Helping colleges learn to teach what employers want.
Ray works with clients on strategy and partnerships, bringing leadership experience across industry, workforce development, and higher education. In the California Community College system, he led workforce initiatives at Foothill College, San Mateo Community College, and the state Chancellor’s Office, helping launch the California Online College. He previously held roles at Apple and Silicon Valley startups.
Ray’s doctoral research at San Francisco State examined 4.5 million California community college student records and found that moving a course online widened the gap between Latino and White students rather than closing it. Latino students in online sections had a nine percentage point lower success rate, grades averaging two-tenths of a grade point lower, and withdrawal rates more than twice as high as Latino students in face-to-face sections of the same classes. His student interviews pointed to the missing student-instructor relationship as the difference.
The finding still surfaces in current literature on online learning and equity, and it remains the argument underneath how Eleven Tenths designs programs: the delivery model is never neutral.
Kaupp, R. (2012). Online Penalty: The Impact of Online Instruction on the Latino-White Achievement Gap. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 19(2), 8-16. ISSN 1068-610X. ERIC EJ1001604.
