Part of the answer to my colleague Mike Petrilli's "Single-minded Focus" question the other day about the depressing college completion data is in Sam Dillon's recent front page New York Times story on the success of incentives (i.e. $$$) programs in getting poor kids into -- and passing -- Advanced Placement courses. (Another part of the answer to Mike's question was in Paul Tough's story for the Times magazine a couple weeks ago, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?" Tough argues, pretty persuasively, that character helps a lot.)
Mike wonders whether we're doing the wrong thing expecting that kids should go to college. I would suggest that it depends on what you mean by college.
I would further suggest that these days we seem to be awash in existential educational questions like those, brought on by such new controversies (at least, newly packaged) as whether it's good to try to close the achievement gap, whether it's counterproductive to demand "proficiency" as opposed to "improvement," whether "differentiated instruction" is another form of tracking, whether common standards are anti-American, etc. All these tough issues seem to point, roughly, to the Big One: What's the point of an education? What exactly does "college ready" mean? What's the difference between that and being "career ready"?
Mike asks these questions:
...with so many kids dropping out of college -- and especially so many poor kids -- should we reconsider our assumption that higher education is the ticket to the middle class? Isn't it possible that lots of these kids would be better off pursuing the trades or (dare I say) the military?
In a sense, Dillon's Times story helps answer those questions by subverting the premise: that we can or should decipher a difference between higher education preparation and a pursuit of "the trades" or "the military" before before we decide what a K-12 education should -- or can -- do. Yes, Dillon's report is superficially about paying kids and teachers to succeed -- and I'm sure it will invite another round of debate about the merits of merit pay -- but it is really about shattering the myth (again) that poor kids can't learn -- or can't be taught -- the stuff of higher education. (Here, I recommend the new book by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.) The amazing turnaround in the lives of the children participating in the National Math and Science Initiative, as described by Dillon, stands as yet more evidence that schools and teachers can indeed make a difference in poor kids' educational lives.
I would like at least to think we are finally approaching a tipping point in terms of educating "the poor" -- rather, a tipping point in educating our educators: the success stories are now more than exceptions that prove the rule. In fact, at least in my view of things, we are simply reclaiming the optimistic belief that schools are a ticket out of poverty. Now, all we have to do is convince our educators that whether a kid wants to be a plumber or a lawyer, a soldier or a physicist, he or she should finish high school armed with enough knowledge to pursue any of those careers.
Pipe dream? Only if you've given up on the American dream.
This post originally appeared on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Flypaper blog.
Jeff Selingo: The Self-Absorbed Higher Ed System
But here's the rub; or challenge, if you will. What responsibility does the teacher have to motivate a child to want to learn? Part of what it means to be a good teacher is awakening the patient and stimulating him/her to want to learn.
What about teachers? Don't they have some responsibility here? Shouldn't they have to get kids interested in learning? It boggles my mind that all the research and all the education policy wonks say that teachers are "the most important" part of education, but that you completely discount them and their efforts or responsibilities. Sure, schools "are not the family." That's because they are schools -- and they are supposed to educate these kids!!!
--peter
Students who first arrive at the schoolhouse door with a basic understanding of colors, and letters, etc. do much better than those who don't. Students who have parents that read to them at the earliest ages perform much better in school. The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease explains it all [ http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/ ]. I bought many copies and lent them to parents and I showed the film at PTA meetings.
I also understand that just because a student is poor or perhaps he or she has bad hygiene habits does not mean that he or she is stupid or can't learn. I had many of those "can't learn" students and they did well and some went on to do very well. We cannot give up on students even if their circumstances make it difficult.
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Yes, let's not give up on students. But let's also not give up on what schools can do to educate kids. They can do a lot before they start shifting the blame to parents.
--peter
With all due respect, you're the only one wrapped around an axle on this question. It's the teachers' job to get kids to WANT to learn. Period. If they don't want to shoulder such a responsibility, they should look for other work.
thanks,
peter