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Northeastmom
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
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Posted: Tue Apr 29th, 2008 10:38 am |
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| http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i34/34b01701.htm
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mackinaw
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| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
| Posts: | 776 |
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Posted: Tue Apr 29th, 2008 01:50 pm |
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The educational pathway that leads to "unfinished college education" is one of the least well understood. I guess I'm not sure what to conclude from the article, however. I've seen a lot of folks who earned an AA degree that led to a valuable credential. So that's one post-high school option that can pay off, and also may be a stage on the way to a bachelors degree for those who decide to go on, while also providing what one sociologist once described as a "cooling out" period for those who do graduate from high school but don't get into the 4-year college of their choice or can't afford it.
Still, I think we tend to overlook the consequences of the attrition rates in 4-year colleges. I would speculate that we even prefer to use the term "non-retention" or just the "retention" rates because the term has a less nasty connotation.
And even more do we tend to overlook the huge percentage of our children who do not even finish high school. Do any of us know that percentage? And what the main factors and consequences are from the low high school graduation rates? I can't cite the figures off the top of my head, but I have a rough sense of the losses here.
Last edited on Tue Apr 29th, 2008 02:53 pm by mackinaw
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kdmom
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| Joined: | Sun Jun 4th, 2006 |
| Location: | Washington USA |
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Posted: Thu May 1st, 2008 01:11 am |
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My conclusion from the article was that we need higher standards at all levels of education. There were two quotes that I found particularly scary. The first was about under-qualified students being admitted to college, taking substantial loans, and then not graduating, and the second was about colleges turning out students who do not seem to have actually been "educated" anywhere along the way.
Among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later. That figure is from a study cited by Clifford Adelman, a former research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education and now a senior research associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below "proficient" levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station.
Frankly, I think that the high schools should be responsible for teaching the skills mentioned in the second quote. If colleges are letting students in and then frequently also letting them out without this basic knowledge, then a lot of people (including taxpayers) are wasting a lot of money.
We don't really want college to be the new high school, do we? I'm always surprised when I see a job advertisement for a department store sales clerk (for example) that says, "college degree preferred." For heaven's sake, why? A responsible, well-taught high school graduate should be qualified to do this job, in my view.
And Mackinaw has another very good point -- what's happening to all those students who don't even graduate from high school? (Here's an article with some figures: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm)
The first thing we should do is get kids to stay in school and learn the basics. (Not everyone is a book-learner, and basic skills can be taught in a variety of ways, so I'm in favor of vocational as well as academic high schools.) There should be training programs and community colleges for people who aren't ready for, or want something different from, an academic college education. We should make sure that the students who enter college are truly qualified to be there, and then we can worry about whether the colleges themselves are actually adding value. I guess that's a little simplistic, but it seems reasonable to me 
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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 474 |
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Posted: Thu May 1st, 2008 08:29 pm |
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It's been my feeling for a long time that we need more--and more excellent--vocational education starting by freshman year of high school. There is no reason why a kid who is interested in building trades or something of that nature should not be able to pursue those practical skills while learning to keep books for a small business, read a contract, and write a good business letter. And in addition that kid should learn enough history and government and critical thought and reading to be a functional citizen, and be exposed to enough literature and music and art so that he can enrich his life with them if he so chooses. And I don't think that basic math through geometry, a decent introduction to the scientific method and basic science literacy would be too much to ask, either. If all of this were achieved by the age of 18, great. If it took until 19 or 20, as an associate's degree might be, with some apprenticeship thrown in, fine also.
Where I live, the vocational HS is not available to kids until junior year of high school. In the case of some, they have already gone down the tubes by then.
I also feel that anyone who is really honest will admit that a bachelor's degree means vastly different things depending on which school awarded it, and what was studied. I think that instead of pushing non-academic kids into bogus 4-year "college" programs, we should have an array of really good programs that would result in some kind of degree or certificate closer to the associate's degree.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 03:10 am |
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I interviewed Mr. Nemko for my blog a while back. He is an interesting fellow, and this isn't the first time he has expressed his point of view. If anyone is interested in reading my interview with him, here's the link:
http://collegehunt.blogspot.com/2006/06/higher-education-americas-most.html
I personally do think that we have become overfocused on the "Every one must go to college or be subjected to a life of failure" mantra. There are some kids who might be better served heading into a skilled trade, or perhaps starting with community college. Unfortunately, there is no way of sorting out who should take the college path vs. the non-college path. I've seen kids with low GPAs succeed in the right college, and kids with high GPAs drop out of college. And, of course, many of our high schools are no longer equipped to give kids some exposure to different trades, or to provide the type of individualized counseling that might help point individuals in the right direction. Who wants to be the counselor to suggest to a student that they might be best served going into the military rather than to college in a town where parents are in a frenzy about college admissions? Not me. 
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Fri May 2nd, 2008 03:12 am |
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Consolation wrote: It's been my feeling for a long time that we need more--and more excellent--vocational education starting by freshman year of high school. There is no reason why a kid who is interested in building trades or something of that nature should not be able to pursue those practical skills while learning to keep books for a small business, read a contract, and write a good business letter.
I agree with this. It seems a shame that high schools have done away with things like shop, auto mechanics, etc.
A friend's son hated school. He ended up apprenticing to a plumber, got into the plumber's union, and is doing very well for himself....with no student loans to pay off. 
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