VP Jenny Krugman

The just-larger-than-a-postage-stamp College Board promotional card calls out to us. "College Board Advocacy . . . Learn More, Do More."What is advocacy and how do members of our Southern Region embrace and lead the advocacy agenda?

We are in challenging fiscal times across our 10 states. State budget shortfalls undermine our higher education institutions and state departments of education. Research dollars, endowments and outreach are all influenced by the financial challenges that are avalanching. The College Board has long been an organization with advocacy on its mind, and now there is growing need for giving.

In the words of our College Board leaders who work with advocacy initiatives, this outreach agenda has been developed in concert with members and advisers. College Board Vice
President Alan Heaps says this effort has been created through "discussions with regional and other councils, College Board Trustees and member focus groups. It is from these discussions that efforts such as the Commission on Access, Admissions and Success in Higher Education report, "Coming to Our Senses: Education and the American Future,"developed. This just-published report, written under the leadership of University System of Maryland Chancellor
Brit Kirwan, predicts continuing deterioration of higher education in the U.S., resulting in dire national consequences, unless we take serious steps to build a more vigorous student
academic community.

Some of our most powerful advocacy efforts here at the College Board include reaching out to counselors and teachers, emphasizing writing, supporting community colleges and promoting the CollegeKeys Compact™. These emerged carrying the stamp of you, our members, advisers and friends. Alan Heaps asks us, "What kind of advocacy should we be doing (e.g., public voice versus research versus change in practice)? Are there specific partners, efforts we should be joining?"

A crown jewel of our advocacy work is the CollegeKeys Compact. Linking students from low-income backgrounds to the tools and nurturing they need to "get ready,""get in"and "get through"college, the Compact is an invitation for higher education and K-12 organizations, state departments of education and private foundations to commit their support to these students and to share best practices with other Compact members. Notably, one of the first signers of the Compact was from the South — the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ron Williams, our vice president leading the Compact's rise to prominence, said, "The Compact looks to the larger question of how we can maximize talent of every single member of our world."Ron says this is part of the solution to the challenges that our nation faces. "Minorities and low-income students are becoming larger and larger percentages of the U.S. population. We need a 40-year commitment that intersects with the powerful demand that we raise individual talent and give more to the world."

Pat Guillory

Taking Alan's and Ron's global statements to heart, the soon-to-be-chair of our region's council, Patricia Guillory, speaks about her local Georgia school district. Director of Fulton County Public Schools' Social Studies Department, Pat defines advocacy from her specific "home."
Fulton County's motto, "Where Students Come First," is replayed in many ways, according to Pat. One advocacy initiative — a rise to rigor — captures the district's intention to bring all students into a college-going mode. Providing SAT® focus for its students and broad academic intensity, Pat said Fulton "decided 10 years ago to make it a goal to have some of the highest SAT scores in the nation."According to Pat, Fulton is succeeding with high scores and college options for all students, especially those from low-income backgrounds.

Regional leaders like Pat Guillory, College Board voices like Ron Williams and Alan Heaps, and YOU will continue our march toward student access and success.

Last month, council members discussed the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s report on the use of standardized tests in admissions and recommended that the College Board work to make sure higher education institutions know and follow the guidelines for appropriate use of test scores in admissions.

GAAC Chair Patricia Smith is director of guidance services for Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida

“We were pleased that NACAC found the College Board exams to be fair and equitable,” said Patricia Smith, chair of the Guidance and Admission Assembly Council and district support for guidance services for Hillsborough County (Tampa, Fla.) Public Schools. “I am sure we will continue to have discussions about how we can work together for the appropriate use of the exams and scores.”

Smith, who is in her second year as chair, said larger issues regarding testing, admissions and assistance to low-income students will continue to dominate the council’s work this year. She has worked in counseling for nearly 30 years and has been a part of the College Board for almost that long. Having served in a variety of positions, both in her school district and with the College Board, she said she’s benefitted from the viewpoints of so many colleagues from around the country.

“The reports by regional representatives lead to a lot
of the improvements that we are able to make in terms of programs for students,” she said.

A recent recommendation from GAAC members was approved by the Board of Trustees late last year, allowing fee waivers for students taking SAT Subject Tests™ in ninth and 10th grades. This recommendation originated with counselor members, who noted that students are taking courses in these subjects at younger ages and should be able to use their fee waivers and take the tests during those years.

Regional representatives noted in December the difficult economic conditions and reduced state budgets across the country. One of the requests was that the College Board make every effort to alert members to pricing changes in programs as early as possible.

GAAC members also discussed concerns about Score Choice™, the new SAT® score-reporting policy. “It has been approved,” Smith said, “so our conversation now is about implementation and how we can make it as smooth as possible. We will be looking at how counselors can explain the system to students and families and whether the communications to colleges are clear.”

In a broader discussion about advocacy, the council considered how to bring relevant research, such as the reports by the Task Force on Admissions in the 21st Century, the Task Force on College Access for Students from Low-IncomeBackgrounds, the Commission on Access, Admissions and Success in Higher Education and the Rethinking Student Aid study group, to the forefront of national work in these areas.

“We want to have more people informed about these findings and influence new leadership, particularly to make the financial aid process easier,” Smith said. “Especially in this economic climate, more students and parents are going to be looking for financial aid and more will be falling into the federal guidelines for eligibility.”

GAAC also will consider suggestions for helping school districts and institutions to work more efficiently during this financial crisis.

Click here to see events and workshops in the Southern Region.