What's the Goal?

An interesting report in Newsweek finds that while colleges are recruiting more minority students, the graduation rates for minorities is staying relatively low. For instance, at Bowdoin College, they nearly doubled the number of minority students entering the school. However, while neaerly 90% of white students graduate, only 70% of minority students do. At the University of Northern Iowa, 67% of white students graduate while only 39% of black students do.

The article goes into a couple of possible explanations for why these figures are what they are and I'm sure you have a few theories of your own. To my way of thinking, though, the problem is that we've confused our means and ends again.

This seems to happen a lot in schools. We want to make sure all students are learning so we decide we should test kids to find out if they're learning. Then, the tests become the end-all be-all and we lose sight of whether the kids are learning real things or learning how to game/pass tests.

Same thing here, we decided that we wanted more minority students in college. We seem to have forgotten that getting students into college is only a means toward the end of graduating and getting good jobs afterwards. So Bowdoin boosts its minority admission and declares victory and, oops, forgets that there's a little more to the picture than that.

That's not to say that the efforts of Bowdoin and others aren't useful or worthwhile. They are, in fact, necessary steps. But they are not sufficient steps if we want to ensure that we're fully educating our population.

A New Sensation

I'm still getting used to the idea that I can read about something the president has done and actually agree with it. For the last eight years a more common reaction has been to shake my head or re-read something in disbelief. Now, I'm coming across articles and saying, "Yeah, I agree with that. I've thought that for years." I guess that's the advantage of having your preferred candidate in the White House.

The reason I mention it is that last Friday Obama announced a new plan for unemployment benefits that would allow people to continue to collect benefits as they enroll in educational and training programs. Under the old system, a person collecting unemployment had to be actively looking for work.

Don't get me wrong. I think the old plan made a lot of sense too. I don't think we should be in the business of helping people who aren't helping themselves. However, now we're acknowledging that there is more than one way that people can help themselves.

As Obama said, "In a 21st-century economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, education is the single best bet we can make." Amen to that.

Allowing people to increase their education and build their skill base is more likely to benefit them in the long term them keeping them in a never-ending cycle of dead end, low skill, low pay jobs. By investing in education - even at this relatively late point in people's lives - we are increasing the odds that individuals will be able to break out of the cycle of poverty that captures individuals, families, and generations. Certainly it's not a cure-all, but it sure is a good step.

Can't Afford to Drop Out

Would it surprise you to learn that the graduation rate in New York may be even lower than we already thought? The only real surprise on that would be that it's lower than the already awful 50% where it currently stands. Yet a recent report shows that more than 20% of the class of 2007 were discharged from the system before they graduated. Those discharges are students who were then not counted in figuring the final graduation rate for the system. In other words, the graduation rate may be 20% lower than we thought.

Now, not all of them are actual dropouts. Many may have moved, entered private schools, or any number of other legitimate reasons for removing themselves from the system. But you can bet that many of them were drop outs or were counseled out. And that's very sad.

However, there's research that provides cause for hope. A study out of the University of Michigan shows that kids as young as 11 will work harder in school if they think that college is affordable to them. The logical flip side is that kids who don't see college as a real opportunity are more likely to give up. That makes a lot of sense to me. Why work if there isn't going to be a reward in the forseeable future? But if kids know their work in school can get them somewhere, they'll stick with it better.

That means that we need to do everything we can to make college more affordable (I know I'm not the first one to say that), but also that we need to make sure people know we're making college more affordable. We can start educating parents and students early on to make sure that they see the possibilities and are willing to keep working toward them. When we do that, we may be able to start pushing up our abysmal graduation rates.

Get Them Early

As USA Today reported yesterday, a group of college presidents wants more students in this country to go to and graduate from college. Given the source, this is not terribly surprising news. As it stands now there are 3.64 million students enrolled in first grade. There are 1.49 million in their second year of college. Clearly something is getting lost in the middle to the tune of about 2.15 million kids. As the presidents phrased it, "a torrent of talent entering the nation's schools in kindergarten is reduced to a trickle 16 years later." Not a bad quote.

What's interesting then about the report (and USA Today's reporting on it) is that these college presidents focused on early childhood education - particularly a universal, voluntary pre-school program in low-income comunities - as one of the most promising ways to boost college graduation rates. It's like they've been reading this blog! The most promising way to close the achievement gap and make sure that all children are ready and able to learn is to start early so that no gap ever opens. It just makes sense.

This notion seems to be the prevailing counterweight to the idealocrat reforms of heavy-handed accountability and high stakes testing. I think the difference couldn't be more stark. One approach offers a solution. The other approach offers nothing more than a measuring stick. It will be interesting to see which gains greater prominence in the years ahead.

The Human Capital Gap

For all the talk about the failures of our public schools to get kids prepared for college, it's kind of easy to forget that even kids who are qualified may not be able to go. According to a report released by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the cost of college is increasing to the point where it's going to become more and more of a luxury, even without a recession.

According to the report, from 1982 to 2007 the median family income rose by 147%. During that same time, the cost of attending college skyrocketed 439%! That's almost three times as high. The cost of attending a four year public college eats up 28% of the median family income while attending private college would drain 76% of that income. The way that things are going, it's looking like it may not matter how well we prepare kids to be ready for college. If they can't afford to go, they won't. And then where will we be?

Robert Reich correctly points out that for all the billions we're spending bailing out various sectors of our economy, we're not focusing our attention on the human capital that will drive our economy forward in the future.

I've frequently said that we should set up a system in this country whereby tuition to state colleges is paid for for all qualified students who enroll. That payment could come in the form of tax credits or just outright payments to the schools. I know that the costs of such a program would probably be staggering. But what's the cost of making college a luxury that few can afford? How much are we really willing to pay for that?