Painting Postsecondary with a Broad Brush

Graduation season brings forth, as it does every year, the debate about whether college is worth it. On May 20, 60 Minutes featured Peter Thiel insisting that plumbers out-earn doctors. Yet here at the Alliance, we continue to cite research from Anthony Carnevale showing that by 2018, over 60 percent of jobs will require some postsecondary training and point to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that high school graduates with no postsecondary are three times more likely to be unemployed than their more educated peers.

So who’s right? This spring, I’ve talked to a wide range of recent high school graduates and college students considering what paths they wish to pursue. And I hear something a little alarming. “I want to be a writer.” “I want to be a photographer.” A friend of mine started out at Columbia University intending to be a special education teacher or speech therapist. She ended up changing her major to creative writing and wanted somehow to get into fashion. Now she’s underemployed, and in a somewhat unstable field (she’s had three jobs in three years) as a nanny in New York City.

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Afternoon Announcements: May 18, 2012

Stateline.org reports that Delaware Governor Jack Markell defended the new Common Core English and math state standards at a meeting in Philadelphia on Thursday. The article says Markell dismissed the contention that national benchmarks for what students should be learning are part of a “high-level conspiracy from the federal government” to impose its standards on states.

The Philadelphia Public Schools Notebook reports on the city's broken pipeline to college. It notes that only seventeen of the 145 students who started ninth grade at North Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin High School in fall 2005 enrolled in a four-year college. Citywide, only 25 percent of students who started 9th grade in one of Philadelphia's neighborhood high schools that year enrolled in any postsecondary education, compared to almost 80 percent of students who started at the city's most selective magnet high schools. Of those 145 students, seventy-two earned a high school diploma--seventy-three have not.

The New York Times reports that New York City officials have have abandoned plans to negotiate with the union for the removal of some 830 teachers who do not have permanent jobs, but are still salaried, costing the city millions of dollars each year. Instead, Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott proposed on Thursday to offer buyouts to those teachers to leave the system.

The PBS NewsHour spotlights a journalism program in Florida that gives students a reason to stay in school.

 

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Roaming the World Versus Four Years of College

It is no secret among my friends and family members that I am passionate about anything and everything to do with education. I am often asked by friends to help them sort out what they should be looking for in a school for their children, figure out what test scores in their district mean, or help them understand a new policy in their state. So when my friend Nicole mentioned she was concerned about her nephew, I was happy to round up some information for her.

Here's her question: Do you have any statistics on the benefits of college? My 15-year-old nephew is saying he wants to roam the world and doesn't want to waste four years of his life at college. He thinks he knows more than everyone else and that college would be a waste of his time. We are trying to convince him of the value of it beyond just the degree. Thanks!

We had just been discussing this very issue at the Alliance. There are many potholes on the path to college. Information is one way to smooth the road. Here's my response to Nicole:

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Report Round-Up

A Time for Deeper Learning: Preparing Students for a Changing World from the Alliance for Excellent Education. This policy brief argues that deeper learning provides students with the deep content knowledge they need to succeed after high school and the critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills that today’s jobs demand.

What’s It Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. This report finds that different undergraduate majors result in very different earnings. At the low end, median earnings for Counseling Psychology majors are $29,000, while Petroleum Engineering majors see median earnings of $120,000.

Baseline Analyses of SIG Applications and SIG-Eligible and SIG-Awarded Schools by the Institute of Education Sciences. This paper finds that nationally, 74 percent of the more than 1,200 schools that receive school improvement grants are undertaking what many view as the most flexible of the four Education Department models – transformation.

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Forbes: State Farm’s CEO on 26 Seconds and Keeping Kids in School

Forbes Magazine recently interviewed State Farm CEO Ed Rust about the company’s newly launched 26 seconds campaign, an effort to help more kids graduate from high school. Read an excerpt below to find out more details about the initiative:

Brandon Gutman: You launched 26 Seconds on March 21. Tell us about the campaign.

Ed Rust: Every 26 seconds in America, a student drops out of high school.  The campaign, titled “26 Seconds,” will use interests, like music, sports and video, to engage those who can most directly affect change – young people themselves.   It will provide an online venue for youth to express feelings on the issue and creatively share thoughts and talents—encouraging them and their peers to make graduation a priority so they become more than a statistic.  The program’s tagline, “BMOR,” underscores this call to action.

What do you view as the biggest challenge in encouraging kids to stay in school?

Kids most at risk of dropping out don’t have a lock on how important education is to their future.  They don’t understand how a high school dropout is eight times more likely to be incarcerated than a high school grad, and three times more likely to be unemployed than a college grad. 

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Inspiring "60 Minutes" Student Interviews: Finding strength while homeless

Yesterday we posted video from the 60 minutes special on student homelessness. CBS has posted some extra footage on their web site of student interviews. The first interview is with Tiffany Langhorn, a honors student whose parents lost their jobs and their home.  She says the experience has made her stronger and more responsible and advises other students to stay strong and stay in school. The second interview is with a student named Aaron Boyer who was homeless as a young teenager before being taken in by a loving family. Then hard times hit and Aaron had to find a new place to go again but he has persevered and is currently enrolled in college studying engineering with plans to enter the Navy.

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Report Round-Up

Meeting the Challenge: The Role of School Leaders in Turning Around the Lowest-Performing High Schools from the Alliance for Excellent Education. This policy brief recommends policies that focus on a schoolwide, systematic approach to improving professional learning and collaborative practices.

Return on Educational Investment by the Center for American Progress. This report measures the "educational productivity" of more than 9,000 districts and shows that districts getting the most for their money tend to spend more on teachers and less on administration, partner with their communities to save money and have school boards willing to make unpopular decisions, like closing underenrolled schools

Cracking the Student Aid Code: Parent and Student Perspectives on Paying for College by the College Board. This study finds that many parents have little understanding of how much it costs to attend college and of financial aid options.  And that the knowledge deficit is biggest for those who already have the least access to higher education: students from Latino families and from low-income backgrounds.

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Report Round-Up

Competitive Grant Making and Education Reform: Assessing Race to the Top's Current Impact and Future Prospects by the American Enterprise Institute. This report argues that federal policymakers could learn from Race to the Top’s strengths and weaknesses before diving into new competitive grant programs in the future.

International Benchmarking: State Education Performance Standards from the American Institutes for Research. This report uses international benchmarking to examine the expectations gap between what students are expected to learn in some states and what students are expected to learn in others.

Student Learning Expectations Gap Can Be Twice the Size of National Black-White Achievement Gap from the American Institutes for Research. This report finds that the gap in what students are expected to know in each state varies so greatly that the difference in student expectations between the states with the most rigorous assessments and those with the least stringent is twice the size of the national black-white achievement gap.

Degree Completion Beyond Institutional Borders: Responding to the New Reality of Mobile and Nontraditional Learners from the Center for American Progress. This report describes the avenues that colleges, states, and other organizations take to recognize prior learning and transfer credit, and it points out the flaws in these policies that block students from efficiently garnering credit as they move through and among higher education institutions.

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Report Round-Up: October 8, 2010

Mind the Gaps: How College Readiness Narrows Achievement Gaps in College Success from ACT. This report looks at the steps that can be taken to improve college and career readiness and success among underserved populations. The data in this report shows the types of policies that work to improve college and career readiness and success.

How America Saves For College by Sallie Mae. This survey finds that American families are scaling back plans to pay for their children's college education as the stunted economic recovery continues to weigh on household budgets.

Measuring Progress in Public & Parental Understanding of Learning Disabilities by the Tremaine Foundation. This report shows that parents and educators are dangerously confused about learning disabilities but also support greater government funding for intervention.

Teacher Evaluation 2.0 from the New Teacher Project. This report proposes six design standards that teacher evaluation system should meet. It offers a blueprint for evaluations that can help every teacher succeed in the classroom—and give every student the best chance at success.

 

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