Is dumbing-down why graduation rates are up? In both high school and college?

[PetraG]

The highest performing public schools have become essentially their own form of private schools, with high property taxes becoming the “tuition.”

The confounding variable with that situation is the holy grail of education: parental engagement. Wealthy school districts have a higher amount of money AND a higher proportion of parents in a position to support their children in academic success.

The same thing shows up in competitive sports, of course. Wealthier districts have both more money to work with in their programs AND more students whose parents bankroll extracurricular development opportunities AND a smaller fraction of families who are more or less in chaos or strained more into survival mode than “success” mode.

An example: one study tested children at the beginning and then again at the end of school years, to see differences in what students learned over the course of the school year. What they found was a result they didn’t set out to find: the difference between students in higher or lower incomes schools wasn’t drastic in terms of what was accomplished during the school year. What WAS drastic was the change in scores between the END of one school year and the START of the next. Wealthier kids were given lots more to do that supported academic success over their summer breaks, giving them a big advantage over students from families who didn’t have that.

 

[Peeps]

However, several years into college, one of them thanked me for insisting they stay in the program, and proceeded to tell me how she and her sister were so far better prepared for college than almost all of their classmates, including (to her apparent surprise) those who had had AP classes. And they graduated from high school in 2000.

Same thing happened with my kids. My older daughter actually had some college classes that used the same books as her high school classes, so she sailed through.

My younger daughter went to a private college known for the medical programs. Her first roommates were 3 pre-med students. She was a PT major, so had many of the same classes during the first year.

Even before school started, her college adviser told her to sign up for only 4 classes. (12 credit hours!) She told him, “I’ve been used to having ten academic classes, including 4 AP classes! I would be bored to death! And I want to sign up for choir and some music classes, too.”

The adviser told her that college is a lot harder than high school, but she stuck to her guns and signed up for 21 hours of classes. She also worked every day at the ice skating rink (including Sat and Sun) coaching.

During the semester, she told us that her roommates were partying all the time, and kept failing their tests and projects. (Maybe if they had taken 21 hours, they wouldn’t have time to party!).

At the end of the first year, she had straight As, while all three of her roommates flunked out. And when she told her adviser that she had worked all year off campus–he was totally floored.

It was all because of the good preparation she had received in her elementary, middle, and high school years. But…she (and her sister, who also sailed through college) attended a private college prep school that has been around for decades in our city and produces 75% of the city’s CEOs.

We paid a FORTUNE for that school, and it’s one reason we are in debt now that we are in our 60s–the money that could have been used to pay off our mortgage in a timely way went towards educating our daughters. But we reject Dave Ramsay’s teachings and say that the best investment we can make is in our children. Both have successful careers and lives, and the one who is married has a husband who is equally successful because of his hard work in a public high school (he worked 40 hours a week while he was in high school). What good would a paid-off mortgage do if our children were still living at home with us?!

 

[Peeps]

But then, I have a highly unorthodox (and borderline offensive belief) that there should be a viable way to drop out of high school for those who so choose, e.g. greater availability of apprenticeships and other trade programs for these youth to make a viable living.

I tend to agree with this, but the problem is right now that a high school diploma is required to enter an apprenticeship program or other trade programs.

My work supervisor, who grew up in North Dakota, believes that at age 16, students should be finished with “school,” and be required to choose a “life option”:

1. Trade school or apprenticeship
2. College entrance exams and college if the exams are successfully passed
3. Enter the military or some other service to the country.
4. Find a job and work–this is still possible if there is a family business e.g., a farm, a company, or if the person is able to start their own business or company.
5. Get married and raise a family.

Several countries have some version of this type of education–at age 16, the student takes a test to determine whether they should go on to college or whether they should go to work or into the military. I can see where this might work, but I’m afraid the teachers would feel obligated to “teach to the test.”

I personally think that a lot of jobs (mine, for example–medical technologist in a hospital lab) would NOT require a bachelors degree. There are several “lab technicians” in our lab who have an associates degree, and they do the same work and do it very well. They are not eligible to be a supervisor, but who needs it?–more work and only a dollar more in wages! I seriously think that college is unnecessary for many “careers.”

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you and your husband had to go into debt to invest in your kids, why aren’t your successful kids paying you back now?
If that had happened with me I’d see paying my parents as my responsibility.

 

[Sarcelle]

But then, I have a highly unorthodox (and borderline offensive belief) that there should be a viable way to drop out of high school for those who so choose, e.g. greater availability of apprenticeships and other trade programs for these youth to make a viable living.

I don’t see anything offensive about this. In fact I like this.

A university education is certainly not for everyone, in fact it’s not for most people.

However good job training programs consisting of several methods of acquiring job skills is what is needed.

 

[Sarcelle]

Yes me too. I was a pretty smart kid through grade and high school but honestly I had NO business going to college right out of high school. Looking back, I was burned out with school and I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated.

Same here.

I decided to skip going to university after graduating high school and joined the military instead.

It gave me the time and experience needed to sort out what I wanted in life and also some needed funds for higher education.

I went to college after my time in the military was up and along with internships, grants and the GI Bill, I was able to graduate without any debt.

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

However good job training programs consisting of several methods of acquiring job skills is what is needed.

I wish more jobs had apprenticeships like they used to. You learn SO much more out in the real world as opposed to college (which IMO is like living in fantasy land).

I decided to skip going to university after graduating high school and joined the military instead.

This may be a route we explore with our kids as well…mommy and daddy can’t foot 4 college educations, that’s for sure …at least not when we’re still paying off our own

 

[Clementine14]

I was an adjunct professor for one semester, and taught a graduate class in the Education Department. I found a lack of curiosity about the subject matter. The students, who were either hoping to get a job teaching or already employed teaching, demanded multiple choice exams, resented any kind of assessment where one had to think “outside the box”.

Everyone had an expectation of an A, and planned to file an appeal if they didn’t get it.

I’ve been an adjunct for several years now, and find the same. I was astounded when I began teaching at the sense of entitlement I encountered. I’ve had students “report” me for reporting them for plagiarism, and many students who were upset that they did not get an A because they were “A students” according to their high schools and other college courses.

So many of my students are completely unprepared for the rigor of college courses- I make a lot of referrals to the Writing Center for students who cannot write a basic sentence. I have no idea how these students graduated from high school or were admitted into college. These students have been failed- I don’t consider it their fault at all. Many of them think that “hard work” is worth an A, and have trouble understanding that they need to demonstrate understanding of course material to “earn” a grade.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

Yes, the teachers who care, know their subjects, and can teach are leaving.

My husband recently finished working twelve years at a Catholic university, a good one whose name you would recognize. Everything posted here happened there—and more. And now, the students get to critique and “grade” the professors, so a lot of them are giving up and handing out high grades, since the administrators look at the kids’ scores on the professors. The entire system is falling apart.

Then in the areas where you really have to know something, they aren’t just falling apart—they’re disappearing. My husband taught a couple of levels of statistics, quantitative analysis, and business analytics. These things have now gone by the boards. My husband left (was practically thrown out, actually), because he insisted the students do the work to get the grade. He flunked a couple of kids, one of whose parents knew somebody at the upper level of the administration, there were a number of “meetings,” and it got pretty ugly. In the end, the administration changed the grades of two kids (something really never done). My husband left, and those courses were dropped out of Business Admin., except for one, which is now taught by a kid who doesn’t know anything about the course himself, and he just takes students out to businesses, and the management there talk about how they handle large data files. The stats, quant, and analytics courses are either gone or have no rigor at all.

The university has recently got a new president, which may be because of some of this. It just amazed us that everybody at the school was going along with it. The other professors, the department heads, the administration right up to the top levels. The dept. head told my husband, Well, I have to do what’s best for my career here. It’s so depressing.

 

[Fuerza]

I taught undergraduate Spanish as part of my degree when I was in grad school. I remember discussing early on, in my first semester of teaching, how Spanish nouns and adjectives have to agree, and seeing nothing but puzzled looks on most of the students’ faces. Thinking that I had moved too quickly through the material I began to backtrack and give more examples, but still quizzical looks from the students. As I progressed through the lesson I began to wonder If I might simply be the worst teacher in the world, as we were only a week into the semester and the material was not at all difficult yet. Finally, I realized the problem. One student, looking somewhat uncomfortable, slowly raised his hand. The question: “Umm, what’s a noun?”. Sighs of relief and comments of agreement over the confusion rung out from all ends of the class. This was a room filled with high school graduates, including some college seniors about to finish their bachelor’s degrees who just needed to fill a final gen ed requirement in order to graduate. This is also NY, where everyone has to pass regents exams, including in English and Literature, in order to graduate high school. Now as a parent, I see that the common core standards that have been imposed are even lower, and my wife and I spend a significant amount of time reteaching the material to our children in the hopes that they will be able to actually function as adults.

 

[JoeShlabotnik]

I blame much on the Internet.
Many young people I talk to seem to have trouble reading and writing.

 

[babochka]

otjm:

However, several years into college, one of them thanked me for insisting they stay in the program, and proceeded to tell me how she and her sister were so far better prepared for college than almost all of their classmates, including (to her apparent surprise) those who had had AP classes. And they graduated from high school in 2000.

Same thing happened with my kids. My older daughter actually had some college classes that used the same books as her high school classes, so she sailed through.

My younger daughter went to a private college known for the medical programs. Her first roommates were 3 pre-med students. She was a PT major, so had many of the same classes during the first year.

Even before school started, her college adviser told her to sign up for only 4 classes. (12 credit hours!) She told him, “I’ve been used to having ten academic classes, including 4 AP classes! I would be bored to death! And I want to sign up for choir and some music classes, too.”

The adviser told her that college is a lot harder than high school, but she stuck to her guns and signed up for 21 hours of classes. She also worked every day at the ice skating rink (including Sat and Sun) coaching.

During the semester, she told us that her roommates were partying all the time, and kept failing their tests and projects. (Maybe if they had taken 21 hours, they wouldn’t have time to party!).

At the end of the first year, she had straight As, while all three of her roommates flunked out. And when she told her adviser that she had worked all year off campus–he was totally floored.

It was all because of the good preparation she had received in her elementary, middle, and high school years. But…she (and her sister, who also sailed through college) attended a private college prep school that has been around for decades in our city and produces 75% of the city’s CEOs.

We paid a FORTUNE for that school, and it’s one reason we are in debt now that we are in our 60s–the money that could have been used to pay off our mortgage in a timely way went towards educating our daughters. But we reject Dave Ramsay’s teachings and say that the best investment we can make is in our children. Both have successful careers and lives, and the one who is married has a husband who is equally successful because of his hard work in a public high school (he worked 40 hours a week while he was in high school). What good would a paid-off mortgage do if our children were still living at home with us?!

Wow! I’m tired just looking at this . I’m glad it worked out for your kids, but for many people, that’s a recipe for burn-out.

Many (I would venture to say most) successful people did not take 10 academic classes in high school and 21 units in college and turned out just fine. That kind of load isn’t even an option in most high schools unless you take online classes from another source.

And if they we’re using the same textbook in college that they had used in high school, what good did all those AP classes do for them?

 

[Peeps]

We have never asked them to do so and don’t plan on asking them to do so.

We considered paying for their education OUR responsibility, not theirs. If you have a different approach, I would never dream of criticizing you.

Their responsibility was to stay out of trouble, learn as much as possible and acquire training/degree that would enable them to support themselves. They more than achieved these responsibilities. In addition, they paid for all of their “extracurricular activities” by working throughout their college years, including grad school, and never asked us to fund “recreation.”

And both of our daughters did take out their own student loans of around $40,000 to fund their graduate school, and they have paid these back by living simple lifestyles for the first few years they were out of school.

If we were in any trouble, both kids, along with our son-in-law, would be the first to offer help, both financial and practical. They have already done so several times when grandparents have been ill, or when one of us had surgery or sickness.

 

[Peeps]

And if they we’re using the same textbook in college that they had used in high school, what good did all those AP classes do for them?

The AP courses enabled my older daughter to graduate a semester early , which saved us over $10,000 in tuition, and also made it possible for accept a great “first job” (that actually used her degree!) that became available in January. If she had been enrolled in the spring semester, she wouldn’t have been able to take that job, which over 15 years later is still yielding other work for her through the contacts she made (entertainment industry is all about “who you know”.)

She didn’t take AP courses in science–she hated it and took the easiest science requirement offered by the college, which turned out to be the same book/course she had finished in high school (where it also wasn’t an AP course–it was the “non-science kids” biology option!).

 

[babochka]

babochka:

And if they we’re using the same textbook in college that they had used in high school, what good did all those AP classes do for them?

The AP courses enabled my older daughter to graduate a semester early , which saved us over $10,000 in tuition, and also made it possible for accept a great “first job” (that actually used her degree!) that became available in January. If she had been enrolled in the spring semester, she wouldn’t have been able to take that job, which over 15 years later is still yielding other work for her through the contacts she made (entertainment industry is all about “who you know”.)

She didn’t take AP courses in science–she hated it and took the easiest science requirement offered by the college, which turned out to be the same book/course she had finished in high school (where it also wasn’t an AP course–it was the “non-science kids” biology option!).

Wasn’t your daughter a PT major taking the same first-year courses as medical students? Or was this a different daughter?

( I just re-read your original post. It was a different daughter. Sorry, my confusion in conflating the two.)

 

[Wendy1989]

Elementary - High Schools teach to the test. When my son was in school (graduated HS 2012), he had a middle school teach that marked a math answer wrong because he used the wrong sequence. One of my math geek nephews came to help tutor my son with math. This nephew did ‘air calculus’. I asked my nephew about this and he said there was absolutely no reason for the mark-down on the answer. All the numbers were correct. My only conclusion was that the teacher was 1) Teaching to the test and 2) Didn’t want to actually look at what she was grading.

Most of the necessary tools for being a life-long learner are given by the end of 3rd grade. By 3rd grade, a child has learned to read, write, add, subtract, multiply ,divide, tie shoes and identify colors. The rest of the years are application of those tools. The natural curiosity of a child has been rooted out of our educational system and the desire for learning has been replaced with regurgitation of so-called ‘facts’.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

Happy Cake Day!

 

[blackforest]

What you’re describing is the European model. It doesn’t fare well here because there’s no financial incentive; public schools get money for each day that each student attends. That’s why we’re seeing such a slew of legislation to expand the ages of compulsory education. At the early childhood end, that means forcing students as young as five into school - effectively criminalizing the proven Finnish system and other educational models (e.g. Waldorf) that don’t begin formal academic instruction until age 7. At the high school end, some state on the East coast is trying to raise the compulsory age to 18. But putting kids in schools just for the sake of having them there is the wrong way to go.

 

[Theo520]

At the young side, I think it’s more about giving free daycare than giving education.

I don’t like the idea of free daycare for all, but do support efforts to make it more affordable

 

[Aquinas11]

Yes I have friends who teach and say they’re pressured to give students A’s even those who don’t earn it since otherwise parents run to school board and get teachers boss in trouble