[CSPS] the real school choice

[Jonathan Coopersmith]

This is the real school choice that needs discussion.

         Jonathan Coopersmith

Let's face it: College isn't for everyone
08:25 PM CST on Sunday, January 4, 2004
By KENT FISCHER / The Dallas Morning News

What if the principal at your high school ordered his football coach to 
recruit every student in the school, even those who don't know a football 
from a grapefruit? And what if the principal told the coach to develop all 
of his players into college prospects, and that he considered anything less 
to be failure?

How long would the coach and his staff last before they quit en masse?

Now take that same scenario, only substitute "teacher" for "coach" and 
"student" for "player."

Is that any more realistic? Yet that's pretty much where we're headed with 
the current trend in high school reforms.

Texans have been talking quite a bit lately about reforming their high 
schools into places where every kid graduates ready for college. And in 
these discussions there's an implicit notion that all kids want to go to 
college, and if by chance they don't, well, their teachers will get them 
there anyway.

What's never discussed, or even mentioned as an aside, is that for many 
kids, college simply isn't going to happen, be it for a lack of 
intellectual curiosity, of drive or of discipline.

The underlying logic of the current wave of reforms is that all kids are 
created intellectually equal, and that all of them are college material. 
Many teachers chafe at the notion, although few are willing to say so publicly.

Here's what teachers tell me: Some kids don't need college; they need to 
learn a trade.

"Coaches want to coach good athletes, teachers want to teach those that 
care," said Keith Zembower, who, over the last 32 years, has taught in both 
college and high school, and helped tutor students for college entrance tests.

"Everyone cannot be an athlete; everyone is not college material. We need 
to teach them a trade and then require a two- or three-hour-per-day 
internship working for pay. The high school should be structured by student 
need."

Such opinions can sound harsh to those who have never spent time in a 
classroom. They don't jibe with the ideal that any child, if they work hard 
enough, can grow up to be George W. Bush. After all, what teacher wants to 
look at a 14-year-old and say, "Son, you're a plumber." (Never mind that, 
according to the Department of Labor, the median wage for plumbers is 
$18.20 an hour, and that the job outlook is "excellent, as increased demand 
... is expected to outpace the supply of workers trained in this craft.")

The other day, the Texas Education Agency put online a copy of last 
spring's Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, the exam that 
students must pass to graduate. Here's multiple-choice question No. 25 from 
the 11th-grade math test:

Which expression is equivalent to (5n-2)3n-(5n-2)(n-1)?

(If you're interested, the complete test is at 
www.tea.state.tx.us/student.as sessment/resources/release/in dex.html)

How did knowing how to solve that cryptic equation become a requirement 
that every student must master? I know, it's not solving the equation per 
se that's the requirement; rather the state wants all kids to learn the 
problem-solving techniques necessary to crack such problems.

But all teachers are asking for is a smidgen of reality. Kids who struggle 
with – and rebel against – book learning need something else. Often, school 
isn't a big enough priority for them to expend the energy necessary to 
learn that (5n-2)3n-(5n-2)(n-1) is equal to 10n{+2}+n-2. What's more, a 
good number of them simply don't care to know, and that's not necessarily 
their teacher's fault.

Teachers know it. Guidance counselors know it. The kids know it. Yet 
bureaucrats continue to ask schools to hammer square pegs into round holes, 
and then everyone screams at the teachers when the pieces don't fit quite 
right.

"While I agree that all students need to have access to a college-prep 
education, I am experienced enough to know that that type of high school 
education just does not meet the needs of many of the students," said 
Panita Greer, an educator who has taught in high school and college. She 
retired from Lake Highlands High School in the Richardson school district 
in 2002.

"We either meet the needs of the students for an education appropriate to 
their abilities and goals in life, or we fail them miserably," she said. "A 
future plumber has different educational needs than a future lawyer."

I hear it all the time from teachers in the trenches: Somewhere along the 
path to "higher standards" we've forgotten about the kids in the middle, 
the kids who would rather build something than deconstruct it. And we've 
convinced ourselves that college is the only path to a happy, prosperous life.

Teachers say one casualty of the standards movement has been vocational 
schools. In the late 1970s, more than 35 percent of all high school 
students took three credits or more of vocational programs, according to 
the federal Department of Education. By 2000, that figure had fallen to 
below 25 percent.

I've had countless of conversations with teachers who believe that we need 
more vocational programs that are, in and of themselves, rigorous and 
relevant to today's economy. What's more, schools need to actively 
encourage more kids to pursue those opportunities.

Gov. Rick Perry likes to cite that, over a lifetime, those with college 
diplomas earn $1.2 million more than workers who merely graduated from high 
school. That's an eye-popping number, and, like Mrs. Greer said, a 
college-prep curriculum should be available to any student who is willing 
to make the effort.

But what about, some teachers ask, the kids who can't – or won't – make the 
effort?

What are we doing for them? Or, better yet, what are we doing to them?

Reporter Kent Fischer covers private schools and school-choice issues for 
The Dallas Morning News.
http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/education/columnists/kfischer/stories/010504dnmetedcol.6ed40.html

Jonathan Coopersmith
Associate Professor
Dept. of History
MS 4236
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas  77843
979.845.7148
979.862.4314 fax