HCM’s Promising Policy Series: Driving Better Outcomes and Equity in Education

Market + Policy ResearchPolicy AgendasStrategic Communications & Campaigns + Coalitions
Written By HCM Strategists

Project: Promising Policy| Partnership length: 2018-2019 | HCM Service Area Spotlight: Market + Policy Research and Analysis, Designing, Evaluating and Implementing Policy Agendas, Strategic Communications, Campaigns and Coalitions| Portfolio Category: Postsecondary

HCM Strategists’ mission is to inform the development, adoption and refinement of impactful policies that make a difference in advancing equitable student outcomes. We launched the Promising Policy series to offer materials that highlight good policy and to examine the differences between impactful, lasting policies and those that fail to deliver on their promises.

OVERVIEW

We believe that access and success in postsecondary education are essential in helping people and governments across the nation close equity gaps and drive economic prosperity. Strong, equitable policies enable these outcomes. Our Promising Policy series was centered around an equity framework. While data indicated that postsecondary attainment has steadily increased nationally (nine percentage points since 2008), significant gaps by race and ethnicity persist. These gaps are a reflection of the fact that communities of color have had to navigate systemic barriers that impede their access to quality education, and ultimately the American Dream. Policy is a tool to break down barriers to education for students of color and low-income communities.

Policy is not static. Rather, it should be viewed as an ongoing process of development, implementation, evaluation and revision. Advancing results-driven educational policies that close equity gaps and produce long-term societal benefits will have a direct impact on underserved populations. Specifically, policies developed in three core areas – student-centered pathways, strategic funding and data-driven leadership – can influence institutions to scale critical reforms. These policies can also help build connections across K12, postsecondary and the workforce to provide opportunities for all students.

OUR WORK

We developed a series of Policy Matters briefs that explored and analyzed specific policies in the three core areas of student-centered pathways, strategic funding and data-driven leadership. The series evaluated policies that are critical to the scaling of broad programmatic change. It also tackled trending policies that could benefit from an analysis of the best practices and principles centered on student success and equity.

HCM team members also authored a blog series discussing promising policies and created an interactive map of outcomes-based funding (OBF) policies in states for the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years.

The map provided a snapshot of information on specific outcomes based funding state policy development and implementation, and reflected the data outlined in our Driving Better Outcomes report (and subsequent typologies, updated yearly). The report provided a history of funding model policies by state, noting that most adopt outcomes-based funding policies to supplement or replace historic, enrollment-based allocation methods to better leverage existing resources and improve student outcomes and institutional efficiency. 

IMPACT

“HCM’s Promising Policy series was a way for us to disseminate information and policy analysis to the field by leveraging our team’s experience working directly with policymakers and stakeholders, as well as our review and evaluation of key state policies that can drive equity, access and student success,” said Martha Snyder, HCM’s postsecondary managing director. 

PRESS

COLLATERAL

Policy Matters Publications

 
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