A new Harvard study (PDF) says American students need to begin to decide in middle school whether they want to prepare for four-year college and then a career. The alternative approach, the study says, is to begin vocational training for a job earlier.The study is inspired by European systems of education, and its authors say too many students are graduating high school without middle-level skills that could help them land well-paying jobs as electricians, for example. About a third of jobs in the next decade won't require a four-year college education, the study says, and this program would help American kids prepare for them.
The study may raise the specter of "tracking"--the process by which minority and poor kids are pushed into vocational programs at their schools and held to lower expectations. EdWeek's Catherine Gewertznotes that the authors seem to anticipate that concern, writing that students should be able to change their minds about whether they want to go to college or try a different career at any time. But the report also argues that "the coursetaking requirements for entry into the most demanding four-year colleges should not be imposed on students seeking careers with fewer academic requirements."
Gewertz writes that one of the study's co-authors, Robert Schwartz, previously championed a "college for all" approach to K-12 education.
Higher ed policy analyst Sandy Baum told the AP the idea is to enhance opportunities for everyone. "What we'd like is a system where people of all backgrounds could choose to be plumbers or to be philosophers," Baum added. "Those options are not open. But we certainly need plumbers so it's wrong to think we should be nervous about directing people in that route."
President Obama has said he wants the United States to lead the world in college graduation rates again.
I'm sure the good president knows what he's talking about, but I'd say focusing on college graduation rates is precisely the wrong approach to take to higher ed. Unless one knows how to effectively *use* college graduates, be it in schools or colleges, or government service, or in the private sector, those degrees mean nothing. It'll be the equivalent of iflating grades to make it look like academic performance has improved, when really it took away the only incentive for hard work.
ReplyDeleteEarlier, people could at least take comfort in the fact that they learned something. Higher ed was actually about an education, developing the mind, being responsible citizens, and so on. This blog is testament to the fact that this is no longer the case.
By and large, we'll releasing ill-prepared young men an women to battle a socioeconomic reality they're not remotely prepared for, and usually don't even understand well. And that's not much help to the nation, is it?
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ReplyDeleteAnd as someone who went from school to college to university to doctoral programme, I can personally attest that the most fulfilling and academically fruitful moments of my life have been when I started a non-profit to test my 'scholarship' and my own theories in the real world -- and some of those theories actually worked!
ReplyDeleteAfter a year of this real-life labwork, I had a MUCH better idea of what tools and training I needed to do the kind of research I would enjoy, so I changed tracks, took extra classes, worked as a writer/editor till I had enough to get a tutor to help me catch up quicker, and now, not only am I a far more productive member of society than I was before, I know I'm making a positive difference, even if on a tiny scale.
College education is great. But what's even more important, in this day and age, is to find ways to make it give back to the student, and to society.
Over in Europe they've been dividing people into groups at 4th or 5th grade for decades. Now they are screaming that they need more university graduates. So what are they doing? In Germany they're making getting into university harder by making the top, pre-university track in school more difficult to complete while, at the same time, making university studies more like high school.
ReplyDeletePoliticians will fuck it up. You just have to give them a chance.
The amazing thing in this discourse is that educated, responsible people are not challenging the central, unspoken thesis: that education is about jobs.
ReplyDeleteIt is not.
Public education is about having a citizenry that can make informed decisions, most importantly democratic decisions. Being prepared for employment is a side benefit.
Higher education should be about training people to become experts in understanding the world, to further raise the level of public understanding in a democracy. Having technical skills is a side benefit.
These should be commonly agreed upon goals. But sadly, we continue to blindly follow these stupid consumer models: the students are the consumers who study for personal gain, or the employers are the consumers who consume skilled labor.