Teachers provide a reality check to the grandest of visions.
The grand vision of our time is that every student should go to college. If everyone goes to college, everyone will have high wages. Poverty will end because everyone went to college.
This is fallacious reasoning. If everyone has a college diploma, then a college diploma will be as valuable as a high school diploma is today. The more diplomas there are, the more they become an entry-level requirement. As readers have noticed in my recent blogs, college graduates who work at Apple stores are making $12 an hour or less. Another blog told the story of a young woman with a two-year degree who was standing in line hoping to get a job as an usher or a food vendor at a sports stadium in Brooklyn. She has little choice because half of all African-Americans in New York City are unemployed (Mayor Bloomberg, please notice).
A teacher wrote this in response to the latter blog:
| As a high school special ed teacher in California, I have been shocked at how strongly the culture of “we all must attend college” has affected my students. 17-year-old students who read on a second grade level believe they have to attend college to be happy and successful human beings. They come to me with this expectation, which has been reinforced by their culture, their families, and even the schools they attend, which espouse the popular college education for all attitude.These kids often do not have the emotional and daily living skills to hold down any job. It is my job to somehow teach them those skills, while also teaching them the core subject matter and helping them transition into the adult world. Part of that transitioning involves setting goals, and almost invariably, one of their goals is to attend college. When I suggest that maybe they also consider other options that could be equally fulfilling, it’s as if I’m trying to swipe their dreams away from them.We aren’t serving anyone well by sending kids this message that college is a requirement for success and happiness in America. We need truck drivers and plumbers and carpenters too–all of which are worthwhile and potentially fulfilling professions, especially when they are performed in a culture that values all its workers. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Logical thinking, but children should not be placed in a career path due to the need of the planned economy. That is what this whole restructuring of the educational system is about. See the School-to-Work Act.
I don’t believe Diane’s suggesting that any given student be placed on a given career path because of a planned economy, but rather that we shouldn’t be telling all students: go to college or you’ll be miserable and a failure.
In high school education, we talk a lot about getting kids into college, and we know that, due to the economics of higher education, there really is a college for everyone, ready to take their money and offer them a spot. What we talk far less about is whether the kids who got in stay and succeed in college. Very few high schools do follow-up studies on their graduates. Who has the money? And why would we ask a question that we don’t want to know the answer to?
If we did ask, however, and find out the truth about how many students from even high-performing high schools can’t manage to graduate (or, for some of them, even make it through freshman year), then maybe we would help high school students think more strategically about their futures. Not necessarily about whether further education is appropriate, but about what kind? A four-year liberal arts degree? Or an 6-month or 18-month or two-year certification course that ends in a qualification for a decent job?
The latter would be a better choice for so many students, were they not all being raised to believe that not going to college right after high school, as if college were merely 13th grade, is a disgrace.
Will Richardson tweeted this table from the Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday. It has some very interesting information about the 30 occupations with the largest projected employment growth from 2010-2020.
Will Richardson @willrich45
EVERY child needs to be college ready? Really? http://1.usa.gov/MxNiX #edchat
While it may be a noble goal to have every student go to college, we must not lose sight of something that my dad reminded me of what I was looking for schools: Education is not vocation. We should be encouraging students to go to school to be further educated, not to get a job.
Nicely said Diane Ravitch. Forcing a “College for All” curriculum down the throats of everyone helps no one but the government and publishing companies who will make a bundle off this mandate.
I’ve never believed that college is right for all, but I feel that we must prepare all students so that when they get to the end of high school, college is a choice for them. I’ve seen statistics posted around the Internet lately like 80,000 truck drivers with Bachelor’s degrees. All that means is that someone went to college and then chose another path later.
If we don’t give all high school students a college prep background, what happens when they turn 40 and decide to give college a try? My point is that while we shouldn’t look at a student choosing a path other than college as a failure on our part, we should look at a student without that option as an opportunity missed along the way.
Thank you for this post, Diane. The idea that education creates jobs is an infuriating myth.
http://annlarson.org/2012/03/03/should-everyone-go-to-college-that-is-not-an-important-question/
We have to reclaim the “College For All” rhetoric and not allow a college education to be only about getting a high-paying job. Is it our colleges’ fault that the jobs available are at the Apple Store? Is it our colleges’ fault that the Apple Store only pays $12 an hour? Is the value of a college education only found in the salary figures of graduates? That’s like measuring a high school based solely on the test scores of its graduates. The thing about basing success or value on one variable is that nothing in life is ever that simple. Some folks who graduate from college will be homeless and destitute. Most will have middle-of-the-road-paying jobs that support their families. Some will be gazillionaires. But the same can be said for people who do not go to college. And the reasons why these outcomes occur may have nothing to do with the education the person received. They may be homeless in spite of a good education. Or they may be a gazillionaire in spite of a bad one.
We must not rail against the edureformers for pushing college for all. Instead, we should take back the rhetoric and remind the edureformers that a good education will give kids options. We have to stop the edureformers from making success only about economics and money. We have to stop separating “college” from “career” and do what “okeducationtruths” suggests and make sure our students have choices when they graduate from each level. The “college” and “career” separation is a 19th century idea. It suggests that some are “college material” and others are not. It persists the class struggle. Today’s society and economy is about flexibility and options. It’s about crafting your own future based on a combination of your proclivities and your work ethic. Success today is not only measured by dollars, but also by how happy you are making those dollars. A good education, whether it stops at high school or with a PhD, should help people not only make a good wage, but also figure out whether that wage is all that matters.
The truth is all post-secondary options – work, military, technical school, college – are just more education. When the kid who can’t read tells a teacher he wants to go to college, we should say, “well, in order to do that, you have to read.” We should not say, “come on, kid, you can’t do that. You should be a plumber. They make great money!” Don’t plumbers have to read, too? Teachers get a bad name when they tell kids they can’t do something. Let’s just educate them the best we know how, and let the future take care of itself.
After teaching for several years I found kids are really very smart, they do learn (with a vengeance) what adults teach them, just not what we think we’re teaching them. This applies to special ed as well. They know the drill and they want to be part of it and reflect back the attitudes-the real attitudes-of adults around them. When adults really value the work of all, perhaps the attitudes of students will change.
On StudentsSpeakOut.org I worked with teens to examine the question, “What is Student Achievement? Should we broaden what we mean by achievement?” We heard a lot from teens about the culture they are surrounded by all through school, and exposed them to some very different ideas — like the one you suggest here.
Here’s a link to the project: http://www.citizing.org/projects/ssoachievement
Here is a link reporting the findings from the entire project: http://www.citizing.org/data/projects/ssoachievement/Achievement%20paper%20May%20final%20v2.pdf
Most related to your post are:
Finding 3: Teens said that individual progress should be acknowledged as achievement, even if a student’s highest-level of achievement in high school does not meet what her state has defined as “high standards” or does not qualify her for a four-year college. [In other words, students aren’t failures if they are making good progress.]
Finding 4. Teens said they need and want a lot more information about the array of higher education opportunities as well as counseling services that would help them as they determine their own best choices for success.
***
One of the people they interacted with on the “college for all” topic was Bill Symonds, Director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at Harvard Graduate School of Education who exposed teens to the in-demand jobs of the future and non-4 year college paths to those jobs. Another was Kimberly Green, Executive Director of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, who asked teens to react to Virginia DOE’s specialized diploma options.
A student named Kumar summed it up, “I think that, right now, most people view a college education as the only way to be truly successful in their life, and many of them do not know anything about the other roads they could take. I certainly didn’t know much about them until [participating in this dialogue], and I know I am not alone. …If students set a goal for their future and could plot out which education path fits not only their future, but their budget as well, this could be a huge asset in planning high school and college courses (or the decision to skip college).”
Student Sara wrote, “I think [helping teens see] into the future is key. If a student can see how their choices in high school will affect their life, maybe they would be more willing to work harder, get help, etc. …Some student(s) might think it’s impossible for them to attend/attain an undergrad degree, but if other pathways to success were made available or at least shown, that could be a motivator. …If a four year college isn’t realistic for them, [then what is their incentive to try now]? That’s why I believe all pathways to success should be acknowledged and respected.”
Telling a kid they would be better off not going to college is tricky and dangerous like asking a woman if she’s pregnant when she’s not: the consequences of being wrong are too serious.
When I enlisted in the Navy instead of going to college, my high school counselor told me that was probably the best I could do with my life. Ten years later, I had a master’s degree, and fifteen years later I was teaching college.
Teaching community college, I have had the opposite experience of that special ed teacher. Some of my students were clearly bright enough to go as far in academia as they wanted to, but chose vocational programs that led more immediately to jobs instead of more schooling.
Given the way teachers are treated and even college instructors, maybe they made the smarter choice.
Kids will make their own choices. If they decide college is for them, great. Not every kids is college material. The difference is that in years gone by, high schools would prepare them for life, not just college. The powers that be have destroyed all of the shop classes that used to prepare kids for life if they were not academically inclined. These teachers also used to have a lot of connections to the trade unions and kids would go that route and get jobs. We need plumbers, we need electricians, mechanics and the like. Even if those jobs have gotten more technological, we still need people that can do those things. Later on, if they chose to go back to school, not only was it done by their own accord, they usually went back as better students. More prepared. Go and look at the GPAs of older students that decided at some point in their lives to go back to school. It is usually higher than the students who go at 18.
Sorry, even Mayor Napoleon admits this in a rare moment of clarity, but good luck trying to find out of the NY Daily News left that story up on their website.
This is an interesting discussion, because here in Michigan there are bills in the state Legislature to roll back some of the graduation requirements instituted just a few years ago because they represent a “college-prep” bias. The proposals would eliminate things like the requirements for foreign language study, “advanced mathematics” (by which they mean second year algebra), visual and performing arts, and even economics and world history. These courses would still be available, of course, but just not required.
And yet….
One of the brutal realities of local public school districts here and elsewhere is that, as funding shrinks, everything which is not legally required is on the chopping block. Transportation (busing) is not required here, except for special ed students, and that is one of the first things to be privatized, consolidated or eliminated. To save money, school schedules are being revised to provide the same number of minutes of instruction spread across fewer class periods – meaning fewer teachers are needed but fewer elective classes survive. It’s also true that career and technical ed classes have been cut back as well, for the same reasons.
We live in a time when that which is not required is under threat of disappearing.
Another issue, particularly salient here, is what a “career” means. For much of the Great Recession, my state led the nation in unemployment as our manufacturing industries (the backbone of the local economy) collapsed. Even national statistics showed that unemployment was by far the highest among those with a high school diploma or less, and that unemployment rates fell for those with higher level of education.
If the goal of public education is, in part, to prepare children to be productive members of the community and to be able to earn a decent living, what does that mean today? In my state especially, factory jobs that required nothing more than a high school diploma were a conveyor belt to the middle class. Good pay and good benefits meant your family could live comfortably and maybe even have that little cottage on a lake somewhere. You would be able to help your kids go even further based on the security you had. Those days, and those jobs, are now gone.
[Think about this: those who are leading the charge here to reduce graduation requirements are also leading the charge to rid the public and private sectors of unions. Does this lead to widespread prosperity?]
We are in danger of falling for the rhetoric that we need to be “competitive,” when what that means is that we are competing to lower wages. Rather than investing in education for future prosperity, political leaders argue that good schools are a luxury that we can only afford when the economy “recovers.” Arguments that “not every kid needs to go to college” can be cover for making reduced graduation requirements the excuse for lower funding levels. This is not in the long-term interest of our country, or in the interest of the children now in our schools.
Not every child will benefit from a traditional liberal arts bachelor’s degree. But the jobs of today with decent pay nearly always require some sort of post-secondary preparation. More than that, our students need to be prepared for an economy and world that is much more in flux than ever before. That means a high-quality education which teaches kids how to think and how to be flexible in the face of change. An education such as that has traditionally been viewed as “college-prep,” but I believe it’s what every child desperately needs today.
“College for all” is an empty slogan that fails to take into account the fact that not all students have both the intellectual ability and the interests needed to succeed in a traditional college program.
Most students probably can benefit from some sort of post-secondary education, whether it be an apprenticeship, a one or two year vocational program, or simply a set of training courses (perhaps leading to a certificate) that will help to prepare the student for a job in today’s economy.
While we don’t have as many high-paying manufacturing jobs as we once did, there are still many trade and technical jobs where a well-trained person can earn a decent living. What we need is a rich variety of educational and training opportunities that students can access without going deeply into debt.
Traditional college programs certainly should be available for all those who are interested and capable, but we should not neglect the vocational components of post-secondary education in my opinion.
The great strength of our education system…we attempt to educate everyone.
The great weakness of our education system…we attempt to educate everyone.
The “all students should go to college” belief is kind of analogous to believing that all religious people should become ordained as ministers.
Also, I think we shortchange our vision as educators if we believe that our sole role is to prepare our students for college.
I faced exactly this problem with a young man at a community college who in no way has the skills or the organizational skills or focus to be happy at college. Yet no one will suggest to him that he might have a perfectly happy life doing something else–as a lab tech, an a/c repairman….
When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a TV repair man. I was attracted to the way in which I have seen one repairing an older television at my home, how skilled he was at diagnosing the problem and using this multimeter tool to do measurements, and judgements in the old vacuum bulb powered black and white television set. I communicated this idea to my mother, who, apparently, believed I had the skills for I had always been a very bright student at school. As a lower-middle class family, I attended only public schools, which at the time, already had bad reputation about the quality of education a student receives, in comparison with the expensive private schools, or so was the general belief of many people. One day, almost finishing middle school and getting ready for high school, a vocational counselor was visiting our school, and I had the opportunity to talk with him, and run my idea of TV repair man by him. I wanted / needed, additional reinforcement. He basically told me that while it was a nice trade, it was actually low paying. “Have you thought about what are you going to do when you decide to settle down and have a family? Buy a home, maybe even a car? All that plus the general living expenses of a household, do you think you are going to have enough money for all that? Because as it is today, the people who are already doing this, are not making enough money to pay for all their expenses. Tomorrow, it is going to be even more difficult. But if you have a Bachelors Degree in something more needed, more demanded, perhaps you will have a better earning and have the financial freedom to do all that.” Those words changed my perspective in life because I reflected on them, and found he was mostly right. So, I decided to journey into high-school, which I excelled at, and venture into college; and despite best grades, graduation with honors, etc., I found myself going from the line of graduates to the line of unemployment for several years.
I have worked selling newspapers in a corner, selling groceries at a store, selling tools at a hardware store, as an unlicensed electrician self-taught, cleaning toilets for an agency, and even as a computer instructor for a local county. My thoughts today are, many of us want a better life, a good future, we “see” and “hear” people with a college degree earn more money, and thus money becomes the pursuit, lots of it, because; unfortunately, it is with money that we can buy homes, pay bills, buy food, and even afford health care through paying high-priced health insurances for in our beloved country, there is no social medicine. So yes, everybody would love to have a college degree because that is the message we receive, it leads to a better life, better opportunities, but in reality, that dream is not exactly a guaranteed outcome anymore, if it ever was. Today, it looks like everybody has a college degree when one goes trying to find a job. Companies demand high education, extensive experience, and only offer salaries which are not enough for a decent living, much less attempting to achieve any American dream. So, the few jobs that appear in the paper, those who seem to not require high level of education, those get taken by people who have been waiting and waiting before you, and who also have degrees in this or that. Like my neighbor, a young man with a wife and two kids, B.S. in Computer Science, M.S. in Information Technologies, and yet, working as a cashier at a bank because, there are no jobs for him. Not all people need to go to college, but we do seem to want a decent life where we can provide for our families, can I do that with $12/hr? What about $20/hr when taxes take 30% of my earnings? No, the problem of “college for all” runs much deeper than just understanding our economy, our needs, etc., it is rooted in the philosophy of we need to make money to have a better life.