This summer, I have made an informal project of trying to track down as many of my first class of South Bronx students as possible. My 5th graders in the 2002-2003 school year should have graduated from high school in June, and I was curious to see how many of them had in fact done so. Plus, I simply wanted to see how they were doing.
The exercise has been a bit dispiriting but not entirely surprising. Too many of the girls in my first class are already mothers. One has two children and a “husband” (it’s unclear if there’s a legal marriage in place) at Riker’s Island. I’ve heard lots of talk of getting GEDs, not always attached to concrete plans for doing so. On the plus side, I’ve so far found three students – two boys and a girl – who were accepted into four-year colleges. In a small world coincidence one of the young men was accepted to SUNY Oswego, where I began my college career in 1980; the other to Pace University, where I taught grad school as an adjunct for a few years. The girl, I’ll confess, is a special case and one of my favorites. As a struggling first year teacher, this was the kid I could always count on. She was cheerful, eager to learn. I still have the pictures of my family she drew and presented to me when she was in my class. One of the nicest kids I ever had the pleasure to know, let alone teach, I was over the moon to learn this young lady had been accepted to Boston University.
An unexpected turn of events this week has left me even more depressed about the college-bound kids than the ones who dropped out. Both of my students who were going away to college decided at the last minute not to go. The Oswego-bound young man opted to stay home and enroll at a CUNY college. The young lady, however, is no longer headed for BU. She has no firm plans for September but is “thinking about going to Hostos,” a South Bronx community college.
In both cases, these two kids cited the same reason not for going away to school and in nearly identical words. There is “too much going on at home right now.” Both said they have sick relatives. The young lady said her mother was not well and that she was needed at home.
To those of us who grew up simply assuming we would go away to college and eagerly anticipating doing so–or as parents, looking forward to sending our children off to school–this failure to launch is perplexing and frustrating. Where are the parents? Why aren’t they insisting these children go?
A vexing mystery, but I’ve seen this enough to perceive it as a pattern and a problem. I worked for a time with an organization in New York City that identifies talented minority children, preparing and placing them in elite private schools. It’s a wildly successful program and harder to get into than Harvard, with dozens of applicants for each precious slot. When the organization launched a similar program for elite boarding schools some years ago, it was a much tougher sell. Boarding school was beyond the experience and comfort level of too many kids and families. Overcoming the resistance to separation is challenging–even if it means a life-changing educational opportunity.
I pressed my now non-BU student to rethink her decision. I explained the personal and economic upside to going away to school. For her sake and for her family, I all but begged her to reconsider. She made it clear she would not and didn’t want to discuss it any further. Finally, after promising not to try to persuade her, I asked her simply to help me understand her decision not to leave the Bronx. Why, I had to know, do I keep seeing the same thing over and over? She emailed me last night.
“Different kids base their decision on different situations, not all South Bronx kids want to stay here. I know A LOT of kids who would love to get out of this state and go to a college away from here and their families but I just can’t. I don’t feel right and I don’t feel ready. I don’t want to leave my parents and be on my own and my mom is the MOST important person in the world to me and if anything were to happen to her while I’m away, it would effect me and break me down and I’d end up leaving anyways.”
This has nothing to do with curriculum or teaching. This is not a story of how schools and teachers failed a student. If anything, it’s a story where against all odds everything goes right, but the outcome is still less than ideal, and far from satisfying. I want to find a lesson here, to make this make sense. So many of her classmates have already failed. So many have already repeated the mistakes of their parents—quitting school, becoming teen parents. Lives going nowhere fast. But here’s a terrific, sweet kid who grows up right, with a good family in a tough neighborhood. She has the brass ring not just in her sight but in her hand and decides, “I just can’t.”
“I don’t feel right,” she said. “I don’t feel ready.”
And I don’t have an answer.
You seem profoundly disappointed that your student isn’t going away to college. You mention that she is considering a local community college but don’t say more about that possibility. I’m wondering if there is some reason that wouldn’t be a good compromise. One of the original purposes of cc was to prepare students for a 4 year school.
Comment by Homeschooling Granny — August 27, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
Heartbreaking.
I wish I had any confidence that the community college experience she’ll have will have the same potential to rocket her to the wonderful heights she would have had access to at BU but the CC system is just not there right now.
Comment by Jason Becker — August 27, 2010 @ 2:06 pm
Tragic and moving post, Robert. I’ve been there, too.
For what it’s worth, I’m friendly with BU’s Dean Of Students. I’m sure he’d be totally up for meeting with this young woman if she would desire. He’s a black dude who grew up in a tough part of NYC, and many of his childhood friends never left the streets; if anyone can identify with her situation, he can.
Comment by MG — August 27, 2010 @ 5:30 pm
Finances probably play a role here. It would be interesting to see how much help they had with the financial aid process. In a system where it is is like pulling teeth to get lunch forms returned, I wonder how much local effort goes into helping kids after they get accepted. I suspect the degree varies dramatically from HS to HS. In my town we have 3 college bound lifeguards that I talked to over the course of the summer. They were all going away for school in June, but now all are headed to Dutchess County Community College for financial reasons.
Comment by Bill poley — August 27, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
I happen to think the community colleges serve as a critical bridge between home and “launch”–no matter what the student’s ultimate goal is. I get a little testy with folks who denigrate community colleges as an academically inferior intermediate step between high school and independence; I also know the statistics for kids who get into academically challenging four-year colleges who find it impossible (usually because they’re kind, responsible human beings) to consider separating themselves from the families who raised them.
And separating from family is often what must happen for kids in poverty to assume the middle-class roles and values that let them succeed in college. W.E.B. DuBois wrote about this a century ago in “The Souls of Black Folk”–and many four-year universities have special programs because their need scholarship kids (the ones who provide some diversity) struggle with this severing of home ties, neighborhood friends, old ways of thinking. “Rocketing to new heights” may also mean rocketing away from the folks who raised you–and not every family automatically thinks a four-year college degree is the first benchmark of genuine success.
How do I know this? Personal experience.
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — August 27, 2010 @ 5:51 pm
“The heart has reasons that reason knows not of.” Blaise Pascal
The young lady in question is someone you can count on, cheerful, eager to learn, and is loves her mother. She has character to resist some of the seamier aspects of a tough environment. Her path isn’t what you would chose for her but her character remains her character. I wouldn’t write her off. Stay in touch with her if you can.
Comment by Homeschooling Granny — August 27, 2010 @ 5:58 pm
@Nancy @HGranny I don’t mean to denigrate community colleges, especially Hostos, which runs a good high school that several of my former students attend. In this instance, my disappointment was due to her vague notions about going to community college. I’m concerned there’s a chance she won’t matriculate anywhere at all next month. I certainly recognize it could be a good bridge to a four year school.
I also recognize that not everyone needs to go away to college to be successful. This young lady has a lot going for her. Her temperament, her family, her intelligence. But this episode underscores the difficulty — oh, hell the fantasy — that every child ought to be college bound. When it’s this hard to get even our successful low-income children of color over the hump, it makes one less than sanguine that we can make it anything like universal.
@Bill An excellent question, and one that I did not sufficiently probe here. You might be right.
@MG A kind offer. I’ll email you.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — August 27, 2010 @ 7:24 pm
I know of several college-prep charter schools for low-income, first-to-college students that provide counselors for their graduates to help them deal with financial, academic and family problems. I think it’s critical to have someone who’s pushing for that degree and offering advice on how to cope with problems.
Community college works as a bridge to a four-year degree for students who are motivated and keep their eyes on the prize. I suggest your former student write to BU, explain that she can’t make in the fall and will be enrolling in community college and ask for a one-year deferment. They’ll say yes. She should ask them for advice on what courses to take. This will keep her thinking about that college degree and keep her options open. She also can apply to four-year CUNY schools with the aim of transferring in a year. She needs a plan.
Comment by Joanne Jacobs — August 27, 2010 @ 11:28 pm
If she was in at BU, I wonder why she chose Hostos and not Hunter, CCNY, or Lehman? Not all students, especially first generation college, understand the difference.
Comment by Jonathan — August 28, 2010 @ 1:17 am
I would’ve had a hard time going away to college had my mom been seriously ill. But the difference between what your former student is doing in response and what I as an upper-middle class teen would have done goes to demonstrate the importance of “cultural capital”.
Had I not felt right about leaving my home metro area to attend the college to which I had been admitted, I would’ve leveraged my social connections to lobby for permission to attend classes at a similar caliber local school as a non-matriculated student while preparing a transfer application to that school. Several of my parents’ friends are college professors and presumably they could’ve intervened on my behalf with their school’s administration. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have wanted that kind of assistance nor would my parents’ friends been likely to agree even if I had desired it. But given the extenuating circumstances, I’m confident they would’ve pulled some strings for me.
I also would’ve had the self-assurance to go into some dean’s office and plead my case that comes from being raised with the upper-middle class attitude that everything can be negotiated. There’s not the same kind of automatic deferral to authority figures so often found among working class families.
Comment by Crimson Wife — August 28, 2010 @ 1:25 am
These frustrations come, in part, from a new definition of what “success” for lower income students should look like, and what society as a whole should do to make that success happen. A generation or two ago, we aimed for each student to exceed her/hisparents’ educational attainment. If Mom and Dad didn’t complete HS (and there were many who hadn’t completed 8th grade), we aimed for HS graduation; if M and D were HS grads, we hoped they’d attend college but most who did so would attend locally (as do, in reality, most kids who attend college at all). In other words, we expected upward educational mobility to happen in somewhat gradual increments — with few but notable exceptions. Since about 1990, though, there are strong messages in our culture that push the idea that many students should skip some of the steps in this progression. The reality is that this is a very hard thing to pull off for many students, and the story above is a good example of that. The wonderful young woman that you described, Robert, should have been encouraged to apply to a local (but good) school as well as BU. We all need our safety nets, and being close to home (and being able to help out at home) is an important one for many.
Comment by EB — August 28, 2010 @ 8:42 am
In recent years I’ve developed some reservations about the wisdom of placing naive young people on college campuses. They do not appear from what I read to be as safe as they were when I attended, circa 1960.
Relevant to Robert’s protege, I am concerned about colleges that offer aid packages including large loans and then allow students to major in fields unlikely to lead to jobs that will facilitate repaying the debt. I have encountered young women who would like to stay home with small children but are struggling to pay college loans with jobs that don’t really require a college education.
Then there is the hook-up culture. I don’t know how real or extensive that is or whether it is more a creature of sensational journalism.
And what is happening in the humanities? Stephen Covey defined liberal education as “the ability to examine the programs of life against larger questions and purposes and other paradigms . . . to train the mind to stand apart and examine its own program.” Has it really degenerated into the ideological one-sidedness that I read about?
Comment by Homeschooling Granny — August 28, 2010 @ 8:50 am
Robert -
I’ve read your blog often but never commented. This post moved me in many ways. It reminded me of how lucky I was to be involved with the Prep 9 program as an adolescent. The program helped me build my “social capital” account. In the program I was told that I could accomplish what I set my mind to. More importantly, I was supported by an organization that had the resources to provide counselors, teachers, psychologists, and college advisors to guide me through the challenging years between junior high school and eventual college graduation.
Today in my tenth year as an elementary educator, I’m often disappointed by what we as a society think kids need in order to succeed in life. The current popular prescriptions for our kids’ life challenges include: better and more assessment data systems, merit pay for teachers, and increased teacher evaluation.
But none of those prescriptions fundamentally change the trajectory of a child’s life. They fail to address a child/adolescent’s needs for intimate guidance through life’s challenges.
Comment by bktchr — August 28, 2010 @ 9:38 am
Prep 9, which bktchr refers to, is the New York City-based boarding school program to which I referred in my post, and part of the Prep for Prep program. If you’re a teacher or parent in NYC, and you don’t already know about this extraordinary program, I strongly urge you to learn more about it at http://www.prepforprep.org/
@bktchr Please email me at rpondiscio@aol.com. I have a question for you not related to this thread, but related to you trenchant observation “current popular prescriptions for our kids’ life challenges.”
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — August 28, 2010 @ 9:55 am
Twitter Trackbacks…
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Trackback by Anonymous — August 28, 2010 @ 10:32 am
Crimson Wife and bkteacher have accurately labeled the topic here–this is about cultural and social capital. Remarks like “automatic deferral to authority figures so often found in working class families” have gotten Ruby Payne and her “Framework for Understanding Poverty” program in serious hot water.
Speaking as a person whose family was at the lower end of “working class,” I sense that many of your commenters are assuming that readers of CKB have a firm grip on considerable social capital, and know the ins and outs of college admission, credential creep, and how to tap familial networks for job and ed connections. Those things, however useful, do not make people happier or “better.”
You’ve ripped open a critical issue: Does going to a “good” school necessarily mean that a student will learn more, and be prepared to lead a more successful life? How much of the definition of “good” is based on name and reputation, rather than actual coursework, professors or outcomes? Also–is this why we expect an untrained teacher from a prestigious college to be better, somehow, than a person who chose and prepared for teaching at State U?
I went to a mundane regional university for undergrad, while my husband got his bachelors and JD from a “public Ivy.” Our undergraduate experiences were wildly different. I had professors and small classes, while he had auditorium-sized classes with TAs. Getting in to the college was the tricky part. Once you were there, the first couple of years were hoop-jumping.
Given the PhD glut and tenure policies these days, you may be better off being taught by “freeway flyers” at a community college than settling in at an ivy-strewn campus–if you value genuine learning and application. My dad had only an 8th grade education, but he knew that much.
Or read Joel Stein’s column on elitism, which many readers seem to believe is not satirical:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010191,00.html
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — August 28, 2010 @ 11:32 am
[...] Core Knowledge’s Robert Pondiscio spent the summer tracking down his first class of fifth-graders from 2002-03. The South Bronx students should be high school graduates. Many are not. Three were accepted to four-year colleges. One will live at home and go to Pace. But the two who were planning to leave home for college have decided they’re not going. [...]
Pingback by Failure to launch — Joanne Jacobs — August 28, 2010 @ 12:29 pm
I am the very last sort of person to quote song lyrics, but about 25 years ago, Tracy Chapman came out with “Fast Car”, and there was one part of the song that epitomizes the “you can’t get there from here” nature of this decision–whether it be culture, poverty, whatever seeming insanity that drives it:
See my old man’s got a problem
He lives with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his bodys too old for working
I say his bodys too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebodys got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did
Insanely stupid choices that make no sense from the outside.
I categorize it as an inexplicable sort of short-term thinking, masked as concern for family. There’s really no way to support it, and pretending that community college is the answer is to miss most of the point.
Comment by Cal — August 28, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
Profound and moving piece. Robert alludes to politics, but let’s not get away from the core of his piece. The many reasons of the heart is a reason why we need holistic education. Committed educators may help a few people get ahead of the curve. Schools for the most part are a part of society. Its a team effort.
Hope is the greatest educational tool. Teachers can help motivate, but hope is something deeper and broader. And systemwide, hope needs us to deal with jobs. America was once the most socially mobile society, but we’re not anymore. Community colleges are good and they have the potential to play a greater role. But when they are a consolation prize, hope is not enhanced as much.
I know from experience that alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental illness are family conditions that hold back plenty of kids. But I think they are second to heart disease, cancer and other chronic conditions. And if we had national health care, I don’t think they would hold back as many. We need an honest discussion of board schools also, but I think I’d refer something more modest like the CCC for expansion at scale. Perhaps society could not be honest enough to admit the number of boarding schools we need.
But now I’m getting into the political details and away from the main thrust of Roberts great piece.
Comment by john thompson — August 28, 2010 @ 1:48 pm
@John Thompson Thanks for the kind words, my friend. When I said I don’t have the answers for kids like this, that was no mere rhetorical filip. I’m truly at a loss. I’ve never much cared for the “educate the whole child” mantra since I suspect it’s always felt like an excuse to de-emphasize academics. Muscular acountability leaves me cold for the same reason. It emphasizes academics on paper, but in practice I it’s too often the enemy of rigor. At the end of the day, this strikes me as merely a humbling story about how the best laid plans oft go awry.
@NancyFlanagan My background is probably similar to yours. First to go to college in my family and, truth to tell, first to drop out. The dirty little secret of my career is that I made a thorough tour of the SUNY system and didn’t finish my B.A. until I decided to become a teacher at 39. Didn’t hurt me at all, frankly. But I suspect it’s quite different for my students. Here’s what I know about social capital: at one point in my career, I worked alongside a bunch of Ivy League MBAs. Some were smart. Some weren’t. Some were geniuses at running businesses into the ground. And some of those geniuses were rewarded with even more responsibility–bigger businesses to run into the ground. A mentor of mine explained this to me as plausible deniability. A Ivy League MBA is, in corporate life, a safe hire. Nobody will ever question the wisdom of senior management hiring a Wharton grad, for example. They have been deemed brilliant by the Great American Sorting Mechanism. Does this mean those who don’t have the imprimatur of a Brand Name University are second raters? Of course not. You’re living proof, Nancy. But if you see education as a mean of social mobility (and I do. Or at least I want to. Like John Thompson, I’m having my doubts these days) then there is value in the degree — check that, the pedigree — of a well-respected university. Do I like it or agree with it? That doesn’t matter. I prefer to prepare students for the world as it is, not as I would like it to be.
I had the habit of being blunt with my students. One of the things I told some of my brighter students is that coming from the South Bronx, it’s not enough to be just as good as other kids. When you’re competing for colleges and jobs, you have to be better.
I have no doubt my former student will be just fine. She has the intelligence and character to do well. Will her opportunities be decreased if she goes to community college or a lesser four year school? I don’t know the answer. But I know which way to bet.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — August 28, 2010 @ 2:47 pm
This is a difficult matter. I was the first in my family to go to college and it was the most important experience in my life, for reasons that have nothing to do with social mobility. I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. Still, our whole approach to college as a society is deeply flawed. Again and again I hear people whose work I greatly respect talking about how literacy is more important than ever in our competitive environment. You must be literate to win this competition. But we never seem to consider what happens to those who don’t advance. In essence, we are conceding that they will live and work in squalor. Don’t let yourself end up in that position, we say. But, looking beyond the field of education to society at large, the answer cannot be for everyone to “escape” to the professional/managerial class. We all still need and want things that are the product of physical labor. The deindustrialization of America has proven to be a disaster, on many levels. As a society, we cannot turn our backs on working people, or think that the only successful people are college graduates. I encourage anyone with the talent and desire to pursue a college degree. But I feel like something of a con man if I give the impression that such degrees are a measure or guarantee of success.
Comment by Robert Fauceau — August 28, 2010 @ 4:26 pm
Dear Robert: It’s called free will. You did everything you could for this young lady. Only she can decide her destiny. Sleep well.
That goes for every teacher who does their level best to make a difference.
Comment by James — August 28, 2010 @ 5:45 pm
Robert, Thank you for sharing this with us. Quite a moving story. And also, thank you for your temperance on the certainty about what do/think about with your former student. It would be lovely if all ed reformers had your eloquence and a willingness to admit that “I don’t know”.
Comment by Erin Johnson — August 29, 2010 @ 1:46 am
Robert,
Like Erin, I was moved by the admission of “I don’t know.” Is your student’s decision to stay home a matter of free will? Insufficient pressure or support? Trying to please? Fear of leaving the community? Excessive glorification of college in our society? A sense of responsibility and duty? All of these possibilities and others occurred to me, but none seemed to be “the answer.” But there was sadness. That part seemed clear.
We are expected to be certain about so many things, but sometimes we aren’t.
Comment by Diana Senechal — August 29, 2010 @ 10:42 am
Robert,
Great account of probably an all too frequent experience, especially in the lives of many poor/minority youngsters.
For many of these kids, family allegiance isn’t the most important thing, it’s the only thing, and it drives all their life decisions.
We can only do our best as teachers and then wish them well.
Somehow, I think this young lady will do just fine.
Comment by Paul Hoss — August 29, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
Robert,
It’s all about cultural differences. I didn’t go away to school. I went to a local university and I turned out just fine. (I think.)
Comment by Yolanda — August 30, 2010 @ 10:20 pm
Wow, what an inspiring piece. This is an issue that is close to my heart.
As some of the posters have implied or outright stated, schools (as a whole) can do more to help students in this situation. A serious look at the intersection of social emotional support AND curriculum and pedagogy that demand educational excellence is the only way to get to “equity for all children.”
The young lady will be fine (clearly others are not), but the fact is she missed out on an opportunity that she may one day regret, and it’s unclear if she had all the resources in front of her that she deserved to make the best choice for her.
To start with, I’d like to see school districts do more, FERPA be damned, to maintain relationships between students and teachers. With our current technology this effort would be a snap for a school system like New York. I also had college counselors who assumed that I would go away to college and who demanded that I took the steps necessary to do so, but it’s reality that in at-risk, or simply busy, families in communities with a low academic expectation or historical lack of academic success, there is often no one with BOTH the expertise and interest in pushing young people on that path to college.
With even a modicum of coordination by the district, you could have been there as a motivational voice for this girl, or for one of the young mothers you mentioned, in some small way that could make a huge difference.
In our national conversation about achievement, however, no one seems to be thinking about this intersection or the importance of relationships. It’s either “blame the teachers!” or “blame the parents!” or “blame the curriculum!” (Sorry, I know this is a core knowledge site.) No one seems to be thinking, “The direction of each element is necessary but not sufficient in or of itself.”
I don’t claim to have the answers, but I’m working on this issue too. If you are still in New York contact me and hopefully we can share ideas!
Comment by Steven Evangelista — August 31, 2010 @ 5:47 am
This is also a huge (and potentially worse) problem in sparsely populated rural areas. There, students do not find any local university/college to attend, and higher education means moving hundreds of miles away.
Comment by EB — August 31, 2010 @ 7:51 am
Have you read Limbo by Alfred Lubano, or Joe College by Tom Perrotta? These books discuss “separation anxiety” for earlier generations of students, but they do so better than anything else I’ve ever found.
Comment by Ms. Miller — August 31, 2010 @ 10:21 am
I’m a little surprised to not see more comments about the fact that so many of your former students are already parents. I always find it distressing when I learn that any of my former students have children already, because then any further education gets put on the back burner. And as a teacher I’ve found that many of my students have very young parents who are clearly struggling to raise their kids, to pay the bills, etc. We don’t do enough to support the WHOLE child- I feel like it’s very hard for them to think about long-term decisions. Once in a while I have these kinds of conversations with my students, about education and parenthood and why it’s good to wait, because it’s not surprising for girls who are 13-14 to be thinking about babies. But random conversations won’t do very much in the end.
Comment by TJ — August 31, 2010 @ 11:13 am
My third comment — this story keeps coming back to my mind because it illustrates so many things — and in the end, it points to the limits of what even involved, well-intentioned teachers and social service providers can do. We can’t (and it’s not our job to) make people want what we want for them. We can’t “re-do” their attitudes. We can’t make their fears disappear. We can only provide opportunity and then stand back. Way too much of our current (admirable) project of equalizing opportunity has turned into an effort to create the same outcomes for every conceivable sub-group of children in our educational system. Yes, the less fortunate among our students need extra encouragement and resources. But at some point we run into the law of diminishing returns and, even worse, turn the students into products instead of people.
Comment by EB — August 31, 2010 @ 11:41 am
I’ve seen the situation described in this article more times than I care to remember. One reason that none of the comments has considered is immigration status. A couple of years ago I taught a brilliant female from Yemen whose parents did not want her to go to college. They changed their minds once she won a Posse Scholarship competition and was admitted to Brandeis. Unfortunately, her family was not here legally and she had to decline. She enrolled PT at CUNY while working full-time since she was ineligible for any financial help. I tried to stay in touch, but I don’t know what eventually happened to her. Considering how many of our students are not here legally, you can imagine that this happens a lot.
Comment by neworleans4ever — August 31, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
There are eight million stories in the naked city. Unfortunately, too many of them turn out disappointing. Teachers can only do so much. In the end the individuals involved have to accept some of the responsibility.
Comment by Paul Hoss — September 3, 2010 @ 6:39 pm