The USA Today headline says it all: What if a college education just isn't for everyone?
It's an issue that EdLog has followed over the past year. A controversial piece of legislation, passed over the objections of the State Department of Education, created a career diploma for Louisiana last year. If it works as it should, we noted, career education can save kids in danger of dropping out and put them on the path toward rewarding and fulfilling occupations.
The USA Today article by reporter Mary Beth Marklein concedes that a college degree is "widely seen as the ticket to personal economic security and to global competitiveness."
But it also notes that "fewer than 60% of new students graduate from four-year colleges in six years, and just one in three community college students earn a degree."
Which begs the question: are we using our educational resources wisely?
It's a vital debate to have. Hopefully, the results of Louisiana's experiment with a career diploma will provide some answers.
Showing posts with label career diploma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label career diploma. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
How the career diploma can work
There's been a lot of huffing and puffing about how the new career diploma will dumb down education. But if it works right, career education can save kids in danger of dropping out and put them on the path toward rewarding and fulfilling occupations.
That's the hopeful note sounded in this article by Associated Press reporter Doug Simpson.
As one mother of a high school junior who is taking a small engine repair course puts it, "College is my plan for him. But I'm glad that he'll have skills, that he'll be ready for the work force, if he doesn't go to college. This is not dumbed-down school, it's not easier. It'll just be different, more practical."
Speaking of practical, the reporter observes a student in a welding class who is learning, along with the metalworking skill, how to calculate angles, estimate costs, and write invoices and estimates.
These are the same academic skills the student would be learning in a traditional classroom, but with real-world applications that shift education from the abstract and toward the concrete. It might not be what all students crave, but certainly could be part of a healthy diversity in the way we approach raising our state's dismal dropout rate.
That's the hopeful note sounded in this article by Associated Press reporter Doug Simpson.
As one mother of a high school junior who is taking a small engine repair course puts it, "College is my plan for him. But I'm glad that he'll have skills, that he'll be ready for the work force, if he doesn't go to college. This is not dumbed-down school, it's not easier. It'll just be different, more practical."
Speaking of practical, the reporter observes a student in a welding class who is learning, along with the metalworking skill, how to calculate angles, estimate costs, and write invoices and estimates.
These are the same academic skills the student would be learning in a traditional classroom, but with real-world applications that shift education from the abstract and toward the concrete. It might not be what all students crave, but certainly could be part of a healthy diversity in the way we approach raising our state's dismal dropout rate.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
All the news that fits, they print
There's an interesting development in the news media's coverage of the controversial career diploma program approved by the legislature earlier this year. Facts are being deliberately distorted to give the public a false impression of how school districts are reacting to the program.
With few exceptions (including the Monroe News-Star), the media opposed the career diploma option. In the worst cases, it was derided as a dummy diploma with hints of lingering racism.
So nothing made the editorial poohbahs happier than seeing a significant number of school systems apply for waivers at last week's meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
As Lake Charles American Press columnist Jim Beam put it, "Opponents of the new diploma picked up more support for their arguments last week when nearly one-third of the state’s 70 public school districts asked to be exempted from the new law’s provisions."
Or as the New Orleans Times-Picayune explained it, "These school systems, thank goodness, seem to be more concerned about academic standards than the Jindal administration or the Legislature, which created the dumbed-down diploma this year. "
Even in the non-editorial pages, supposedly dedicated to delivering straight news, spin has trumped substance.
Like in this Advocate article by reporter Will Sentell. Noting that nearly half of the state's school systems are opting out of the program, Sentell wrote, "The latest batch of districts that do not want to offer the 'career diploma' curriculum this year include East Baton Rouge, Livingston and Lafayette parishes."
To the casual reader skimming the news, it would seem that local school systems oppose the new diploma option and do not want it in their schools. Not until much farther down in Sentell's story does East Baton Rouge Parish School Board spokesman Chris Trahan explain
that the board simply wants to delay the career option for a year "because of logistical problems, not philosophical opposition to the law."
Said Trahan, “It was purely an issue of timing. We just want to ensure that we have enough time to implement a strong program.”
Beam made a similar admission, again near the bottom of his column, when he wrote, "Some districts are opting out because they don’t have enough time to get the new program off and running..."
But in both cases, that inconvenient fact was ignored until after the impression had already been created that local districts oppose the career diploma option. And it seems very deliberate.
Otherwise, the lede in stories about the issue would have been, "Concerned that tight time lines make it difficult to get a new program in place before school opens, several school systems are asking for waivers..."
With few exceptions (including the Monroe News-Star), the media opposed the career diploma option. In the worst cases, it was derided as a dummy diploma with hints of lingering racism.
So nothing made the editorial poohbahs happier than seeing a significant number of school systems apply for waivers at last week's meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
As Lake Charles American Press columnist Jim Beam put it, "Opponents of the new diploma picked up more support for their arguments last week when nearly one-third of the state’s 70 public school districts asked to be exempted from the new law’s provisions."
Or as the New Orleans Times-Picayune explained it, "These school systems, thank goodness, seem to be more concerned about academic standards than the Jindal administration or the Legislature, which created the dumbed-down diploma this year. "
Even in the non-editorial pages, supposedly dedicated to delivering straight news, spin has trumped substance.
Like in this Advocate article by reporter Will Sentell. Noting that nearly half of the state's school systems are opting out of the program, Sentell wrote, "The latest batch of districts that do not want to offer the 'career diploma' curriculum this year include East Baton Rouge, Livingston and Lafayette parishes."
To the casual reader skimming the news, it would seem that local school systems oppose the new diploma option and do not want it in their schools. Not until much farther down in Sentell's story does East Baton Rouge Parish School Board spokesman Chris Trahan explain
that the board simply wants to delay the career option for a year "because of logistical problems, not philosophical opposition to the law."
Said Trahan, “It was purely an issue of timing. We just want to ensure that we have enough time to implement a strong program.”
Beam made a similar admission, again near the bottom of his column, when he wrote, "Some districts are opting out because they don’t have enough time to get the new program off and running..."
But in both cases, that inconvenient fact was ignored until after the impression had already been created that local districts oppose the career diploma option. And it seems very deliberate.
Otherwise, the lede in stories about the issue would have been, "Concerned that tight time lines make it difficult to get a new program in place before school opens, several school systems are asking for waivers..."
Monday, August 3, 2009
Editorial supports career diploma
The Monroe News-Star has a strongly worded editorial criticizing those who unfairly label the new career diploma as having somehow "dumbed down" education.
The editorial makes an important point about those who are so sure the new graduation program makes a mockery out of education reform: What is their alternative?
The career diploma was created to give some hope to the 35% of Louisiana ninth graders who will not graduate from high school. Until now, the only remedy proposed for the state's obscenely high dropout rate was to make school more "rigorous."
By adding a good dose of relevance to the state's rigorous curriculum, the News-Star argues, the career diploma may also offer hope to struggling students:
The editorial acknowledges that 19 school systems asked to opt out of the career diploma program at a meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last week. Not all of them asked for a waiver because they don't believe in the program. Most of them simply believed they could not have a workable program in operation by the time school starts this year.
The editorial makes an important point about those who are so sure the new graduation program makes a mockery out of education reform: What is their alternative?
The career diploma was created to give some hope to the 35% of Louisiana ninth graders who will not graduate from high school. Until now, the only remedy proposed for the state's obscenely high dropout rate was to make school more "rigorous."
By adding a good dose of relevance to the state's rigorous curriculum, the News-Star argues, the career diploma may also offer hope to struggling students:
It will engage students who don't intend to go to college and who otherwise
might disengage from high school. It may not encourage them to try calculus or
advanced physics or AP courses, but it will challenge them to master enough
English and math skills that they can pursue technical training or
job-preparation coursework through the technical colleges. It may prepare them
with enough skills to gain employment in the trades. It may keep them in school.
It may direct them for successful lives.
The editorial acknowledges that 19 school systems asked to opt out of the career diploma program at a meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last week. Not all of them asked for a waiver because they don't believe in the program. Most of them simply believed they could not have a workable program in operation by the time school starts this year.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Jarvis DeBerry gets it all wrong
Times-Picayune columnist Jarvis DeBerry gets it all wrong in this screed against the alternate diploma bill approved by the legislature this year.
It is tempting to forgive him because we understand where he is coming from. For too many years, school systems used tracking to dampen the futures of African-American students, poor white students or anyone else from the wrong side of the class divide.
But that was then and this is now. Thirty five percent of the students who enter Louisiana's high schools won't graduate. Some estimates put it closer to 50%, counting those who drop out before eighth grade.
There are a lot of reasons for that, most having to do with our state's ignoble history of downplaying the importance of education. It was once possible for an uneducated person to make a decent, if hard, living in the oil patch or on a shrimp boat. Scores of politicians built their careers pandering to ignorance and making fun of intellectualism.
But that was then and this is now. Jobs in the oil patch have dried up. Cheap foreign imports have dry docked our once-proud shrimping fleet. Kids who drop out have few options and little chance for success.
Leaders finally came to understand that an educated work force is the bootstrap we must use to pull ourselves up from poverty. So far, so good. But at some point, the aim of public education became to push every child through a college prep curriculum. Rigor became the buzzword driving the education reform agenda.
Somehow, our leaders came to believe that if too many children were dropping out of school, the solution was to make school harder. Test them relentlessly, and fail them for a single shortfall.
DeBerry contends that the career diploma is mean-spirited, but what could be meaner than a high-stakes, pass/fail system that degrades any other accomplishments a student may have?
The column seems to be based on the unwarranted contention that the career diploma "is inherently shameful because it encourages adults to give up on their young students and those students to give up on themselves."
The columnist absorbed all the talking points made against the career diploma, even quoting George H.W. Bush to deride supporters as guilty of "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
You might hear a very different story from the teachers at our community colleges and technical schools. They haven't given up on students and they don't have low expectations. There is rigor in those schools, just as there will be in the alternative diploma programs.
The difference will be another word that begins with "R": Relevance. Bright students who don't necessarily see the virtue of a college-prep curriculum will be able to focus their energies, talents and ambitions on learning facts and skills with real applications to their lives.
Contrary to DeBerry's demeaning assertions, students earning career diplomas won't necessarily learn less than others, but they will learn it differently.
Teachers want their students to succeed. That's why they have been so frustrated with a system that tries to squeeze all children into a mold that many simply don't fit. The career diploma can give more children a way to succeed in school and to find their life's passion. And it can reduce our state's truly shameful dropout rate.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
It is tempting to forgive him because we understand where he is coming from. For too many years, school systems used tracking to dampen the futures of African-American students, poor white students or anyone else from the wrong side of the class divide.
But that was then and this is now. Thirty five percent of the students who enter Louisiana's high schools won't graduate. Some estimates put it closer to 50%, counting those who drop out before eighth grade.
There are a lot of reasons for that, most having to do with our state's ignoble history of downplaying the importance of education. It was once possible for an uneducated person to make a decent, if hard, living in the oil patch or on a shrimp boat. Scores of politicians built their careers pandering to ignorance and making fun of intellectualism.
But that was then and this is now. Jobs in the oil patch have dried up. Cheap foreign imports have dry docked our once-proud shrimping fleet. Kids who drop out have few options and little chance for success.
Leaders finally came to understand that an educated work force is the bootstrap we must use to pull ourselves up from poverty. So far, so good. But at some point, the aim of public education became to push every child through a college prep curriculum. Rigor became the buzzword driving the education reform agenda.
Somehow, our leaders came to believe that if too many children were dropping out of school, the solution was to make school harder. Test them relentlessly, and fail them for a single shortfall.
DeBerry contends that the career diploma is mean-spirited, but what could be meaner than a high-stakes, pass/fail system that degrades any other accomplishments a student may have?
The column seems to be based on the unwarranted contention that the career diploma "is inherently shameful because it encourages adults to give up on their young students and those students to give up on themselves."
The columnist absorbed all the talking points made against the career diploma, even quoting George H.W. Bush to deride supporters as guilty of "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
You might hear a very different story from the teachers at our community colleges and technical schools. They haven't given up on students and they don't have low expectations. There is rigor in those schools, just as there will be in the alternative diploma programs.
The difference will be another word that begins with "R": Relevance. Bright students who don't necessarily see the virtue of a college-prep curriculum will be able to focus their energies, talents and ambitions on learning facts and skills with real applications to their lives.
Contrary to DeBerry's demeaning assertions, students earning career diplomas won't necessarily learn less than others, but they will learn it differently.
Teachers want their students to succeed. That's why they have been so frustrated with a system that tries to squeeze all children into a mold that many simply don't fit. The career diploma can give more children a way to succeed in school and to find their life's passion. And it can reduce our state's truly shameful dropout rate.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Some districts want career diploma waivers
This week, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education accepted requests from 19 school systems asking to opt out of the newly-created career diploma program.
According to this press release, the waivers were approved at a special BESE meeting called to discuss the criteria for the career diploma program.
Some decisions about criteria were made at the meeting, but most were postponed until September, giving the State Department of Education staff time to study the policy issues involved, and to meet with "stakeholders" about coursework, curriculum and assessment requirements.
According to this press release, the waivers were approved at a special BESE meeting called to discuss the criteria for the career diploma program.
Some decisions about criteria were made at the meeting, but most were postponed until September, giving the State Department of Education staff time to study the policy issues involved, and to meet with "stakeholders" about coursework, curriculum and assessment requirements.
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