. This effort also should include a partnership in the Central Valley. Partner schools (including high schools and associated "feeder" junior high and elementary schools) should be selected based on evidence of significant educational disadvantage, such as limited availability of college preparatory courses or low college-going rates, but also based on their potential for improvement and their willingness to participate in collaborative efforts. School-centered outreach is a long-term strategy designed to deal with the underlying causes of low UC eligibility and enrollment rates among students in disadvantaged circumstances.  
   
2. Academic Development Programs: As an intermediate-term strategy, the Task Force proposes expansion of existing effective academic development programs such as the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP), the Puente Project, and the Mathematics, Science, Engineering Achievement program (MESA). These programs provide special academic enrichment opportunities for K-12 students and have a record of success, as measured by the number of program participants who subsequently become eligible for, and enroll at, UC and other postsecondary education institutions. In addition to K-12 outreach, the academic development model can be successfully applied in community college as well as undergraduate and graduate student outreach and merits expansion in these areas.
    
3. Informational Outreach: Primarily as a short-term strategy, the Task Force recommends an aggressive program of informational outreach to provide better and more timely information to students, families, teachers and counselors to improve planning and preparation for college. Using a variety of media -- publications, videos, computer technology -- the University should provide materials to alert students and their families, especially during the critical early stages of planning for college, to the course work, achievement levels, and type of individual engagement required for sound preparation. This media program also should address the perception in many communities that the University has lessened its commitment to diversity. Students and families must hear that commitment reaffirmed and receive information on the University’s new plans for outreach supporting this commitment.
    
4. University Research and Evaluation: The University is charged as the public research institution of the state of California and this research expertise should be brought to bear in a much more coordinated and focused way on the educational needs identified by the Task Force. Thus, as a final component of its proposed strategy, the Task Force recommends harnessing the University’s research expertise more systematically in: 1) identifying the root causes of educational disparity within California’s school system from K-12 through postsecondary education; and 2) evaluating the effectiveness of the University’s outreach programs and suggesting modifications of these programs to the administration.

The Task Force recommends a comprehensive framework for implementing these four outreach approaches. In addition to the system of regional partnerships noted above, this framework includes: 1) specific numerical outcomes for each approach; 2) assignment of responsibility for results; and 3) a resource plan, including identification of new resources required to implement the outreach strategies proposed herein.  

C. The Critical Role of Faculty and Teachers

While additional financial resources will be required, the Task Force believes that one of the most important factors for the success of the outreach approaches proposed involves human resources, particularly faculty and teachers. UC faculty participation in outreach efforts is essential for two reasons. The first involves evaluation and assessment of outreach programs. A problem the Task Force has encountered during its work is the lack of rigorous research and evaluation of outreach program methodology and outcomes. To address this problem, the Task Force recommends charging faculty-based research units, new or existing, to coordinate research, development, and evaluation of University outreach programs. Establishment of such research units also could go far in addressing a second problem noted by the Task Force, namely, the fact that outreach often is viewed as a peripheral, rather than a core, University function. By involving UC faculty more centrally in research and in intellectual inquiry focused on the continuum of learning from K-12 through undergraduate and graduate instruction, the Task Force believes that the proposed research units could help elevate the importance of outreach both within the faculty reward system and within the University as a whole.

For "school-centered" outreach to be effective at the K-12 level, teachers, counselors, and principals in partner schools must be centrally involved at each stage of the process. Teachers are the key to building a school culture that supports high academic standards, and the UC/K-12 partnership efforts will depend in the long run on an enhanced commitment to recruit, develop, and retain this key group of educators, as well as to support and carry out research and development efforts in teacher education. 

D. Statewide Educational Convocation

The Outreach Task Force recognizes that its work is only one element in the broader context of national and state educational reform. In view of the many different K-12 efforts now beginning or underway, the Task Force recommends a convocation of the State’s educational, governmental, and business leadership. As a result of this convocation, leadership should survey the full range of ongoing educational innovation and reform, and move to better coordinate these efforts in a collaborative way. The convocation should seek to promote consensus on priorities for enlarging and developing the interest and involvement of all sectors of society in the higher levels of academic achievement that are an imperative to meet the distinctive challenges the new century presents. 

E. Conclusion

The Outreach Task Force believes that the comprehensive plan proposed, comprising a balanced set of short-, medium-, and long-range outreach activities along with focused research and continuous evaluation, will best enable the University to achieve its goal of a diverse student body. If fully implemented, the plan can help to fulfill The Regents’ charge to increase the preparation and enrollment of students in disadvantaged circumstances at the University.  

The University of California welcomes and seeks diversity. The University has long supported outreach programs designed to enhance opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds to enroll at the University. The importance of enrolling a student body that reflects the diversity of the state was recognized as early as 1868 in the Organic Act founding the University of California: "It shall be the duty of the Regents … to so apportion the representation of students, when necessary, that all portions of the State shall enjoy equal privilege therein." Over a century later in 1974, the California Legislature, in a statement of Legislative intent, extended this concept to include not only geographic but other dimensions of diversity: "Each segment of California public higher education shall strive to approximate … the general ethnic, sexual and economic composition of the recent high school graduates." In 1988, The Regents expanded this mandate still further to apply not only to the University as a whole, but to each campus of the University: "The University seeks to enroll, on each of its campuses, a student body that, beyond meeting the University’s eligibility requirements, demonstrates high academic achievement or exceptional personal talent, and that encompasses the broad diversity of cultural, racial, geographic, and socio-economic backgrounds characteristic of California." 

A. K-12 Outreach: Addressing the Academic Preparation Gap

In practice, however, diversity has remained an elusive goal. The main obstacle to achieving a more diverse student body stems from the gap between the high standard of academic preparation required for admission to the University of California, on the one hand, and the very different rates at which eligibility is achieved among high school graduates from different social backgrounds, on the other. Figure 1, for example, shows UC eligibility rates across different racial and ethnic categories.

Just as there are substantial differences in UC-eligibility rates across racial and ethnic groups, so too there are significant disparities in eligibility rates among high school graduates from different income groups and from different geographic regions. Figure 2 illustrates differences in UC eligibility rates across the major regions of California.

These disparate eligibility rates illustrate the magnitude of differences in academic preparation among groups and the limited opportunities for students in some groups to enroll at UC; University outreach programs were developed as a means to address this fundamental inequity. During the 1970s and ‘80s, a variety of new programs were established to provide services directly to K-12 students, including academic enrichment and support, counseling, parental involvement, and motivational activities. These efforts included Universitywide programs such as the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) and the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program; campus-specific programs such as "Break the Cycle" at UC Berkeley; and non-University programs such as Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID). Outreach services focused especially on students from groups with below-average UC eligibility and enrollment rates – particularly minorities with historically low college-going rates, but also including low-income students, those from rural and other underserved geographic regions, and women in certain academic fields such as math and engineering – in order to "level the playing field" and improve college preparation. While many of these programs initially focused on students at the high school level, later efforts were increasingly aimed at the junior high/middle school level and even earlier in the educational "pipeline," recognizing the vital importance of early academic preparation in setting students on the path to college.

B. Outreach to Community Colleges

In addition to K-12 outreach, University outreach programs also were established during the 1970s and ‘80s to serve students at California’s community colleges. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education (1960), the University has a responsibility to provide an additional opportunity for students who may not be eligible for UC upon high school graduation to establish their eligibility through specified coursework at a community college and subsequently transfer to the University. Outreach at the transfer level is especially important because of the diversity of community college enrollment. Nearly 1.12 million students attend a California community college and over 300,000 students, or approximately 30 percent of the total, are African American, American Indian, or Latino. The transfer function thus has the potential to become a critical element in California’s commitment to educational equity for all segments of the population.

Outreach programs for community college students, such as Puente and MESA, have helped to increase diversity among transfer students to UC. Still, the growth of a diverse transfer student population at the University has been modest to date, especially among African American, American Indian and Chicano transfer students, indicating a need to expand current efforts and/or develop new initiatives.

C. Graduate/Professional School Outreach

A third area of outreach that emerged during the 1970’s and ‘80s was graduate and professional school outreach. The focus of these activities has been on enhancing both the quality and diversity of the University’s graduate and professional programs. A primary concern underlying graduate and professional outreach is the narrowing of the academic pipeline, especially for students from disadvantaged groups, as students complete their baccalaureate degrees and advance to graduate and professional school. Though relatively small in scope, graduate and professional outreach programs have assumed increasing significance over the past two decades given their role in helping diversify the pool from which the next generation of UC faculty will be drawn.

In July 1995, the UC Regents approved SP-1, eliminating consideration of race, ethnicity and gender in University admissions. Though SP-1 dealt primarily with UC admissions, its implications for University outreach also were significant.

First, by eliminating consideration of race, ethnicity and gender as "plus factors" in admissions, SP-1 greatly magnified the role of outreach as the primary means for achieving a demographically diverse student body. Without use of racial or ethnic criteria in admissions procedures, the University must develop its outreach programs to serve as its central and primary tool for achieving racial, ethnic and gender diversity within its student body. Recognizing this need, The Regents established the Outreach Task Force "

… to develop proposals for new directions and increased funding for the Board of Regents to increase the eligibility rate of those disadvantaged economically or in terms of their social environment."

As this language suggests, a second noteworthy feature of SP-1 was its emphasis on economic and other forms of "disadvantage." Guided by this intent, the concept of disadvantage has figured prominently in the Task Force’s deliberations. As used in this report, the term "disadvantage" or the phrase "disadvantaged circumstances" is defined broadly to include not only economic forms of disadvantage such as low family income, but other forms of educational and social disadvantage as well, including but not limited to: attending a school with a limited college preparatory curriculum; being the first generation in one’s family to attend college; residence in a community with low college-going rates; enrollment in a school with below-average SAT/ACT exam scores; and/or belonging to a group with below-average UC eligibility and enrollment rates. None of these circumstances in and of themselves is insurmountable, as numerous individual cases illustrate, but all are frequently associated with low probability of college attendance.

In the course of Task Force discussions, considerable attention was given to the questions of student eligibility for outreach services. The University’s outreach programs are open to all but, to the extent possible under the law, should emphasize increases in underrepresented racial and ethnic minority participation in postsecondary education.

Finally, a third important feature of SP-1 is the last section of the resolution:

 The key element of this section is the distinction it draws between ends and means. It distinguishes between the general goal of diversity, on the one hand, and the specific means used to achieve that goal, on the other. While rejecting racial, ethnic, and gender preferences in admissions as a means for achieving a diverse student body, SP-1 nevertheless upholds the general principle that the University should strive to be inclusive and to reflect the diversity of the state it serves. The challenge SP-1 poses for University outreach, in short, is how to achieve the broader goal of diversity even as the means for realizing that goal have been changed. As a first step in meeting that challenge, the University also must make clear its continuing commitment to diversity, reassuring students and communities concerned by recent changes in admission and other policies. Because practices used to promote diversity in the past are now changing, many have concluded that UC’s commitment to diversity is waning. Although admission criteria are changing, the objective of a diverse student body must remain a firm and demonstrable commitment of The Regents. Moreover, the University must make clear that practices promoting diversity are a means to an end and that changes now underway represent an evolution whose aim is unfaltering -- to provide broad access for all groups to UC campuses and programs.

It is sometimes assumed that racial and ethnic diversity can be achieved by focusing outreach activities strictly on prospective students who are economically disadvantaged. Based on the extensive body of data it has reviewed, however, the Task Force is persuaded that racial and ethnic disparities in college preparation and eligibility are not simply a reflection of economic disadvantage or low family income alone, but also reflect educational disadvantage. Thus, the Task Force believes that UC outreach in the future should focus primarily on helping to ameliorate this barrier to academic achievement.

Available evidence reveals the impact of educational disadvantage when income is held constant. Figure 3 below summarizes test results for all California high school graduates who took the SAT Test in 1995, with the test scores broken down simultaneously by race and income. (Although controversial, the SAT is the most widely available yardstick of students’ preparation for college; SAT data are presented here not to draw distinctions between groups, but to suggest the relative educational advantages and disadvantages typically experienced by students from different social backgrounds.)

As the data indicate, there are substantial differences in college preparation across different racial and ethnic groups -- even for students at the same income levels. Within every income category from lowest to highest, African American and Latino students average substantially lower on the SAT than Asian Americans and Whites. In fact, the differences are so large that the average SAT score for African Americans in the highest income category is actually below that of Whites and Asian Americans from families with the poorest incomes. (When similar studies are carried out on the pool of UC applicants only, the same result emerged.)

But if income or economic factors do not fully account for these differences, what does? Clearly, many factors influence student achievement. Students who excel usually value achievement and devote large amounts of time to mastery of subject matter at a high level. To strive for success, students must understand the value of education, believe in themselves and their ability to gain admission to a selective institution, and have a realistic sense of what will be required of them to attain that goal.

Family support also is a crucial variable. Families must provide a supportive environment that emphasizes the value of education. Wherever possible, families should involve themselves in monitoring their children’s educational progress through daily supervision of assignments, help in course selection, school visits, and frequent conversations with teachers and other school personnel. In addition, the role of peer culture in student success can be important. Academic achievement sometimes is viewed as a liability rather than an asset among adolescents. Finally, stereotyping of groups is sometimes pervasive (by the general population as well as the media, teachers, counselors, and even sometimes by family members), and leads to lower expectations that can have a very debilitating effect on some students’ achievement level.

These factors must be taken into account in understanding UC eligibility and enrollment patterns. At the same time, however, differences between schools -- including every level from pre-kindergarten to high school -- can significantly contribute to or detract from students’ academic aspirations and achievement. Broad structural patterns are apparent in the data. Most prominent are school-by-school differences in academic preparation. Data collected by the Task Force show a continuing pattern of racial and ethnic differences within California’s school system today: Those groups who are least represented in higher education remain most concentrated in the bottom tier of K-12 schools, as measured by a variety of academic performance indicators.

To illustrate, Figure 4 shows the proportion of those with lower-than-average UC eligibility and enrollment rates -- African American, American Indian and Latino students -- within each quintile of public high schools in California. The quintiles are based on school-wide average SAT scores in 1995, and each quintile represents approximately 150 schools. As Figure 4 demonstrates, the proportion of African American, American Indian and Latino enrollments increases sharply at each level as one moves from the top to the bottom tier of schools. These minority groups account for just 17% of enrollments among schools in the top quintile, but represent 79% -- almost 4 out of every 5 enrollments – within the bottom quintile of California public high schools.

From a structural point of view, it is this continuing concentration of minority students within the most disadvantaged learning environments that appears to contribute to a considerable extent, to group differences in college preparation and eligibility. The gap between the top and bottom schools -- and the very different learning environments they provide -- is illustrated graphically in Figure 5. Taking the top and bottom quintiles from Figure 4, Figure 5 compares these two groups of schools along a variety of social and educational indicators.

As Figure 5 shows, the profiles of the top and bottom schools differ sharply on almost every indicator. Geographically, schools in the top quintile tend to be located in suburban areas, while those in the bottom quintile are most often found either in urban or rural areas. Socially, a much higher proportion of students in the bottom quintile of schools receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children and have limited English proficiency than is the case among students in the top quintile of schools. Especially noteworthy is the difference between the two groups of schools in the proportion of fathers who possess a high school diploma or greater – a factor known to correlate strongly with college attendance for the next generation. Within the top quintile of schools, 90% of students’ fathers possess at least a high school degree, compared to 36% in the bottom quintile of schools. (Data on father’s education are from the California Department of Education’s database, which unfortunately does not provide data on mother’s education.)

Most significant for the Task Force’s purposes, all of the academic performance indicators in Figure 5 reveal substantial differences among the two groups of schools on measures such as 4-year completion rates, enrollment in "a-f" courses required for University admission, and qualification for Advanced Placement credits at the college level. The differences on standardized tests are particularly dramatic: only 33% of seniors within the bottom quintile of schools take the SAT, compared to 56% in the top quintile. And among those who do take the SAT, the average (combined) score in the bottom quintile is just 715, compared to 1007 in the top high schools. There can be little doubt about the differences in the learning environments the two groups of schools provide, and these differences, in turn, are reflected in college-going rates: 15% of graduates from the top quintile of schools go on to attend UC, compared to only 4% from the bottom quintile. Given the heavy concentration of African American, American Indian, and Latino children in the bottom tier of our public schools, their comparatively low UC eligibility and enrollment rates should come as little surprise.

What these findings suggest, in short, is that learning environments experienced by the students who are in these schools do not set them on a path to postsecondary education. Of course, students’ lives outside the school also play an important role in these patterns and cannot be ignored in efforts to improve educational outcomes. However, it is through schools (and with schools as the instrument and the path) that UC can have the most powerful influence in equalizing educational opportunities. University outreach efforts must focus primarily on educational disadvantage, not merely low income or economic disadvantage, if these programs are to continue to serve the goal of racial and ethnic diversity within a post-SP-1 environment. By focusing on areas of greatest educational disadvantage, University outreach can contribute most to the broader goal of diversity at the same time.

Based on its findings, the Outreach Task Force recommends the following two goals to reshape and expand University of California Outreach:

A. Contribute to the academic enrichment of UC campuses through a diverse student body.

A first priority is to reaffirm the importance of diversity as a core institutional value and as a continuing goal of University outreach programs. During its deliberations, the Task Force encountered the perception among many minority students and educators that, following Regents’ resolution SP-1, the University of California may no longer place as great a value on diversity as it once did. But diversity, including racial and ethnic diversity, remains a core institutional value for UC for two main reasons: first, because of its importance within the educational and academic environment, and second, because of the University’s responsibility as a public, land grant institution to serve all of the population of the state of California.

The educational rationale for diversity was first articulated in 1852 by John Henry Newman, while Rector of Dublin’s Catholic University. Newman urged bringing students from diverse backgrounds together because under such circumstances: 

Appreciation for the role of diversity in the educational environment has grown over the past century for several reasons. Diversity provides students a "laboratory experience" in pluralism. When students from a wide variety of locations, socioeconomic strata, ethnicities, races, experiences, and beliefs come together in a learning environment, the quality and texture of debate gains substantially in scope, energy, and strength. The "give and take" among students whose differing views grow out of varied experiences creates a fundamentally richer learning environment -- more engaging, more demanding, and more complex – than when students are merely "taught" about human differences. 

In addition, diversity is vital to the education of citizens in a democratic society. It provides for development of leadership from the many different strands that make up society, cultivating appreciation and respect among students for the variety of assumptions, experiences, expectations, and talents characteristic of the people of this state. 

Beyond the educational rationale for diversity, moreover, there is also a compelling institutional rationale that stems from the University of California’s status as a public, land grant institution. UC was established as a public trust, and its original charter, as set forth in the Organic Act of 1868, requires the University "… to so apportion the representation of students … that all portions of the State shall enjoy equal privilege therein." Implicit in this charter was the recognition that the University must serve all of the population of California in order to receive public funding and support. 

As the University looks now to the 21^st Century, this implicit social contract will once again be tested as it has over the past century. Projections indicate that that "Tidal Wave II" – the demographic bulge of additional new students now entering the K-12 "pipeline" who will reach college age over the next 10 to 15 years – will impact California higher education soon after the turn of the new century. Compared with the previous "baby boom" following World War II, however, "Tidal Wave II" will be far more diverse from a demographic standpoint. Projections indicate that growth in the number of new high school graduates will be greatest precisely among those minority groups whose current UC-eligibility and enrollment rates are lowest. Viewed from this perspective, the University’s continuing commitment to diversity – and the effectiveness of UC outreach programs in realizing this commitment – will be an increasingly important factor affecting the level of public funding and support for the University in the future.  

Beyond this, it is important for the economic and social well-being of California that a diverse and highly skilled workforce be available. California’s economy cannot remain strong and competitive unless a broad cross-section of its population is trained for management and leadership.

B. Improve opportunities for California students in disadvantaged circumstances to achieve eligibility and to enroll at UC campuses. 

For the University to achieve its aim of enrolling a student body that meets high academic standards and encompasses the broad diversity of California, students from all segments of the state’s population must be provided the resources needed for good academic preparation. Ideally, all students, regardless of where they live, and irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender, or family economic circumstance, should have the opportunity to develop their full educational potential.  

For students to develop this potential and to gain the skills necessary to participate in the University’s programs, young people need strong, well informed family involvement and support; excellent elementary and secondary school preparation; and personal initiative, drive, discipline, and motivation for college attendance. In fact, students in disadvantaged circumstances have far less access than others to all these educational resources; they and their families have less access to information about higher education, their schools are less well equipped to serve them, and the students themselves often lack experiences that promote educational aspirations.  

Moreover, helping students in disadvantaged circumstances to become minimally eligible to enter the University will not allow them to enroll at or participate in the University’s most selective campuses and programs. Within the University, different levels of competition prevail for admission to various academic programs and to various campuses. To participate in these academic arenas, students must make themselves competitively eligible – earning grades and completing coursework well beyond minimum admissions criteria. Given this, a significant commitment also will be required to provide the educational support that allows California’s most talented students to develop their potential so that they can compete for admission to all of the University’s programs, including those that are most demanding.  

Providing students in disadvantaged circumstances access to all the necessary tools to equip them not only for UC eligibility but for admission to the University’s most selective programs and campuses, requires a fundamental reshaping of current patterns of educational opportunity. Such a task is daunting, and acting alone, the University cannot make a significant difference for any substantial part of California’s K-12 population, nor is it charged with doing so. The University does, however, have a strong interest in, and capacity for, stimulating and contributing to improvement in the state’s educational system. And the University can provide unparalleled educational expertise and considerable resources for such an effort. Most importantly, it also can act as a catalyst for mobilizing groups and institutions in California with whom the University shares common concerns on this issue: families, schools, postsecondary institutions, community groups, the business sector, and students themselves. 

Thus the Task Force has concluded that, despite the challenge represented by this goal, the University must structure outreach programs that address the full breadth of forces and activities that contribute to student aspiration, motivation, and learning, and it must aim for full access for every student in California to excellent college preparatory programs. UC’s outreach programs must be at once: 1) broader, reaching more students and influencing their preparation in multiple ways; and 2) deeper and more far reaching, setting higher academic aims for students’ achievement levels to allow for choice in enrollment among UC campuses and programs.

In developing a plan to meet the outreach goals described above, the Task Force commissioned research and reviewed the extant literature to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the University’s current outreach efforts.

A. Independent Evaluations of Current UC Outreach

 Two research reports were especially influential: the California Postsecondary Education Commission’s (CPEC’s) Progress Report on the Effectiveness of Collaborative Student Academic Development Programs (1996) and a report commissioned by the Task Force and conducted by the Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) titled, Higher Education Outreach Programs: A Synthesis of Evaluations.

CPEC conducted a comprehensive evaluation of nine existing intersegmental academic development programs whose common purpose was to increase the eligibility and college-going rates of students from groups that have evidenced consistently low rates in the past. CPEC’s review included University efforts such EAOP, MESA, and the Urban School Community Collaborative. CPEC concluded that these programs were effective in preparing students from groups with low eligibility and college-going rates for admission and success in higher education and noted that

PACE synthesized research on state and national outreach programs and was commissioned to provide Task Force members a broader, more in-depth review of outreach programs in California and across the country. PACE noted that outreach programs 

PACE concluded, however, that there is little systematic, longitudinal research on the effectiveness of either student-centered and school-centered outreach programs, concluding that

Both the PACE and CPEC reports note the lack of data evaluating the substantive and long-term impact of University outreach programs, and recommend strongly that such on-going evaluation be made a more integral part of all University academic development programs. 

In addition to the lack of longitudinal data and control group data regarding program effectiveness, the University’s outreach programs, as presently configured and taken as a whole, are not organized to address systematically the array of interlocking challenges that students and families in disadvantaged circumstances face in preparing for college. Individual programs do not, for example, address underlying school, community, and environmental factors that often impede learning. In addition, current outreach programs have resources to enroll only a small fraction of the great number of students who could benefit from their services.
 

B. Elements for Future UC Outreach 

In addition to reviewing the recommendations of the PACE and CPEC reports the Task Force relied upon analyses conducted by its five subcommittees, which focused on specific outreach issues and student constituencies. From this review emerged three basic concerns: 1) the need for long-term research evaluating outreach and teaching outcomes; 2) insufficient outreach capacity; and 3) the lack of crucial educational resources.

With these concerns in mind, the Task Force developed a core of elements or cornerstones to help guide its development of a comprehensive plan that would meet the fundamental challenges of achieving diversity and assisting students in educationally disadvantaged circumstances. These elements provide that the University’s outreach efforts should seek to: 

• address the major factors that influence student learning, including achievement, and aspirations: schools and teacher expertise, families, and the students themselves [Pre-K-16, Community College, Communication and Technology, and Assessment];  

• aim for statewide change, beginning at a regional level, and drawing upon the expertise of educators across segments and levels, which will benefit all students [Pre-K-16, Community College, Graduate, and Assessment]; 

• grow and develop over time, and result in a steady narrowing of the gap in achievement between students in disadvantaged circumstances and others, employing short term, intermediate-term, and long-term strategies [Pre-K-16, Assessment, and Communication and Technology]; 

• include active and high-level participation of UC faculty to direct a strong research, training, and evaluation component to provide academic leadership and direction to outreach programs (including programs that have as a principal focus the preparation of new teachers to work effectively with students in educationally disadvantaged circumstances and low performing schools), and to assure that program practices are educationally sound and outcomes rigorously evaluated [Pre-K-16]; 

• recognize significant faculty contribution to outreach activities in the traditional University faculty reward structure [Pre-K-16]; 

• involve teachers and faculty as partners in University outreach [Pre-K-16, Graduate]; 

• produce increases in levels of both UC eligibility and competitive eligibility (admissibility at the most selective UC campuses) among students in disadvantaged circumstances [Pre-K-16 and Assessment]; 

• build upon existing outreach program efforts demonstrated to have been successful in the past, recognizing that these programs will need to reshape their goals and methodology to set higher expectations for students to adjust to the competitive climate, and coordinate efforts with programs addressing school and family needs [Pre-K-16, Assessment, and Graduate]; and 

• consider the full scope of students’ educational progress from kindergarten to graduate programs, and draw upon the capacity of all segments -- K-12, community colleges, and universities -- to develop students’ skills, employing a broader range of institutional resources, including University students and alumni, in outreach efforts [Pre-K-16, Community College, and Graduate]. 

C. Proposed Plan 

What follows is an outline of the plan developed by the Task Force to meet its two major goals of student diversity and assistance to students in disadvantaged circumstances. The plan proposes a four-point strategy addressing a broad range of issues influencing student achievement (as illustrated in Figure 6). Moreover, each strategy has a specific time-frame within which results are to be achieved: long-term, intermediate-term, or short-term:  

1. School-Centered Partnerships: Establish partnerships with a limited number of school systems in cooperation with local colleges and universities (especially community colleges and CSU) in regions served by UC campuses (including the Central Valley), with the aim of achieving major improvements in student learning outcomes in these partner schools. The partnerships will seek to effect broad scale changes in school culture and practice such that the college preparation and college-going rates of students attending these partner schools improve very substantially. An important element of this strategy involves organizing a consortium of all major educational institutions in a region to invest in school change at a limited number of sites, leveraging from all consortium members resources for maximum outcome in partner schools.
   
2. Academic Development: Expand successful current academic development programs to increase the number of students in disadvantaged circumstances who are eligible and competitively eligible to attend the University; and
   
3. Informational Outreach: Aggressively identify and educate families, early and throughout the academic process, to involve them much more deeply in their children’s planning and preparation for college and to encourage family support for school improvement. This process will be linked with intensive recruitment of students in disadvantaged circumstances for enrollment at UC, keeping in mind the role of families as key participants and decision makers in the educational process.
   
4. University of California Research Expertise: Bring the University’s research expertise to bear in a much more coordinated and focused way, first, to understand better the root causes of educational disparity within California’s educational "pipeline" from K-12 through undergraduate and graduate instruction, and second, to evaluate and assess outreach efforts and monitor and improve program effectiveness.

This proposal addresses the elements established by the Task Force as noted in part A above. Grounded at all of the University’s campuses and encompassing all regions of the state, it will build upon already proven efforts. The proposal is multi-dimensional with a long-term component addressing the root causes of under-achievement and linking all major educational sectors in California in a common purpose. It addresses the needs of California youth from an early age until University enrollment and aims to prepare students not just for University eligibility, but for academic competition at the most exacting levels. Finally, it draws on the expertise of University faculty in new and important ways and looks to the development of programs for recruitment and support of teachers in ways that the University is best equipped to effect.

1. School-Centered Partnerships

• a motivated administration committed to making significant improvement in student performance; 

• a dedication to high academic standards and the development of evaluation methods that measure desirable outcomes; 

• a core group of teachers who are willing to participate in K-12/University sponsored curriculum and professional development; 

• a cadre of counselors and teachers who are willing to serve as key contacts for University outreach staff, and participate in postsecondary education outreach activities to schools ( e.g., as program advisors or classroom teachers, participants in counselor conferences, and visits to University campuses, and participants on University committees); 

• a willingness to help seek new funding for school improvement projects and to provide matching resources for K-12/University partnerships; 

• a commitment to acquire the tools for full access and use of the Internet;  

• a motivated parent group willing to recruit other families to participate in school improvement activities; and 

• a group of community-based organizations (churches, businesses, nonprofits) in close proximity who are willing to work to improve student academic performance.

• Integration of educational theory, research, and practice;
  
• Scholarship that identifies and responds to the needs and problems of schooling and is of value to both the academic community and the field;
  
• Collaboration across communities, institutions, and agencies;
  
• Collaboration within the University; and
  
• Responsible learning communities.

An example of a new and growing program embodying these values is the Community Teaching Fellowship (CTF), which recruits new teachers in mathematics and science to work in low-income, urban areas. At UCLA this program recruits mathematics students to tutor K-12 students and provides a stipend for supervised internships in urban schools. To date, 65 new math and science teachers have entered disadvantaged schools in Los Angeles by virtue of this program. 

Retention of Teachers at Partner Schools: Research shows that half or more of new teachers in low-performing schools leave within one year. In addition to preparation and recruitment, therefore, it is essential to provide ongoing support for teachers in these schools. 

The Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program is an example of a programs that has proven effective in reducing attrition among teachers and that also might be usefully expanded in support of school-centered outreach efforts. BTSA is a competitive grants program sponsored by the California Department of Education. The program employs veteran teachers to advise new teachers and assist with short and long-term planning, demonstrate classroom management strategies, provide curriculum resources, and so forth. Several UC campuses, in collaboration with local county offices of education, have already established BTSA programs. The UC Santa Cruz BTSA program, for example, has achieved a 92% retention rate among the 450+ new teachers it has served.  

Professional Development for Teachers in Partner Schools: In addition to efforts to recruit and retain teachers in partner schools, providing on-going professional development and training opportunities for teachers in these schools is perhaps most vital. To have any substantial impact on the academic environment of these schools, programmatic efforts must focus particularly on professional development programs aimed at improving teaching and learning in the subject areas required for University admission. 

The California Subject Matter Projects are strategically positioned throughout the state (on both UC and CSU campuses) to support teachers’ professional development needs in this regard. The projects are discipline-based (in the "a-f" subject areas), involve faculty from education as well as other academic departments, and draw heavily on expert teachers (K-12) from the local regions as leaders to teach and support their colleagues. The Projects have substantial capacity and experience in developing and deepening teachers’ content knowledge, expanding their range of effective teaching practices to meet the needs of a diverse student population, and supporting teachers’ needs for collegiality and professional enrichment outside of the school environment and culture. The project sites collectively and individually represent an existing statewide infrastructure -- already supported by state funds -- that could play a vital role in working with a single partner school or a cluster of schools over the course of several years. 

In addition, the University must work towards providing increased opportunities for elementary and secondary school teachers, whether teaching at partner schools or elsewhere, to make better use of the University’s resources -- for example, through increased access to UC courses, library and other information resources, research expertise, and consultation with faculty and staff -- within their own efforts to reduce the educational disadvantages of their students. 

As this brief review suggests, a variety of models and resources for teacher recruitment, retention and development already are in place across the state. While new approaches and designs should be encouraged, a concerted effort is needed now to mobilize and expand agreed-upon successful programs as part of a comprehensive array of services in support of teachers within partner schools.  

d. Productive Partnerships 

Collaborations among educational institutions for improvement of student performance are, of course, not new. What is most innovative is the involvement of heads of all major sectors of the educational community in a region, with families and business leaders to focus their collective efforts on well-defined standards of student achievement among all students in partner schools. In addition, the success of these programs is linked with specific Universitywide outcomes such as increasing significantly the number of UC-eligible and competitively-eligible students produced by University outreach efforts. In both breadth and depth, the proposed collaborative aims well beyond most previous efforts. 

The Education Trust, located in Washington, DC, has pioneered this type of collaborative model as a means of attaining large-scale educational improvement. Projects undertaken in the early 1990s in several sites around the country are now beginning to show results. To take one example, the El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence, which includes as members civic, business, and educational leaders from throughout El Paso County, has recently issued a report based upon its last five years of work. 

The report notes that the collaborative has enhanced the capacity of El Paso schools to offer a high quality mathematics and science curriculum and instruction program to all students, turning around low achievement patterns in those key subject matter areas among a student population that is largely minority and that come from disadvantaged circumstances. Recent data reveal dramatic improvement in mathematics and science teaching and learning in El Paso schools. Significant gains have been made in the proportion of students taking and passing algebra and geometry in 9th and 10th grades; fewer students have been identified as "low-performing" by the Texas Education Agency; and many more students have passed all Texas Assessment of Academic Skills tests. 

What are some of the tactics adopted by the collaborative that have brought about this improvement? First, the collaborative has established content standards in mathematics and science that are uniformly high for all students and that are based on the best national standards. Second, it has invested significant resources in assisting teachers at the elementary level to provide high quality mathematics and science teaching and learning. Third, recognizing the importance of assessing student progress, the collaborative has advocated on behalf of richer, standards-based assessments. And fourth, the collaborative has engaged a wide set of community members in the education improvement process, with particular emphasis on ensuring that families understand the standards and how well their children are doing in reaching the standards, and in learning how families can help their children, and the schools, do better. 

California also has examples of promising partnerships, such as the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium (MBEC). MBEC brings together educational institutions (UC, CSU, California community colleges, and K-12) to further collaborative inquiry and joint problem-solving and to develop additional cooperative initiatives directed toward improving curriculum, pedagogy, policy, and the public’s understanding and support of education. MBEC’s priorities include early literacy efforts, teacher and administrator training, expansion of technology and communications in the service of education, and increasing public understanding and support of educational programs. 

A second example, just getting underway, is the San Diego K-16 Executive Council, which was established this past year to provide a forum for higher education leaders to exchange ideas and work on common projects with K-12 superintendents, community college presidents, and the San Diego County Office of Education. As an initial project, of interest to all members, the Council chose to address the issue of student performance on college placement tests in English and mathematics.  

2. Enhancement and Expansion of Academic Development Programs: An Essential Intermediate Outreach Approach 

• Expansion of the Puente and MESA models to a greater number of community colleges. Currently Puente and MESA are established at 39 and 11 community colleges, respectively. The University needs to work with the California Community College Chancellor’s Office to sponsor the establishment of these programs at a significantly greater number of community college campuses. 

• Extension of EAOP to community colleges. A significant proportion of EAOP students do not enroll in baccalaureate programs, opting instead to attend a community college. In 1994, for example, 30 percent of seniors in EAOP enrolled in California community colleges. These students choose to attend a community college instead of the University for a variety of reasons (proximity, access, affordability, etc.) and it would be wrong to label such decisions as anything other than "successful" since the express aim of EAOP is to help students make the transition to college. The Task Force recommends that the University continue to follow-up with these students during their community college careers. Such follow-up would include the type of activities that EAOP currently does well -- informational workshops, tutoring, and counseling, for instance -- but it would be devoted to helping students transfer to the University after completing their lower-division curriculum in a community college. 

• Closer coordination with community college transfer centers. The Task Force proposes that the University more closely align its high school academic development programs, such as EAOP and High School Puente, with community college transfer centers. The University would share with the transfer centers information about the students in its high school programs. These centers, in turn, would direct their activities to these students during their tenure at the community college, providing information and guidance about the transfer process to a UC campus. 

• UC/Community College Transfer Alliance: A new program should be developed jointly by the University and California community colleges to help students make a timely and smooth transition from a community college to a UC campus. The goal of this alliance is to increase the UC transfer rate of students who participated in high school or community college academic development programs. The alliance also could be developed as one of the options available to regional partnerships. 

• Enhanced intersegmental student-information exchange: Technology-based efforts, such as Gateways, Pathways, Project ASSIST, and Nexus, should play a central role in helping to expand academic development programs to the community colleges by providing a database warehouse for outreach staff, enabling them to track students, monitor their academic progress, and provide strategically timed counseling and UC information. 

• Improvement of articulation procedures: Programs such as ASSIST have made very substantial progress in improving the accuracy and timeliness of articulation information and have given students and others much greater access to the data. Nevertheless, lack of accurate and timely articulation information continues to represent a hindrance to students in the transfer process, and efforts to refine articulation procedures should continue. These efforts should focus in particular on ways of alerting students to the requirements of the academic major they wish to pursue.  

d. Academic Development Programs for Graduate and Professional School Students 

• Outreach Success: These programs have a record of successful outcomes. A recent survey of the University’s summer programs indicated nearly 80 percent of all students who participate in these programs enroll in graduate or professional school within three years. In addition, these programs have been found to be attractive both to currently enrolled UC undergraduates and to students nationally; 

• Faculty Involvement: These pre-graduate programs involve a significant degree of faculty participation, both in the design of the programs and in their administration. More importantly, faculty are involved in a day-to-day advising and mentoring role with participating students and, as a result, are able effectively to model the graduate research experience to promising students; 

• Diminishing Federal Support: As successful as these programs are, support from the Federal government has been slashed by 60 percent, with additional cuts proposed for the future. Thus, the need for increased University support is critical; and 

• Focus on Academic Development: The development of academic skills is a model that has been used successfully at all levels of University outreach and is no less effective at the graduate and professional school level. 

• High School Puente: In 1993 Puente expanded its successful community college program to 18 high schools. The program, like its community college counterpart, provides intensive writing instruction, academic counseling, community mentors, parent workshops, and professional development components for teachers. 

• Business MESA: The MESA undergraduate model, which currently focuses on students' academic development within math- and science-based fields, should be extended to other fields of study. The current MESA model has helped to boost retention and academic advancement of students in science and engineering and appears to be applicable to other fields of study. The Task Force favors an initiative that would orient students toward business-oriented disciplines such as accounting and economics, which are areas of interest to many students. 

• Advanced Placement courses: The University should work with the state and the Department of Education to support development of a full array of Advanced Placement courses (including means for teacher training and costs of test administration) for all public high schools. Availability of these courses and support for students paying the costs of testing could provide an important tool in promoting higher standards of achievement. Such a program also could promote improvement in college preparatory instruction broadly and allow more students in disadvantaged learning environments to achieve "competitive eligibility." 

• Charter schools: Campuses also may wish to experiment with charter schools as a means of accelerating academic development efforts for students in disadvantaged circumstances. Some UC campuses already have developed links with charter schools or have plans to establish one. The Task Force recommends that these efforts be assessed as an additional means of expanding access to higher education for these students. 

• Electronic delivery of "a-f ' and honors courses to students in underserved schools: A key obstacle to UC eligibility for some students is the absence in their schools of "a-f" courses required for admission to UC, as well as honors courses that also can enhance students’ admissibility. To address this problem, the University should extend its experimentation with "distance learning" techniques to seek to provide these courses to students who might not otherwise be able to take them. 

3. Informational Outreach  

• a review and analysis of existing data on students in educationally disadvantaged circumstances and their families;
  
• an analysis of the demographics of targeted student populations that apply to, are accepted by, and enroll in, the University of California;
  
• an examination of existing outreach strategies that result in students enrolling in the University after acceptance;
  
• an evaluation of existing communication activities and publications used by the campuses and by other postsecondary institutions, and the development of new materials that support, enhance, and expand upon these existing efforts;
  
• development of messages that are sensitive to cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds and age groups, using a mix of media; and
  
• transmission of messages that the University is "affordable, attainable and welcoming" to the target audiences in appropriate languages. 

4. Harnessing the University's Research Expertise 

The Task Force believes it is essential for the University to establish desired numerical outcomes for all UC outreach programs in order to assess the effectiveness of programmatic efforts and measure progress toward outcomes. To this end, the Task Force recommends striving for the following numerical outcomes for each of the three strategic elements of outreach outlined immediately above. Although different programs and regional partnerships may wish to set other specific outcomes in addition to those identified here, the Task Force believes that the numerical outcomes set forth below should apply broadly to all University outreach programs. The outcomes are based generally on rates of improvement achieved by University outreach programs such as EAOP, MESA, and Puente over the past decade, extrapolated to the future. While we acknowledge that achieving these objectives requires and is contingent upon finding ways to enhance substantially the resources and efforts of each campus and the University as a whole, and that the efforts and priorities of institutions other than UC also are involved, the Task Force nevertheless believes these outcomes are realistic and worthy of good-faith efforts.  

A. Numerical Outcomes for UC/K-12 School-Centered Partnership Programs 

Each UC campus, in collaboration with participating K-12 school districts and other regional partners, shall work to increase the number of UC-eligible graduates from partner high schools by 100% -- or to increase the UC-eligibility rate in these schools by 4 percentage points, whichever is greater -- between 1997 and 2002. For example, if in 1997 a given partner school graduates 25 students who are UC-eligible, the desired outcome would be to produce 50 UC-eligible graduates by 2002. Alternatively, if the UC eligibility rate at this same school were 2% in 1997, the desired outcome would be to increase that rate to 6% by 2002 if achieving this outcome resulted in a larger number of UC-eligible graduates than the first goal. 

Each UC campus, in collaboration with participating schools and other regional partners, will work to increase the number of competitively eligible students (i.e., students eligible for admission at the most selective UC campuses) from partner schools by 50% -- or the competitive eligibility rate in these schools by 2 percentage points, whichever is greater -- between 1997 and 2002.

Detailed plans regarding the ways in which the regional partnerships will implement the Universitywide framework for outreach are to be submitted by each Chancellor to the President by January 1, 1998. 

B. Numerical Outcomes for Academic Development Programs

Statewide UC academic development programs will work to increase the number of UC-eligible program graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds by 100% between 1997 and 2002.

Statewide UC academic development programs will work to increase the number of competitively eligible program graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds by 50% between 1997 and 2002. 

C. Numerical Outcomes for Informational Outreach

Each UC campus will seek to increase the number of outreach contacts with elementary, middle school, high school, and community college students and families from disadvantaged backgrounds by 200% between 1997 and 2002. These contacts may include, but are not limited to, such activities as counseling/advising, informational workshops, school visits, and tutoring. 

Each UC campus, in collaboration with its regional partners, shall establish ongoing systems to assess the qualitative effectiveness of information outreach programs by January 1,1998.

The outcomes proposed will only be realized if a fundamentally new compact can be struck among the University of California, the California Department of Education, and others such as the California Community Colleges and the California State University, along with the sustained support of the Governor and the Legislature; a compact whose implementation will require partnerships and new definitions of responsibilities among UC campuses and their neighboring K-12 schools. New levels of faculty and staff will be necessary to reach the outcomes proposed, as will the availability of designated resources to support this new level of commitment. Further, the continuing involvement of faculty only can be ensured if their successful involvement in these efforts is appropriately reflected in the academic personnel process by which the faculty activities are judged. 

A. Managerial Responsibility for Achieving Numerical Outcomes 

It is important first to assure that all participants in this effort feel a sense of commitment and responsibility toward achieving the outcomes described above. But responsibility cannot be limited simply to outreach program directors or managers alone. The importance of the issues addressed in this report suggests the need for support at the highest levels of responsibility for the public trust, including The Regents of the University of California, members of the State Board of Education, and local school boards. Beyond these, support of elected officials, executive and legislative branches, as well as the people of California, is needed. Within the University of California the burden of responsibility for attainment of outcomes properly rests with the President of the University and the Chancellors of the campuses, working in partnership with the leadership of Divisional Academic Senates. The Task Force recognizes, of course, that there are many factors in the K-12 school environment outside the control of individual campuses or Chancellors, and that regional partnerships necessarily presuppose a framework of shared responsibility for results. At the same time, however, we believe that Chancellors, as leaders in these partnerships, have the ability to help create and sustain the kind of collaborative relationships needed for success, and to the extent that this is true, Chancellors and the President must bear the primary burden of responsibility for results. 

Outcomes for statewide academic development programs will be the responsibility of the program directors. Again, the commitment of K-12, community colleges, and other educational partners will affect significantly the ability of these programs to achieve the intended results. 

Finally, the Office of the President will be responsible for: 1) seeking and obtaining public resources so that campuses can support the basic infrastructure for regional outreach efforts; 2) establishing and overseeing a systemwide evaluation mechanism to assess progress toward outreach outcomes; 3) seeking support for academic development programs; and 4) developing and implementing, in conjunction with campuses, new and expanded informational outreach efforts.  

B. Evaluation 

As the PACE report makes clear, effective evaluation of outreach programs both nationally and within California is much more the exception than the rule, and the Task Force believes that the University must give far more systematic attention to this vital function. One of the key evaluation issues that emerges from the PACE report is the problem of self-evaluation: in most outreach programs, program administrators also are responsible for program evaluation. As a result, evaluation often tends to get short shrift in the competition of other administrative pressures and priorities. 

As was noted earlier (see Chapter V), the organized research structures of the University should be used to provide research on outreach and the methodology by which outreach activities can be evaluated. Researchers from this area are logically among those persons who should carry out the actual evaluations and assessments of outreach programs, while administrators would utilize the results of the evaluations to determine what is working and to enhance program effectiveness.

The following sections provide initial cost estimates to implement the Task Force’s recommendations in five main areas: (1) school-centered outreach, (2) academic development programs, (3) informational outreach, (4) university research and evaluation, and (5) infrastructure needs, including costs related to program evaluation, administration, and information technology. Extrapolating from experience with existing outreach programs, the figures presented here are intended as preliminary estimates of the additional costs, beyond the costs of existing outreach efforts, to implement the full range of recommendations proposed in this report. It should be emphasized that these estimates reflect not just the University’s costs, but the overall costs of implementation, including costs that might be borne by K-12, Federal and state programs, as well as the private sector. The issue of how these additional costs might actually be funded is taken up in Section E below.  

A. School-Centered Outreach 

A key focus of school-centered outreach will involve working with teachers, counselors, and administrators in partner schools. To have any substantial impact on the academic environment of these schools, programmatic efforts must focus particularly on professional development programs aimed at improving teaching and learning in the subject areas required for University admission, together with enhanced recruitment and retention efforts for teachers in these schools. 

In estimating the potential costs involved, the University has relied primarily on cost data from existing programs of this type. For teacher development programs, for example, the estimates are based on the California Subject Matter Projects; for teacher recruitment programs, the Community Teaching Fellowship program was used as a model; and for retention programs, the Beginning Teacher Support Assessment program. These programs have been described earlier in the report. It should be emphasized, however, that use of these programs for cost-estimation purposes does not preclude campuses and their regional partners from utilizing other programs to achieve similar ends. These programs are presented only as examples of the type of programmatic activities involved and because there are reasonably good data on them.

Teacher development is the largest single cost category under school-centered outreach, as shown in Figure 7 (next page). Based on experience with the California Subject Matter Projects (CSMP), an estimated total cost has been determined for each participating high school and eight associated "feeder" schools (two middle schools and six elementary schools), for providing a full array of professional development programs for teachers in each of the "a-f" subject areas required for University admission. These programs include intensive summer (or intersession) institutes, typically four weeks with follow-up, to support the enhancement of content knowledge and the improvement of teaching strategies within each partner school; a special focus for summer institutes is on developing teacher leadership.

In addition, CSMP programs include school-based in-service training in the a-f subject areas during the regular academic year. For cost-estimation purposes, it is assumed that in-service programs would be offered as a series of seven to ten coordinated sessions held after school and/or on professional development release days. Altogether, these activities -- including summer institutes, in-service programs, and funding for release time and salary support for teachers to attend these activities -- yield a cost estimate of $370,000 per year to support professional development activities within each partner high school and its associated "feeder" system; multiplied across 50 partner high schools and associated "feeder" systems, the total cost of professional development programs for teachers is calculated at $18.5 million annually. These programs would serve an estimated 17,250 teachers in 450 schools statewide (50 high schools, 100 middle schools, and 300 elementary schools).  

The second major cost item under school-centered outreach involves recruitment and retention of teachers at partner schools. Two promising programs now offered on most UC campuses have demonstrated success in recruiting and retaining new teachers in schools serving large numbers of students in disadvantaged circumstances. The Community Teaching Fellowship (CTF) program awards one-year fellowships to junior and senior mathematics and science majors at UC to work as tutors and mentors in selected schools, typically five hours per week. At the conclusion of the fellowship year, students are recruited to enroll in university teacher preparation and credential programs. The cost of the program, including the fellowship stipend, support seminars and related expenses is about $8,000 per fellow per year. For purposes of this resource plan, support for eight fellows within each cluster of partner high schools and associated "feeder" schools has been included, for a total of $64,000 per cluster. Extrapolated across 50 partner clusters, the total cost for teacher recruitment programs of this kind is estimated at $3.2 million per year. 

Retention of teachers in low-performing schools also is a critical problem, and Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) is a program that has proven effective in addressing this problem. BTSA provides on-going support for new teachers in their first or second year of teaching. Support includes regular seminars on selected high interest topics with university faculty and staff, as well as experienced teachers. Based on current program costs, an estimate of the total cost for each UC campus to implement this program to serve teachers at five partner school clusters (including "feeder" middle and elementary schools) would be about $300,000 per year. Extended across all UC campuses and the Central Valley site, the total cost for teacher retention programs is estimated at $3 million annually. 

In addition to these programs directed toward teachers in partner schools, student-centered academic development programs such as EAOP and MESA also would continue, both within partner schools and in other schools statewide. These costs, however, are dealt with separately under the section on academic development programs below. 

Finally, one other small but important category of costs included under school-centered outreach is a scholarship program, modeled on the successful experience of the Berkeley Pledge. This program provides complete scholarships to UC, including student fees and room and board, to the top graduate each year from partner high schools. The program has proven an extremely effective symbol of UC’s commitment to the schools, in addition to helping foster a culture of educational achievement and high academic standards, and has been included in the resource plan for these reasons. At approximately $50,000 per student for a 4-year scholarship, this adds $2.5 million annually to the total for school-centered outreach when extended across 50 partner high schools statewide. 

The overall total for school-centered outreach – including teacher development, recruitment and retention programs together with the scholarship program – is estimated at $27.2 million per year.

B. Academic Development (Student-Centered) Outreach 

The Task Force proposes, as one of its goals, to double the number of UC-eligible participants from existing, student-centered academic development programs over the next five years. To estimate the potential costs that might be required to achieve this goal, available data on the per-student costs of each of these programs were used. In the case of MESA, for example, program funding from all sources was $5,449,000 in 1994-95, and a total of 14,604 students participated in this program, yielding an average cost of $373 per student. Per-student cost data for MESA and other programs were calculated from information published by the California Public Postsecondary Education Commission in its report, Progress Report on the Effectiveness of Collaborative Student Academic Development Programs (CPEC, December 1996, Commission Report 96-11). In addition to UC-based programs such as EAOP, MESA, and Puente, data for major non-UC programs such as AVID and Cal-SOAP were included in the calculations, since these programs also help produce many UC-eligible students.  

Taking the per-student costs of each of these programs, the total additional cost was calculated based on the assumption that doubling the number of successful program outcomes would require at least a doubling of the number of program participants. In fact, this assumption may be conservative, for two reasons. First, broadening the base of program participants may result in some decline in program yields. Also, the comparatively low per-student costs of these programs reflect the fact that many participants are involved primarily in informational and motivational activities, and relatively few participate in more intensive – and costly – academic development activities such as summer programs. Stronger emphasis on the development function, as recommended in this report, could therefore be expected to increase per-student costs. On the other hand, expansion of these programs also will create economies of scale, counteracting some of these cost pressures. Given the uncertainties involved, the most prudent current assumption for purposes of estimating future program costs is to assume that the number of program participants will need to be at least doubled in order to achieve the Task Force’s proposed goals.  

Based on this assumption together with published cost figures for each major program – EAOP, MESA, Puente, AVID and Cal-SOAP – the total cost of expanding these programs to achieve the Task Force’s proposed goal is estimated at $17.5 million. This amount would provide funding for 115,000 additional program participants, raising the proportion of students who participate in these programs from 2% to about 4% of the total of 5.5 million students now enrolled in public K-12 schools in California. 

In addition to academic development at the undergraduate level, the Task Force subcommittee on graduate outreach programs also has recommended increasing resources to expand academic development efforts at the graduate level. Taking together this amount with the estimated costs of the undergraduate programs, the overall cost of scaling up academic development programs to the level proposed by the Task Force is estimated at $17.9 million. 

C. Informational Outreach  

Informational outreach includes four main areas: (1) programs for students, (2) programs for families, (3) programs for teachers and counselors, and (4) expansion of existing recruitment programs. It should be emphasized that the programs considered here focus primarily on students in educationally disadvantaged circumstances, their families, teachers and counselors, above and beyond the University’s general communications programs for the public at large. As recommended by the Task Force, these programs are intended as part of an aggressive communications campaign to provide better and more timely information to students in disadvantaged circumstances and their families about UC admissions requirements and to provide a clear message to these students that the University is attainable, affordable and welcoming to them.  

Programs for students would involve a variety of media appropriate to those at different grade levels. At the elementary school level, for example, media such as newspapers for K-8 students, computer learning games, flash cards and special events programs would be emphasized, whereas at the high school and Community College levels, CDs, videotapes, brochures, and a Community College website would be developed. Based on current costs for these types of activities, the resource plan includes $2.7 million for student information programs, the largest expense category under informational outreach. (Note that the costs of information technology, per se, are considered in the following section on infrastructure costs.) 

Programs for families would emphasize booklets, videotapes, calendars and other multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and/or multi-language media to reach families of students in disadvantaged circumstances -- particularly at the critical, early stages of planning for college -- to provide better information about the kind of academic preparation needed for admission to UC. The resource plan includes $1.85 million annually for this purpose. 

Programs for teachers and counselors would involve statewide and regional conferences, workshops and institutes aimed primarily at improving academic advising in disadvantaged schools. Based on the costs of other counselor conferences currently sponsored by UC, $1.45 million annually has been included in the resource plan for this purpose. 

Finally, $1.9 million per year is earmarked for expansion of existing recruitment programs. These programs focus particularly on students in disadvantaged circumstances at the end of the K-12 "pipeline" – those nearing graduation from high school – to ensure that, among those who do achieve UC eligibility, the University exerts every possible effort to maximize the number of these students who apply to, and enroll at, UC. In addition to gen