By Kristin
represents corporate executives" She "called the proposals a 'really positive
step forward.'"
College readiness includes the ability to independently track and organize a complicated stew of requirements, credits, class schedules and tuition due dates. It's the ability to pay a lot of money or navigate loan / federal aid (good luck there) paperwork in order to pay that money. It's the ability to sit still for two hours with three hundred other students and listen to a lecture. It's the ability to remember, without being reminded, that in five weeks you have to turn in a ten-page paper on a topic you don't care about because you have to get this linguistic credit in order to finish your history degree.
Here is my point: teachers are working hard to personalize instruction, engage students, make learning meaningful and authentic, and close the equity gap. Then, students are supposed to go to college where NONE OF THAT HAPPENS. Not only that, but it's expensive.
I am extremely bothered that the "career" aspect of the new NCLB has become a corporate career. I'm bothered that college readiness isn't matched by any attempt to get colleges ready for students who expect to be engaged in the material. I'm bothered that totally valid career options, like carpentry, electrical engineering, cooking, car repair, landscaping – other options that create happy, financially successful and healthy people – are not included in "career ready." Are we really being told that the goal of public schools is to create a white collar generation? Really?
I feel like a whole lot of children are left behind. Again.
tim-10-ber (great name!), those are great points. I agree with you that all of those skills are needed for life.
What I’ve seen with my students is that they succeed in school because of three motivational factors: they’re pushed by their parents, they push themselves, or they love the work we’re doing and are engaged and interested in it.
Traditionally, the first two groups have gone on to college. Now that we’re trying to change curriculum to scoop up that third group by making the work meaningful and interesting to them, we’re seeing those kids do well, too. And they might continue to do well if college personalizes curriculum to the student’s interests. I went to the University of Washington, and the only personalization I got was picking my own major. Once I started taking the classes I had to take to fulfill my major, I just had to do the work.
So, you’re right. All kids should learn those important skills, but if they aren’t skills that are reinforced at home, is it reasonable to expect that in 12 years, nine months a year, six hours a day, schools can instill those values and habits? Or, should we accept that some kids will learn those skills and develop those habits post-high school, while invested in their employment?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that we are expecting 18-year old to have all of these positive habits and skills, and because society can’t do anything about the parents it’s turning to the schools and expecting that they be taught. I don’t think, with the current model, schools can raise children and teach academics. The school day isn’t long enough.
And thank you for the loan company. I kept thinking “Fannie Farmer,” because I’ve been doing a lot of research on recipes. You’re right – it’s Sallie Mae.
Good grief. I have to learn how to edit. I meant to ask the question “1) Why AREN’T teachers considered the experts on education policy?”
Right on, Kristin! Two great points – 1) Why are teachers considered The Experts on education policy, and 2) Why do we set kids up for failure by making them think that they HAVE to go to college?
Why not take the comments about what kids need to be prepared to do in college vs high school and apply those same skills to life? Don’t they work? Meaning students need to graduate high school not only knowing how to read, comprehend, write, speak, do math, have good social skills, know real history and have science skills but also need to know how to: meet deadlines without being reminded, develop, manage and live on a budget, interview, be dependable, think outside of the box to solve problems, etc…Don’t these same skills and knowledge apply to life?
I have no problem if a kid goes to college or technical school or straight to work out of high school. I just know many of our government high schools fail miserably at most of these today…
No one said one has to get a college degree in 4 years. Working and going to college at the same time is a great idea (I did it). Anything to reduce dramatically or eliminate students loans is fine.
What is the % of jobs that need/require college degrees? Isn’t it still around 25%? Isn’t it the feds driving the need for college?
Also, I don’t think Fannie Mae does student loans…I think you meant Sallie Mae…
Tom, your comment really made me stop and think. It’s true that college gives you more options in the event of an injury or the phasing out of your particular skill.
But couldn’t the same argument be made for those who have college degrees, who lost their jobs? I have plenty of friends who had great jobs in the financial sector, as architects, counselors, social workers, attorneys, or in business, and when they were fired and unemployment ran out they scrambled to pay student loans. Until jobs are created in their fields, they don’t really have any more options than someone who hurts his back at 45 and has to stop digging ditches.
I’m wondering if we wouldn’t be better off preparing our students to graduate, work for awhile, and then pay for college without going into debt. I worry that the gigantic industry of loaning money is driving the push to have EVERYONE go to college. An undergraduate tuition can be what, $30,000? If it’s through Fannie May and paid over 30 years, what is it then? A lot more.
I agree that college gives a person more options, but any training gives a person more options. Debt eliminates options. The teacher down the hall from me, who will be rif’d in a few weeks, doesn’t have too many options either, unless he wants to sub. He can’t take just any job, because he has to pay for the masters degree he recently earned in order to be a teacher.
I don’t have a problem with public education preparing kids for college. I have a problem with the government saying college and the corporate professional world are the only options worth investing in.
I agree that college isn’t for everyone, and that people can live perfectly happy lives working in the trades without ever going to post-secondary school. But there’s something else to consider.
A friend of mine works as a rehabilitation counselor. He spends his time helping people who have injured themselves on the job find new ways to earn a living. Almost all of his clients didn’t go to college. They found good-paying, labor-intensive work directly out of high school.
And then they injured their back, neck, skull, legs, hips, etc; and found themselves prepared to do nothing. My friend has to help them understand that they need to either go back to school and learn a new skill or accept an entry-level job for a fraction of what they once earned.
Since most of these people have families to support and a certain lifestyle to maintain, the adjustment is difficult and as you might expect, frequently accompanied by substance abuse.
The moral is this: college, while not necessary for happiness and success, does give a person more options for years to come.
I am 100% with you, Kristin. For one, if I had not gone to college and instead had gone into a “lowly” field such as being an electrician, general contractor or mechanic, I’d now have a decade and a half of experience under my belt AND be making more money than I do now (from the data I can find, at least).
PLUS, did you see the recent articles where the College Board has gone back and revised their claim that a college education earns a person more than a million dollars in the course of their life time more than a person with just a diploma? They had to (1) acknowledge that their data was skewed because it didn’t consider debt (2) it did not consider people who went to any kind of training other than a four-year university, and (2) that is simply wasn’t true based on the real economy. On top of that, I read another article recently that if a person at ages 18-22 would INVEST the money they would have paid for a public university BA/BS, even with average modest returns, that investment would bring FAR more over 30 years than that million bucks the College Board once touted.
I’d be okay if “college or career” really did mean something like readiness for “a degree program in elctrical engineering OR a career as an electrician.”
Corporate influence in the public arena is a growing (and now Supreme Court sanctioned) reality. The corporate “individual,” with more money than anyone reading this post, combined, speaks louder than anyone reading this post, combined.