To: From: Date: Re: Mark Longaker and Lower-Division Curriculum Committee Linda Ferreira-Buckley May 22, 2012 DRW Dual Credit Policy I am glad that you’re working out a DRW policy on dual enrollment this fall. Under state law, all state postsecondary institutions in Texas must accept dual credit courses. What’s at issue for the DRW is specifying the conditions under which the department agrees to affiliate itself with particular programs asking for its endorsement. Fortunately, CCCC has taken up the issue and has drafted guidelines based on an analysis of available data and on surveys of members of NCTE, CCCC, and TYCA. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I’ve been a member of this task force for the past two years.) Below is a draft of the CCCC policy, which will be voted on this year. It will provide a useful starting place for your discussion. I. The Course Curriculum: DC/CE courses offered to high schools for college credit need to be consistent with those in the partnering post-secondary institutions in terms of goals, outcomes, syllabi, and evaluation. Distinctions should be made among secondary “college prep” courses, AP test prep courses, and postsecondary-level composition courses that include a sequence of skills and assignments that build in complexity and prepare students for the reading and writing they will encounter in college. [The point of the rather confusing second sentence is that a college prep writing course is not a college course. Only courses teaching college-level writing should count for dual credit.] Conditions: The class size, student-teacher ratio, and number of teacher preps should make possible for the student (and manageable and non-exploitative for the teacher) the sort of multiple draft, peer-review, and conferencing process typical of on-campus college writing courses. II. Preparation and Support of Teachers Experience: Secondary teachers charged with college-level instruction should, ideally, have experience teaching senior and honors English and master’s degrees in English with graduate-level coursework in composition. Those with master’s degrees in Education should have some coursework in English, comparable to that of instructors or TAs teaching composition at the sponsoring postsecondary institution. Application Process: As part of teacher selection, there should be an application process with CV, teaching philosophy statement, and materials vetted by both the DC/CE program administrators and the postsecondary composition program administrators/faculty. Training There should be funds, space, and postsecondary faculty expertise necessary for initial and follow-up training seminars that introduce secondary teachers to the partnering college composition curriculum: course goals, assignments, readings, grading, as well as current theory and practices in the field of composition. In addition, ongoing support mechanisms— follow-up seminars, regular classroom site visits, review of syllabi and student work—must address secondary teachers’ strengths, weaknesses, concerns, and ideas as they arise. The initial training seminars should be equivalent to TA preparation (e.g., a week, or 2-3 weekends), not merely one-day in-service workshops. Financial support should be provided for training seminars (initial and follow-up), books and materials, graduate credit for the training course, and, if possible, additional English graduate coursework to insure quality and incentive. If site visits or review of materials and student work reveal that a teacher and/or the course in a particular school is consistently out of step with the curriculum and evaluation practices of the sponsoring institution, the teacher may be advised into refresher training. On-campus Faculty Liaisons Institutions with DC/CE programs must consider the training and support provided by the postsecondary faculty member to the DC/CE program as part of the faculty member’s workload, with appropriate reassigned time, supplemental salary, and allowances for high school site visits. II. Students Particularly if students are eligible to take courses apart from or before they are officially admitted to the sponsoring college or university, criteria for admission to CE/DC and the nature and rigor of the college composition course must be explained to students and parents, and enforced. Postsecondary and secondary instructors, administrators, and advisors should have a say in who would and would not benefit from taking college writing in high school. Assessment Assessment of student work should be consonant with the assessment practices of the college composition program. Ideally, high school and college instructors teaching the same course should participate in norming sessions to assure grading consistency. Sample student papers or portfolios should be reviewed periodically for consistency in quality across the high school and on-campus versions of the course. Successful and unsuccessful student performance in the DC/CE composition course as well as in subsequent college work and retention, should be documented, compared to oncampus students, and taken into consideration in the expansion and admission processes of the DC/CE program.