An Alternative Diversity Plan

Assessing the UW System’s New Diversity Plan (Part  Two)

Can the UW System, by the year 2008, achieve its stated goal for diversity? Can the System “erase the gap in educational attainment by bringing participation and graduation rates for underrepresented people of color in the UW System to the levels of the student body as a whole”? A close reading of its (02/02/98) draft plan, “Quality Through Diversity — Plan 2008: Educational Quality Through Racial and Ethnic Diversity,” offers little reason for optimism.

Why this pessimism? For the most part, the new diversity plan differs little from a depressingly long line of earlier plans dating back to 1972. Each successive plan set forth the same goal: to eliminate the underrepresentation of minorities in the undergraduate student body. Each plan fell short. The same is true of the current “Design for Diversity” plan that expires this summer.

This persistent failure is not for lack of commitment, insufficient effort, reliance on untested initiatives, or even inadequate financial resources. Rather, the problem has been and continues to be the woefully small number of the state’s minority high school graduates who are now, and are likely to be in the near future, competitive applicants to UW System institutions.

The long-run solution to this vexing problem lies in finding ways to increase the academic performance of all students, throughout the elementary and secondary school grades. Only then can greater numbers of both minority and nonminority students compete with equal success for the wide range of available postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The new draft plan does make a major advance by acknowledging more forthrightly the inadequate academic preparation of minorities. It indicates that K-12 students must begin earlier to prepare themselves academically for entry into UW System institutions. To assist, new programs would try to reach students earlier in their pre-college schooling. This shift in focus is commendable. It does not go far enough, however, to address the pervasive and long-standing problem of inadequate academic achievement among minority students.

The new draft plan remains focused, however, on the UW System and its goals. It pays little attention to the rest of the state’s array of education, training, and employing organizations. The dangers of this approach are apparent. Conceivably, the UW-Madison, for example, might increase its representation of minorities through more aggressive precollege, outreach, and recruitment programs. But, until the academic achievement of minority high school graduates within the state increases substantially, UW System institutions face a zero-sum game. They must compete with each other for the same limited number of qualified high school graduates. As this competition intensifies, there is an inevitable tendency to relax standards for minorities and thereby reduce the effectiveness of public funds invested in higher education and in K-12 schooling.

What is needed is a strategy based on a broader vision of the problem. Such a strategy must take a “systems approach” to the challenge of educating all students, from elementary and secondary schools to colleges and universities, to high academic standards. At the same time, it must prepare graduates for a range of choices as they plan their lives after high school graduation.

Before outlining this strategy, several questions about the plan must be raised.

1. Are Educational Quality and Diversity Linked?
   The links between educational quality and racial/ethnic diversity developed in the new plan are difficult to understand. The plan takes the position that educational quality requires racial/ethnic diversity. Thus, vigorous efforts must be made to increase diversity to enhance educational quality.I would argue the exact opposite position. Without improved educational quality, racial/ethnic diversity will be impossible to achieve. What I am saying is that racial/ethnic diversity in higher education cannot be achieved until the educational quality of K-12 education is greatly improved. Only then can minorities have an equal chance of not only meeting college and university admissions standards but also competing on an equal basis with nonminority students.

   The current view, that diversity is required to produce improved quality, puts the cart before the horse. As a result, it creates pressures to loosen admission standards for minorities. The effect undercuts much needed efforts at the pre-college level to improve educational quality and student learning for all students, including both minority students and economically disadvantaged students. The persistence of a dual admissions policy sends a signal to elementary/secondary schools and to their teachers and students. The message is that while improved educational quality is important for them and their students, it is not required for university admission and high level academic performance in college, and is not required for all applicants.

2. Is the Plan’s Goal Attainable?
   How can the UW System reach its goal of proportional representation for minorities as a group and for each particular minority group by the year 2008? Various programs are mentioned but how they are linked to the goal remains unstated. Behind any plan such as this one, there should be a tough-minded analysis of the feasibility of reaching the program’s goal and a detailed plan for reaching the goal. Understandably, proponents of earlier plans might be forgiven for neglecting these important tasks.To break new ground, this new plan should offer much greater assurance that the goal of erasing the achievement gap for minority students can be realized. In view of the importance of education and learning, and the need to preserve the intellectual integrity of the UW System, it would be tragic if the plan promises more than it can possibly produce.

   The likelihood that such assurances can be offered is open to doubt. Though Wisconsin’s K-12 school system is generally credited as strong, too many of its students fail to meet the course content standards currently required at the various grade levels, much less the higher standards that will be required in coming years. Until academic performance is increased throughout grades K-12, many minority students and economically disadvantaged students will not be equipped to benefit from the wide range of postsecondary opportunities available within this state.

   The seriousness of the problem is revealed by the Milwaukee Public Schools report, 1996-97 Accountability Report (November 1997). This report shows that the academic performance of the large minority population lags seriously behind that of nonminority students at all grade levels. For example, the test scores of 3rd grade minority students who in the year 2008 are potential UW System college freshman are already well below average. Similar test scores for older students indicates that gap will widen as these students advance through the grade levels and to high school.

   What does this evidence mean for the ability of these students to enroll in higher education in the years between now and 2008? How many of these students will have graduated from high school? How many will have met UW System admissions standards? How many will be able to compete academically with nonminority students? Unless the trends shown by data such as these can be reversed quickly and permanently, there is little likelihood of erasing the gap in educational achievement for minority students. Something drastic must be done to improve the K-12 schools and increase student learning if many of these students are expected to be admitted college in the year 2008. Unfortunately, it is already too late to help some of them.

   Increasing the number of minorities who apply for and enroll in UW System institutions is too parochial a goal for the UW System to adopt. The challenge is not to ensure that the UW System meets whatever goal it establishes, particularly when its goal ignores the limited possibilities for substantially increased the number of minority high school graduates. The UW System, for example, could possibly succeed in reaching its goal of proportional representation, but doing so might cause the Technical College System or the private independent colleges to fall short of their equally ambitious goals. Or, the reverse could occur!

   Equally important, not every high school graduate should necessarily aspire to enroll at a UW System institution. Some high school graduates may have good reasons for wanting to attend a private college within the state. Others may want to attend colleges and universities outside the state. Still others may prefer occupational training of the kind offered through the Technical College System. Insisting on proportional representation ignores two important considerations. One is differences in the missions of the various postsecondary institutions and their academic requirements. The other is differences in the preferences and choices of prospective students.

   For students to make appropriate choices, they need to have more and better information about the full array of postsecondary opportunities. They must understand, early in high school, what courses and programs will qualify them for these various opportunities. This type of information can only be assembled through cooperation among the state’s several postsecondary education systems. It will also require cooperating with employers who seek to hire not only high school graduates but also those high school graduates who complete one and two year degree programs and those who complete their college degrees.

3. What Does Diversity Mean?
   The draft plan never explains exactly what “diversity” means. Whatever its meaning, the concept must be explained more clearly. To the casual reader, diversity appears to mean proportional representation, i.e., that college enrollment and graduation rates for minorities should equal those for nonminorities. Elsewhere, however, the term seems to have a broader and more elusive meaning, what might be called the ability of all students to function in a color-blind society.Achieving proportional representation will not automatically ensure a color-blind society. The key question is whether and by how much, and at what cost, the color-conscious orientation of the Quality Through Diversity plan accelerates the move toward both proportional representation and a color-blind society.
4. What Is the Target Population?
   The draft plan confuses readers with its wide-ranging terminology in defining the plan’s target population. Its first two pages alone refer to “race/ethnic groups,” “students of color,” “historically underrepresented race/ethnic and economically disadvantaged groups,” and “underserved race/ethnic groups.”Matters are further confused because existing Regent Policy Documents also refer to the “disadvantaged”, “educationally disadvantaged”, “students who have been disadvantaged as a result of substandard education, family income level, or ethnic background,” and “members of specific groups; for example, students in programs because of . . . minority status or because of substandard income level.” Reading further in the draft plan, it finally becomes apparent that the focus is on the traditional, targeted minority groups (African American; Hispanic/Latino; American Indian; Southeast Asian; and Other Asian American). Whether all these groups can be described as “historically underrepresented” is open to question.
5. Why Not Target the Economically Disadvantaged?
   The plan ignores the prevalence of low family income and the serious barrier this poses to high academic achievement in the public schools, and to gaining admission and completing postsecondary education. Because the categories of race/ethnicity and economically disadvantaged are so frequently placed together, why not consider the possibilities of a family income-based diversity plan? Despite some discussion nationally about a socio-economic, class-based approach to diversity, the details have never been spelled out. The likely impact of such an approach can be illustrated using national data on college enrollment rates for dependent high school graduates age 18-24.That the 43 percent college enrollment rate for dependent minority high school graduates falls short of the 53 percent rate for all dependent high school graduates is not surprising. Indeed, this shortfall provides the quantitative underpinning for diversity programs. What readers may be surprised to learn is that the 39 percent college enrollment rate for dependent high school graduates from “economically disadvantaged” families, defined here as those with 1995 family incomes below $25,000, is lower than the enrollment rate for dependent minority high school graduates.

   These results suggest there may be merit in shifting to a diversity program targeted on the economically disadvantaged. Such a program would certainly deal directly with what might be called, with considerable justification, the “historically underrepresented,” economically disadvantaged population, i.e., those applicants from lower income families.

   The shift from a race/ethnicity to an economically disadvantaged definition of the target population would not eliminate dependent minority high school graduates from the benefits of diversity programs. In fact, about about 60 percent of the eligible economically disadvantaged population would still be minorities. But, based on this approach, only about half the minority population qualifying under the race/ethnic definition would fit the economically disadvantaged definition. The remaining minorities who now qualify under the race/ethnicity definition would no longer do so because they could not be classified as economically disadvantaged.

   One wonders whether a diversity plan based on economic disadvantage might be as important as one based on race/ethnicity? Would not an economic disadvantaged approach produce a useful kind of diversity across economic and social class lines? Would not such an approach allay Supreme Court Justice Lewis E. Powell’s concern in the 1978 Bakke case — his concern about protecting the interests of colleges and universities in selecting “those students who will contribute the most to the ‘robust exchange of ideas'”? Are not economic and class differences an important dimension of diversity?

6. Can the Plan’s Success Be Measured?
   The draft plan says little about how the plan will be monitored over the coming decade, how its success will be measured by the year 2008, or how accountability will be treated. This is surprising because educational institutions have the capacity and should be leading the way in evaluating the success of the many programs they implement.To the best of my knowledge, no systematic evaluation has been undertaken of the now 10-year-old Design for Diversity program. The absence of such evaluations casts doubt on all diversity programs operating within UW System, as well as newly proposed programs. In view of the strong evaluation capabilities of faculty members within the UW System, it is surprising that more, well-designed studies evaluating the impact of diversity programs have not yet been reported.
7. Do Current Diversity Programs Discriminate in Admissions?
   The new draft plan says nothing about prohibiting discrimination. Nor did the previous Design for Diversity plan. Yet, one wonders whether diversity programs by their very nature require, in admissions and the provision of programs and services, deliberate discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, and ancestry. Does the attempt to equalize opportunity and enroll a diverse student body require discrimination on the basis of skin color and ethnicity? Is such discrimination now practiced?

Answers to these questions need to be brought forward. It would appear that discrimination within the UW System is illegal, as evidenced by the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, Chapter 36.12 of the Wisconsin Statutes governing the UW System, and several Regent Policy Documents. If forbidden types of discrimination are practiced, these practices must be identified and eliminated.It would appear that the desire of the UW System and the pressures on System campuses to become more diverse may have contributed to creating an unfavorable academic environment for minority students. If any considerable numbers of minority students lack the academic preparation and achievement required to compete on an equal basis with the vast majority of nonminority students, they are not going to thrive. To the extent they become discouraged and drop out, both retention and graduation rates will be lower for minorities than for nonminorities. Thus, efforts to become more diverse by focusing on the numerical representation of minorities in enrollment are at odds with efforts to increase minority retention and graduation.

The root of this problem is found in campus admissions policies and practices. For example, the UW-Madison feared that implementing the late 1980s policy of enrollment management — reducing the admission of new students — would diminish the number of minority students. To counter this possibility, it altered its admissions standards for minority applicants. Essentially, it decided that minority applicants meeting the minimum admissions standards, would normally be admitted, even though similarly qualified nonminority applicants were being denied admission, thus putting many minority students at greater risk of not being able to compete with their fellow nonminority students.

A more fundamental shortcoming of the new plan, as already noted, is the limited scope of its strategy. A broader and more comprehensive, four-part strategy is advocated here. It calls for:

1. Improving Academic Performance of All Students in K-12 Schools.
   Major emphasis must be given to improving the academic performance of all students throughout grades K-12. Only then can larger numbers of minority and economically disadvantaged students become academically equipped to take advantage of the wide range of available postsecondary opportunities in Wisconsin. Much needs to be done. In addition to the Milwaukee situation already mentioned, a recent study for Madison indicates that more than 40 percent of 11th grade minority students have not yet taken algebra, the first of three year-long mathematics courses required for admission to the UW System. This means that without additional coursework, they will not be academically qualified to enroll in any UW System institution. Finally, when the nation’s best high school seniors rank near the bottom internationally in mathematics and science achievement, it is clear that much remains to be done to improve the schooling of all students, including both low and high achieving students.
2. Achieving Higher Standards of Academic Performance.
   Substantial additional effort will be required to help K-12 students, majority and minority alike, meet the higher levels of academic achievement set out in the state’s new, more demanding, assessment program. Teachers themselves will need to augment their knowledge to teach to these higher standards. Students will have to work harder and more effectively to meet these standards.As these standards go up, postsecondary learning and training opportunities must also be strengthened and enriched. In particular, as high school graduates come to college with ever stronger academic preparation, it is imperative that postsecondary institutions modify their curricula and upgrade the level of their course offerings accordingly. These adaptations are essential if the state’s population of young people is to be adequately prepared for the labor market demands of the 21st century.
3. Pursuing a “Systems Approach” to Change.
   Elementary and secondary schooling must be viewed as part of a larger, state-wide approach to investing in developing the knowledge and skills of students. Such an approach will forge more effective links between K-12 compulsory schooling and postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities. As a result, high school graduates will be better prepared, whether they want to complete baccalaureate degrees by attending four year public or private colleges and universities, complete oneor two-year occupational degree and certificate programs in the state’s technical college system, or go immediately into the labor force, perhaps to an employer who offers valuable job-related training. Providing more and better information about this array of postsecondary opportunities, and emphasizing how students must prepare themselves is essential if high school graduates are to make informed choices among these opportunities.
4. Exerting Board and System Leadership to Promote Change.
   The Board of Regents and the UW System have a unique opportunity to lead. The challenges are to improve student learning throughout the state’s education and training system, and to enhance the postsecondary opportunities of high school graduates — minority and nonminority alike. A new kind of collaborative effort is required to leverage the substantial investment already made so as to produce improved learning.The Board and UW System can take the initiative in demonstrating to citizens, parents, the educational establishment, the business community, and public officials the serious, long-term, problems — -educational, economic, and social — associated with persistent underachievement by so many of the state’s children and youth. Such action can help bring together the major players — school people, community leaders, private sector representatives, and public officials — to devise a “systems approach” for improving student learning throughout the state’s network of educational organizations.

   Only by taking a new, radically different approach can the UW System describe itself, as the draft plan’s opening sentence does, as “a pioneer in the pursuit of educational excellence through the expansion of educational opportunity and diversity.” A new approach is needed that can break through the barriers and constraints of what has become the conventional wisdom of diversity.

The critical challenge remains, to find effective ways of improving the quality of education for all students, including minorities and the economically disadvantaged. The time has come to provide the help that will make a real difference. The time has come to stop the erosion of academic standards by trying to achieve a narrowly-defined, numerical concept of “diversity.” The time has come for the Board of Regents and the University of Wisconsin System to pursue a different kind of diversity, one that leads to higher academic achievement for all students.