State education leaders trying to contain dual credit "firestorm"

Teresa Lubbers, Indiana commissioner for higher learning, said that new rules, which demand additional academic credentials of teachers of dual credit courses, have intensified the state’s already existing struggles to prepare for the growing popularity of dual credit classes.

The programs allow high school students to earn college credits through classes they take while in high school. When they transfer those credits to college, it lowers their tuition expenses.

But more stringent qualifications for university professors and high school teachers threaten to hollow out large portions of dual credit programs at hundreds of Indiana high schools.

The Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission, a private organization funded by its members, about 1,000 colleges and universities in 19 states including Indiana, adopted new policies this summer that demand that people who teach general education courses have a master’s degree in their subject area or a master’s degree in another area plus 18 graduate hours in the subject they are teaching.

The commission has said that the new standards will assure that the high school class is as rigorous as the equivalent college course.

But hundreds of Indiana high school teachers — some of whom have taught the dual credit classes for years — do not meet the new standards. Officials at Greensburg high school estimate that two-thirds of its dual credit classes will disappear unless teachers obtain additional credentials. Ivy Tech Community College estimates that the changes will affect dual credit programs at more than 200 Indiana high schools at which the college has launched programs.

The new policies will take effect in September of 2017 — too soon, legislative and education leaders said, for the schools and teachers to get into compliance.

Members of the Indiana Dual Credit Advisory Council, co-chaired by Lubbers and Glenda Ritz, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, met in Indianapolis Tuesday to discuss the impact of the new rules and to generate possible solutions. The council includes lawmakers and education leaders from high schools and the state’s top universities.

Lubbers said retaining the state’s robust dual credit program is critical, because students who obtain dual credits in high school are more likely to go to college, have better grades in college and are more likely to stay in college.

Indiana ranks 43rd among the 50 states in the share of residents who have bachelor’s degrees, according to the Census Bureau.

Impact and rationale

Some of the council members warned that the new rules would severely restrict high school students’ access to dual credit courses, while others questioned the Higher Learning Commission’s rationale for the new rules.

“This is a significant issue,” said Vince Bertram, president and chief executive officer of Project Lead the Way, a provider of science, technology, engineering, and math programs at high schools.

He also said that the HLC’s new rules would gut the state’s dual credit programs and provide a windfall for colleges and universities.

The institutions would make money from bestowing the additional credentials on teachers, Bertram said.

And, he said, Hoosier high school students earned about 360,000 college credits in 2014. At $150 per credit hour, those would cost $54 million if the students and their parents had to pay for those credits in college.

In addition, Bertram said, the HLC has presented no evidence as to whether teachers with 18 hours of graduate courses produce greater student achievement.

However, Mike Beam, director of Advance College Project at Indiana University, said that the HLC’s new rules simply spell out what the organization has long expected of its members.

The HLC has seen in the last few years that exceptions to the academic requirements of professors and high school teachers have become the rule, Beam said.

Bertram questioned whether the new rules had anything to do with quality.

If these new rules were about quality, Bertram said, the HLC would not exempt teaching assistants from meeting the new academic credentials.

The HLC has been vague about who has been pushing for the changes.

A spokesman told the Daily News via email last month that the new rules originated with “comments received from institutions and peer reviewers.” When asked for details about the comments and who made them, he wrote, “We don't have any information to provide on the comments received.”

Lubbers said Tuesday that she did not know who had lobbied the HLC to adopt the new rules.

Solutions

Council members suggested asking the HLC to push back the rules' implementation date or grandfathering in current dual credit teachers.

However, Lubbers and other council members doubted that the commission would be amenable to any more significant changes, in part because it already pushed back the original implementation date.

Lubbers said that while the council should continue to try to lobby the HLC to revise the guidelines, the state’s education stakeholders also must collaborate to make sure that teachers can obtain the additional credentials.

That includes figuring out how to accelerate programs that allow teachers to obtain additional credentials.

Lubbers said that the state also needs to gather more data. The council does not yet know how many of the current dual credit teachers do not meet the new requirements.

State Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, chair of the career and education committee, said that state legislators may agree to provide money to help schools pay for teachers to get the additional credentials.

But, he said, "This is bad timing."

The state just finished its biennial budget, he said, and the next budget will be adopted right before the HLC's new rules take effect.

Council member Bill Konyha, executive director of the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, said that even with additional state dollars, schools, especially in rural areas, would struggle to convince teachers to obtain the additional credentials.

Rural schools already are struggling to find teachers with the proper qualifications to teach dual credit courses, Konyha said. The new rules will give students from rural areas even less access to dual credit classes.

What’s next?

Ritz said she would discuss the challenges this week with officials from Minnesota, who also have voiced strong concerns about the impact of the new rules.

Lubbers said the council will gather more data and take a closer look at some of the proposals made Tuesday to discuss them in more detail at the council’s next meeting, Nov. 23.

Counties in south-central Indiana schools have the most popular dual credit programs. Among the class of 2012, Decatur County had a greater share of students (76.7 percent) obtaining dual credit than any other of the state’s 92 counties. Neighboring Bartholomew County ranked second. Ripley and Jackson counties tied for fourth.