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Apparently about third of students are poorly prepared for, well, much of anything. “Two-fifths of high school graduates are unprepared for college or the workforce, writes Daniel de Vise in the Washington Post. (So what are they doing with their lives?)
There’s not much surprise here, widespread academic failure being a fairly common theme of education writing, but the difference in this latest study has to do with where the authors find fault.
Our institutions are to blame for this. So argue Regina Deil-Amen and Stefanie DeLuca in a recent piece about American education structure. The article explains that college preparation programs have expanded, and so have school-to-work programs. The problem is that about a third of students do college prep and a third do school-to-work. And then there are the rest.
According to Deil-Amen and DeLuca:
A third group constitutes a virtual underclass of students who are neither college-ready nor in an identifiable career curriculum. This ‘‘underserved third’’ group is likely to depart from high school having taken classes mainly from the high school general curriculum in which they are at risk of receiving low-quality instruction, lower levels of academic preparation, and little to no job preparation or guidance. This group is at risk of not enrolling in college or enrolling (often at a remedial level) and leaving before earning a degree; either course places them at risk of not accessing preferred occupational pathways and transitioning successfully into work and adult life.
This is a very interesting analysis. In much of the discussion of college remediation, for instance, higher education institutions blame high schools and argue that such schools need to do a better job with their students.
In fact, it looks like high schools do a pretty good job with students, some of them anyway. Students who take college preparation courses end up doing fine in college. Students who take a jobs-based course series end up doing pretty well getting jobs.
And then there are the other students, those with no plan. Eventually they surely end up getting some sort of jobs, or maybe attending community college somewhere. But mostly, it appears, they don’t end up doing very well.
It shouldn’t really be much of a surprise; it turns out their high schools didn’t much prepare them for anything after high school.
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String Band on December 14, 2011 10:21 PM:
The New Liberal Mantra on Those Who Fall Through the Cracks: Blame the losers. The table was set, the knowledge served, 2/3 consumed to the best of their individual abilities. The other 1/3 refused. Their parents did not care. Don't tell me that a student that showed a desire to learn would not get attention. Or that BS about their kids were bored and dropped out and that makes it the schools fault because their kids were actually very smart.
For the most part, the 1/3 you talk about, and their families, are part of a larger societal problem dumped into the school system. Repugs love these kids because they can blame community schools. Why? Because they want part of the money we spend on community schools to pay for the private education of their children.
jonas on December 15, 2011 9:25 AM:
The idea that all high school students must be above average is an unattainable goal. Sure, some of these bottom 1/3 students were just stubborn and didn't give a crap about learning. Others maybe just weren't ready yet to buckle down and learn -- they're the ones who will probably go to community college in their 20s once they've grown up a little and are ready to get serious. Is there anything we can really do about this? Maybe a little around the edges, but the factors contributing to low academic performance, lack of preparation and high dropout rates are rarely ones that can be controlled from within the school.
Julie on December 15, 2011 2:16 PM:
We need to make job-track, relevant education happen *earlier* than high school. It's middle school where many kids get lost.
Of course, I wouldn't want to supervise and teach hormonal 12-yr-olds around table saws... There are many reasons to admire teachers.
paul on December 19, 2011 2:56 PM:
Perhaps another big part of the problem is that the unskilled/semiskilled jobs that these young adults might have taken while they figured out what they wanted to do, or at least got some experience with the world, are now filled with recent college grads who couldn't get white-collar work, or middle-aged and older workers who have been downsized by some brilliant manager.
Joan on December 20, 2011 4:24 PM:
This lost third don't have parents who set expectations for their children or guide them toward a future. Students are in school for eight hours a day, five days a week, 40 of 168 hours in a week. Shouldn't parents take some responsibility for their child and their future?
LLB on January 09, 2012 5:57 PM:
As someone who did have plenty of people guiding me, pushing me, and telling me over and over and over and over what they expected of me, I can tell you that this isn't always desirable. At high school age, I had absolutely NO idea what I wanted, what I liked, what I was good at, or what made me happy to get up and go to work doing every day. All I knew was how to study and pass tests, and that doing so got me approval from older people who were otherwise abusive to me. People who devoutly believed that if you could get good grades, that automatically meant "you could be successful at anything you put your mind to!" Hah.
All I knew was what *my parents* wanted, what *my parents* liked, what *my parents wanted* me to be good at, and what *my parents* thought I *should* be happy to get up and go to work doing every day. I wound myself up like a robot and struggled all the way through high school, college, and professional school, making the grades, wondering why I hated this so much, longing for the day when I would be done and finally have some freedom, and believing that when I finally had That Piece Of Paper, everything would be different.
Twenty years later, I realize that what I should have done was RUN AWAY FROM HOME and worked at some piddling little job until I did know what *I* wanted, what *I* liked, what *I* was good at, or what made *me* happy to get up and go to work doing every day.
Some lucky people really do know this at age 4, or 6, or 16. The rest of us had better wait until we DO know, because college is E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E, and we will be paying those loans for the rest of our lives. (Especially when the family members who made it clear what they expected of us also spend our college funds before we turn 18.)
I am now trapped in a career that I don't like, that I'm not good at, and that I struggle in every day. I will never live to pay off the college loans. It may be that if I had gone to school for what I now know, many years too late, would make me happy to do every day, I would still end up poor in old age, because it's true that no one can afford their college loans these days no matter what they studied or how well they are doing.
But, had I waited and NOT BORROWED MONEY, and taken some time off from the smothering parental enmeshment of a hopelessly dysfunctional family, perhaps I could have arrived in inevitable old age poverty having deeply enjoyed my working life and been happy, instead of struggling my whole life and having been miserable for all of it.
My point is, we expect everyone to know what they should do with their life way, wayy, wayyy too early, and then society makes it way, wayy, wayyy too difficult to change course later. Let these kids alone and let them find their own way. Look at all the great and successful people in our society. Did they get there in the way we all think people get there? A lot of them didn't.