TRUTH IN ADVERTISING …. HIGHER EDUCATION CATEGORY

 Prologue

The majority of Americans are favorably disposed toward immigration reform, including letting DACAmented young people stay here. The majority of Americans are in favor of some type of gun reform (better term than control). The majority of people, when apprised of the graduation rate at the nation’s campuses, are rather disappointed.

Remind me of any relevant broad-based legislative responses regarding these three areas.

You might regard higher education as neither a federal nor a national matter; this is true as a first look, but considerably less true when analyzing the flow of FAFSA-related funds to colleges.

The multiple defects of the K-College education non-system are known. “Nation at Risk” is decades old and there are at least a score of non-profit reform organizations with smart staffers who for many years have been able to bury one in productive insights and recommendations.

All of which is to say, “it ain’t about the research; it’s about the will” (well-known A-A education reformer Howard Fuller, a quarter century ago). True for immigration and gun reform as well.

There is nothing value-added for me to bring to the reader of my ensuing complaint list, nothing that could be labeled, “here is how to fix this, here is a great idea completely overlooked by the think tanks, here is what substantive change should look like.” It would be akin to a college student tour guide attempting to bring together the administrative/managerial leaders of his school to propose meaningful alterations in the college’s modus operandi.

Maybe a few of my arrows slightly miss the mark, but not, in my opinion, when it comes to the circle that encompasses financially challenged students who grow up in households without educational attainment at the top of the family.

One thought to consider is with respect to the order of the entries listed in “Truth.” Think of a soccer image; before the kickoff, you have decided on your formation, e.g., a 3-4-3 (plus the goalkeeper). The ball is put in play, at which time you have no idea as to how the actual game will unfold, literally from one second to the next (think counterattack or any other aspect of this free-flowing endeavor). Soccer makes other sports look methodical.

Similarly the student going off to college, while he knows his first two must-dos — find the buildings where he has classes and become familiar with the school’s website — really does not know when or which of the micro factors on my list will become relevant to him, even though everyone of the micro factors has that potential. There is no rational unfolding of the happenstances on my list. (While he advisedly is able to be blissfully unaware of the macro factors, it is equally true that simply because a person is unaware of a big picture factor does not mean he is unaffected.

In New York State, the high school graduation rate is 80%. Of the incoming freshman to the huge CUNY system in NYC, 80% require non-credit remedial work. Such data cause nobody to rethink how to organize their thoughts about education, because said divergence has been known for many, many years. We accept them, as we accept kids being killed. They are no more a true discovery than Columbus’ of America.

The four-year college graduation rate is 40%; it “soars” to 59% if six years becomes the standard. Again, known for umpteen years and perused and reacted to by whole rosters of intelligent people, even including the op ed people at the New York Times.

Below is, verbatim, an email I received recently.

“Mister Bob

Good night my name is David [deleted by me] I study in Dover high school I am in 12 grade and a friend give me your email I wanted an appointment  I will begin in college en September I wanted to know if you can help me I from Colombia thank you for attention I wait for your answer”

Yes, this is an outlier in terms of its complete disregard for punctuation, but it is less abnormal than affluent, white, rational people would want to believe. With whites not replacing their own and en route to being less than half of the population, colleges are beginning to reach out to lower income, ESL, first generation, poorly educated minority students. Good, yes, but wait, for many observers, “they” are candidates for two-year schools. The headlines you see about four-year colleges going after the above demographic, because their traditional student roster cannot support their business model, are focused on those “high achieving” minorities who have been reluctant to seek out universities.

The point? There is nothing systemic about this apparent change. It is not far-fetched to say that the collective “we” do not care about true diversity, or maybe the curtain has been pulled back and it is now apparent that “we” have no values which we are willing to say connect to a greater good (when a speaker merely notes the scope of the connection between incomplete families/households and negative outcomes, he needs a bullet-proof vest to escape the onslaught of criticism).

Instead, we will let the super wealthy offer the rest of the populace crumbs from their tax advantaged foundations, while they pontificate about the need for a universal basic income — made necessary by the hollowing out of both industrial America and government-based social services. Silicon Valley’s adamant support for immigration parallels its lack of interest in longitudinally fighting the political battles pertinent to education reform.  And the revered Buffet called part of gun reform efforts, “ridiculous.”

So you ask me to identify the reader of my venting? The answer is … me. To spend time being so-called “rational” about the particulars is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Gun, immigration, and education reforms: we have no will to fight, we leave it to others, the lack of non-idiosyncratic success does not affect us. We kick the cans down the road and leave cleanup to our heirs.

So I write because I feel better afterwards, like some do crossword puzzles or Sudoku or jog or any of the myriad of activities which help a person make sense out of their day and life.

P.S. Reportedly 40% of Wall Street traders are new since the Great Recession of 2008. Question: do they have institutional or individual memory. The same issue/question applies to education reformers and those embroiled in immigration issues. Hopefully, the horror of Parkland will become an institutional memory because it stimulates significant change.

Not to be taken aback by my meandering negativity. As the phrase goes, one I have been using for a whole bunch of years to describe myself: “I think bearishly but act bullishly.”

Peace, Bob

Dear Reader of my Truth List

Please do me a favor. Exclude the Ivy League and quasi-Ivy League (e.g., Stanford) universities from your brain if and when you have visceral reactions to my ensuing complaint list. The above schools enroll only 2% of the collegians in the country, and they have both large endowments and great fund-raising capabilities. In other words, they function in a different world than mine –where the focus of my education assistance, including funding, has been financially challenged, often first generation students (frequently with documentation issues).  Thank you.

*Read the 17-page “Cutting College Costs” document prepared by some otherwise presumably intelligent New York State politicians and professors: nowhere will you find any mention of cutting college costs – the verbiage is entirely about finding more money for the customers, i.e., students, so that they can afford whatever cost is imposed by a college.

*In urban America, non-profit funders of band-aids (after-school education assistance) for broken legs (the dysfunctional school from whence came the students) are noticeably reticent when it comes to fighting the necessary political battles to create broad-based change in education. Handsomely paid leaders of universities are not reticent — they are mute.

*Do not watch the college tuition number (unless you like being sick to your stomach); shift your attention to the adjacent shell, the one which covers the pea labeled “fees.” Its inflation rate is akin to that of prescription drugs. (And if there is something called an “academic fee,” what is covered by tuition.) The after effect is a four-letter word, “debt,” – followed by deferred payments, delinquent, and … in default.

*Because of an institutional scholarship, a student is getting a “free ride.” Really, free, as in zero money from the young person is needed to spend four years pursuing a diploma. Not likely.

*Colleges are seen as businesses by around 99% of the students my foundation has assisted. Banks pay for access on campus to present and future customers, foreign investors are putting money into student housing, Barnes & Noble offsets the losses in its freestanding stores with profits from its college bookstores. However, notwithstanding these specifics (and the list of business connections could be readily expanded), the biggest tip-off is attitudinal, the softly arrogant manner in which colleges, each with a “unique” business product, treat students.

*Could college advisor whisper some – not advice per se, but raw, essential information – when the student is about to sign up for a semester abroad, it would be nice to know if the sequence of prerequisites for his or her major is affected, because not all courses are offered in both the fall and spring semesters, and certainly not in the summer and winter schedules.

*Do you want to give another still edge to those in the lucky sperm club – raise the importance of internships; for sure, well-employed mom or dad will have useful contacts. Not so for those born into disadvantage. P.S. even high school graduation rates are lower for kids in single-parent families.

*Financial cleverness, disguised as “helping the customer,” knows no bounds. Instead of having a volunteer tutor helping kids write resumes and get prepared for interviews, make it a course, yes with credits and full payment up-front.

*For the mathematically inclined collegian, their observation that the three-hour class they signed up and paid for is actually two and a half is … accurate.

*No, that particular class/major requirement was changed. Sorry that nobody told you.

*Freshman Seminar is a very important class – you pay for the opportunity to know what it means to be a freshman, as distinct, for example, from learning something which might be construed as academic.

*Yes, the door has clearly marked office hours. No, the professor is not there.

*Surprise, your class is on-line. I know … you, or somebody, paid for a dorm room thinking that physical presence was part of the deal; well, we overbooked or the tenured professor is too busy on his research project. And it will be a Teaching Assistant putting up the power point presentation which you can readily absorb lying prone in your bed.

*You expected the syllabus to be consistent with the material covered in class or on the test? Silly, did you forget the bromide that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

*The diversity numbers fit the boxes of the EEOC and whoever else is collecting them. They bear little similarity to college classrooms.

*Which is more understandable by an employer: a credential from a known source (e.g. six weeks in a Microsoft training course) or the degree from 90% of all colleges.

*Beginning in high school, there are fewer American History classes these days: too many discredited dead white male authors. Trigger warnings are insufficient protection against their obsolete narratives.

*College professors fight hard for respectful hearings of diverse viewpoints – defined as those approved by a majority of the faculty.

*Everybody has an anecdotal success story, a poster child of the transformation that can happen when fourteen variables line up well. They are talked about at great length. They are also statistically unusual, hence the blah, blah, blah unrelated to systemic change.

*Let’s check the health aspect of college campuses (admittedly true of society in general): opiate consumption is up, as is depression, and the number of suicides. Not to worry: that thought leader called “Yale” now has a highly popular course called “Happiness.” Perhaps its humble colleagues in higher education will import the wisdom which undoubtedly will characterize this class.

*Could college administrative people answer a phone call or an e-mail! News flash to those individuals: not every piece of information is on the school’s website.

*It is hard to type this acronym with a straight face: the Prosper Act: Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform.  You’re kidding right.

*“All the above” is the default, and correct, answer to any listing of the shortcomings of American education, many of which (some would say most) begin well before the age of eighteen. In defense of higher education ( see how fair I am!), of the three million annual high school graduates, reportedly only 250,000 are considered academically ready for entry into the top 50 colleges of the country.

___________________________________________________________________________

Comment (OMG: the following flirts with being a significant suggested change):

If an outside funding entity really wanted to assist low-income students to attend college, it would put money directly in the hands of the student. This aspiring individual is typically working, is from a household whose sugar bowl is never adequate, and is trying to figure out why the school’s full-ride scholarship does not cover books, or transportation, or those outside meals so easily put on the calendar by his or her affluent classmates, or the quick recreational trip to clear one’s head of the fog induced by so many college classes.

Said entity should care less about the college’s rules regarding full disclosure of financial support. They are simply a ruse to keep as much control of money and decisions in the hands of college bureaucrats, the numbers and cost of which have grown exponentially, while the discretionary income of the student’s family has not grown for several decades.

Significant funds directly deposited in the hands of students facilitate their decision-making. If a well-constructed cohort comparison (versus funding according to the rules) was possible, it might well show that with direct funding, student stress was lessened and graduation rates were improved. Is not the latter the objective of everybody involved in education reform, specifically the goal of seeing more low income students graduating from four-year colleges.

____________________________________________________________________________

The New York City school system has over 1.1 million students.

The retiring chancellor is a 74 year-old self-described grandmother.

The mayor announced that the leader of the Miami school system was hired to be her successor. Compensation was negotiated, contract signed. The guy reneged.

The newly-appointed chancellor is, again self-described, a “mariachi masquerading as a superintendent.”

 

A series of complete jokes. Not to worry, only kids are negatively affected, you know, like Parkland and DACA.