Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
2010 was the year of accountability for community colleges, which tried to balance access and success.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Public two-year college students post a 15.6 percent default rate on federal loans over the lifetime of the loan. That’s lower than the 18.6 percent default rate for students of for-profit colleges, but considerably higher than the default rate for four-year, private, nonprofit institutions (5.6 percent) and four-year public colleges (6.3 percent).
Education should emulate football teams’ zeal to improve, says American Federation of Teachers leader Randi Weingarten in her joint interview with Bill Gates in Newsweek.
Football teams . . . look at the tape after every game. Sometimes they do it during the game. They’re constantly deconstructing what is working and what isn’t working. And they’re jettisoning what isn’t working and building up on what is working, and doing it in a teamlike approach.
The NFL is ruthlessly meritocratic, responds Eduwonk. Performance is everything.
Four NFL coaches have already been fired this year, fairly or not, and you didn’t hear a lot from them about how their players were the problem.
. . . As to the players, it’s hard to find an institution more at odds with how schools are generally operated than the NFL – and the players are unionized. The union rules cover basic protections but don’t guarantee players more than minimum salaries. If, for instance, the NFL operated the way school districts generally do it would have been difficult for Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan to bench quarterback Donovan McNabb as he did a few weeks ago. And, even if he succeeded, McNabb presumably could have “forced transfered” his way into another offense somewhere where he had more seniority than the existing quarterback.
NFL pay is based on performance: Stars make much more than journeymen players.
Going to the toughest college you can get into isn’t necessarily the best strategy, writes Gail Heriot, a University of San Diego law professor and a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. According to a report by the commission, “accepting an affirmative action leg-up probably hurts a student’s chances of becoming a doctor, scientist or engineer.” Students are more likely to achieve their goals if they attend a school at which their academic credentials are roughly average.
College-bound African-Americans are just as likely as whites to plan science and engineering majors, but much more likely to switch to easier majors along the way, Heriot writes. While black students earn lower science-related standardized test scores than Asians or whites, that’s not the whole explanation.
As three independent scholarly studies show, part of the problem appears to be relative. A student who attends a college at which his entering credentials put him near the bottom of the class — which is where a student who needed an affirmative action preference will be — is less likely to persevere in science or engineering than an otherwise identical student attending a school at which those same credentials put him in the middle of the class or higher.
. . . A good student can get in over his head and end up learning little or nothing if he is placed in a classroom with students whose level of academic preparation is much higher than his own, even though he is fully capable of mastering the material when presented at a more moderate pace. Discouraged, he may even give up — even though he would have persevered and ultimately succeeded in a somewhat less competitive environment.
Frederick Smyth, a University of Virginia psychology professor, and John McArdle, a University of Southern California psychology professor, estimate that 45 percent more minority women and 35 percent more minority men would have persisted in science and engineering if they had attended schools where their academic credentials matched their peers.
With only 20 percent of total African-American enrollment, historically black colleges and universities produce 40 percent of the African-Americans graduating with a bachelor’s degree in the natural sciences, Heriot writes.
Are ‘green jobs’ for real? San Antonio’s Mission Verde plan envisions “green jobs” filled by “green workers” trained at community colleges and universities. But it’s not clear the jobs exist.
The U.S. spends more on education than any OECD country except for Switzerland, according to Veronique de Rugy, a Mercatus Center senior research fellow. The U.S. spends an average of $91,700 per student between the ages of six and 15, a third more than high-scoring Finland, she estimates.
A North Carolina girl who accidentally took her father’s lunchbox to school has been suspended for the rest of her senior year: Dad had packed a small paring knife to eat an apple.
Ashley Smithwick, 17, of Sanford, a top student and soccer star, hadn’t been in trouble before. She now faces misdemeanor charges for bringing a weapon on campus. That could end her hopes for a soccer scholarship. “When you have a criminal record no school’s going to look at you,” she said. Smithwick is taking online courses through Central Carolina Community College to earn her diploma.
Lee County Superintendent Jeff Moss told the Sanford Herald that it’s up to the principal to determine a student’s “true intent.”
“Bottom line is we want to ensure every child feels safe on our campus.”
A commenter writes:
“Let’s have the students feel safe. How about letting them feel like their entire lives and livelihood aren’t at risk at your institution from an honest mistake. You are ruining this child’s life and future because some bonehead can’t recognize an honest mistake.”
Close the school, writes Instapundit. Children aren’t safe from stupid school officials.
Update: The superintendent says a three-inch knife was found in Smithwick’s purse. On PJ Media, Bryan Preston has a photo of the “purse,” which is a BYO brand lunch tote. The school also says Smithwick is enrolled at the school. But she’s banned from campus.
Graduation rates are rising in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but most high school graduates who enroll at Ivy Tech’s local campus need remedial math or reading or both. Success rates are low for students who start in remedial classes.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Many high school counselors aren’t prepared to guide first-to-college students through the college admissions and financial aid process.
South Korean students are learning English from robots controlled by teachers in the Philippines. The Engkey robots are teaching at 21 elementary schools in the southeastern city of Daegu.
The 3-1/2-foot-tall, egg-shaped device, developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), has a TV display screen for a face. The human teachers can see and listen to the students through the remote link and can direct the robots to move around the classroom, “dance” to music, play educational games and sing songs with the children.
The robots display an avatar face of a Caucasian woman, but cameras detect the Filipino teachers’ facial expressions and reflect them on the avatar’s face, Sagong Seong-Dae, a senior scientist at KIST, told Agence France Presse.
“Well-educated, experienced Filipino teachers are far cheaper than their counterparts elsewhere, including South Korea,” he told AFP.
Apart from reading books, the robots use pre-programmed software to sing songs and play alphabet games with the children.
“The kids seemed to love it since the robots look, well, cute and interesting. But some adults also expressed interest, saying they may feel less nervous talking to robots than a real person,” said Kim Mi-Young, an official at Daegu city education office.
Robots may be sent to rural areas where foreign English teachers are reluctant to work. However, Kim said the experiment isn’t designed to replace human teachers. “We are helping upgrade a key, strategic industry and all the while giving children more interest in what they learn.”
“Having robots in the classroom makes the students more active in participating, especially shy ones afraid of speaking out to human teachers,” Kim said.
Korean scientists have been experimenting with using robots to teach math, science and other subjects.
“They won’t complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months for a better-paying job in Japan,” Sagong said.
Just joking?
Making time for things that matter is the theme of 2010′s last Carnival of Homeschooling, hosted by Janice Campbell.
Money isn’t everything. Five years ago, donors offered to pay college tuition for all graduates of public schools in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Students can use the offer at any public college or university in the state. While 81 percent of graduates receive a scholarship, only 54 percent have earned a degree or remain on track to graduate, according to the Hechinger Report.
College-funding programs exist in 15 to 20 cities, including Denver, Pittsburgh, New Haven, Connecticut and Hammond, Indiana.
In Pittsburgh’s program, the percentage of scholarship recipients who return to their public four-year colleges after freshman year trails the state average by nearly three points, said Saleem Ghubril, executive director of the Pittsburgh Promise, which launched in 2007 with a $100 million commitment by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The picture for community college students on Pittsburgh Promise scholarships is brighter: 70.3 percent return for their second year, about 10 points above the national average. Graduation data are not yet available because the program is so new.
In Denver, half of the 199 students in the first class eligible for that city’s promise-style program came back for their fourth year of college, said Rana Tarkenton, director of student services at the Denver Scholarship Foundation.
Most promise-style scholarships reward residency in a school district, city or state, rather than academic merit, though some set minimum grade-point averages or college-entrance exam scores. The effect is to encourage less-prepared students to try college.
To keep their scholarships, Kalamazoo Promise students must be enrolled full time in a two-year or four-year college and maintain a C average. The program’s graduation rates are lowest at two-year colleges, as they are in the rest of the U.S: only a third of the Class of 2006 who attended community college had graduated by the fall of 2010, program statistics show. The following year’s class didn’t do much better. Nationally, just 11.6 percent of students at public two-year colleges complete degrees within six years.
Many students aren’t prepared for the academic or social challenges of higher education, said Stan Jones, president of Complete College America, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
“It’s especially hard for students who come from poor areas and don’t have support networks,” said Jones, one of the founders of Twenty-First Century Scholars, a promise-style program founded in Indiana in the 1990s. “Just giving them the opportunity to go to college isn’t enough. They need support once they get there – mentoring, ways for students to connect.”
Students who are the first in their family to attend college have to learn how to navigate the system, said University of Michigan freshman Adwoa Bobo, a pre-med student on a Promise scholarship. While her tuition is covered, she has to pay for room, board, books and other expenses.
“The hardest adjustment for me is being able to manage my time, and being able to study effectively,” Bobo said. “In high school, I was able to pass through without studying too much. In college, you cannot get good grades without taking notes and studying every night for each class and reading your books thoroughly. You must work hard. I’ve been told that college was harder than high school, but you never know what they mean until you’re here.”
Students who live at home while attending community college or a four-year commuter school can earn a degree at a very low cost in dollars, but those who aren’t willing to invest their time and energy aren’t going to get very far.
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