Archive for June 8th, 2009

Raise the Age for Compulsory Ed?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 8, 2009 in Higher Education and Opinion. 7 Comments

Memory fades, but there were New York City schools chancellors before Joel Klein, and the guy who had the job most recently takes to the New York Times op-ed page with five ways to fix education.  The first suggestion on Harold Levy’s list, however, is an eyebrow-raiser. He wants to raise the age of compulsory education.

Twenty-six states require children to attend school until age 16, the rest until 17 or 18, but we should ensure that all children stay in school until age 19. Simply completing high school no longer provides students with an education sufficient for them to compete in the 21st-century economy. So every child should receive a year of post-secondary education.

College entrance is still something largely driven by interest and merit.  Might that have something to do with the generally sound state of U.S. higher ed and the relatively poor state of our K-12 system?   Curiously, Levy’s fifth fix is to produce more qualified applicants to college.  “Half of the freshmen at community colleges and a third of freshmen at four-year colleges matriculate with academic skills in at least one subject too weak to allow them to do college work,” he complains. ”Unsurprisingly, the average college graduation rates even at four-year institutions are less than 60 percent.”  Surely, compelling college attendance will only exacerbate this issue, and make remediating the failures of K-12 education the problem of our colleges and universities. 

Levy’s piece is a good example of what might be termed credentialism–favoring the prize over the accomplishment it represents.  While high school graduates may earn more and enjoy better health than dropouts, the diploma does not magically confer these benefits.  The person who has reached this level of achievement is also more likely to live a productive, stable life.  People with health club memberships might be in better shape than those without.  But it doesn’t follow that the key to health and longevity is to give every American a health club membership.  You have to be inclined to work out.  Likewise, married people live longer, healthier lives.  Where’s the op-ed in favor of compelling marriages? 

It’s hard to see how flooding colleges with unprepared and unwilling students will do anything other than damage a productive higher ed system.  Levy favors the federal government paying for the extra year, noting it would be a turning point at least as important as “the 1944 G.I. Bill that made college affordable to our returning service personnel after World War II.”  Fine, but the G.I. Bill created the opportunity for veterans to attend college.  It didn’t conscript them to go.

Higher Pay Grade

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 8, 2009 in No category. 1 Comment

An “overwhelming number” of New York City schools participating in Roland Fryer’s pay-for-grades Sparks program saw “huge boosts” in reading and math scores, the New York Post reports. 

About two-thirds of the 59 high-poverty schools in the Sparks program — which pays seventh-graders up to $500 and fourth-graders as much as $250 for their performance on a total of 10 assessments — improved their scores since last year’s state tests by margins above the citywide average.  The gains at some schools approached 40 percentage points.

The jump in scores comes against a backdrop of this year’s overall increase in NYC math and reading scores, however of sixty-one 4th and 7th grades involved in the program, 16 improved less than the citywide average gain in math since last year, while 21 did so in reading. “Principals at the highest-scoring schools cautioned that the Sparks program was just one of many factors in the test-score jumps,” says the Post.  “But many reported seeing indisputable academic benefits — including more motivation, better focus and an increase in healthy competition for good grades among students.”