It says a lot when a journalistic source wishes to remain anonymous. Jay Mathews, an education columnist and blogger for the Washington Post, calls her Nancy—a community college teacher he asked about the current wave of reforms designed to boost graduation rates. Please have a look at the piece.
Nancy was afraid to talk openly about what is going on at her school. Certainly we should raise a red flag with anonymous sources, but Mr. Mathews specializes in education, and has been a journalist with the Post for 40 years. Also, Nancy's comments will sound familiar to those who engage in private conversations with community college teachers these days.
The reforms in question involve efforts to enroll more students full time, and using teams of advisors to help them along and stay on task. The rigor of introductory course material is discussed, with added pressure placed upon faculty—especially adjuncts with no job security—to pass more students. The term "social promotion" comes up, too. All the hot buttons are there.
For example:
“There is allegedly research out there that says that full-time students are more likely to graduate on time than part-time students,” she said. “What I have not found is research showing that our kind of students, those with full-time jobs or family responsibilities, would do better going to school full time. … As someone who went to graduate school gradually, I don’t believe it.”
And:
“Shortly before the semester begins there is a big push to get students to enroll,” she said. “There are a lot of people, peer advisers, helping all comers register.”
One young man was reluctant to register, but the advisers wore him down, countering every objection. So he gave up and enrolled. “I commented that it didn’t seem like the kid actually wanted to be here,” Nancy said. “’It doesn’t matter,’ the advisers said. ‘He just has to be here.'”
And:
She [Nancy] worked with a seminar course for first-year students, a crucial part of the national effort to reverse community college drop-out rates. Eighty five percent of newcomers say they want a four-year college degree, but after six years just 15 percent get one. Faculty working on that introductory course at her school, after trial and error, moved to a textbook that would help students look at reasons why so many classmates skipped class and didn’t complete assignments. They also asked the students to write about their college experiences.
At a meeting after a new supervisor took charge, the first year seminar instructors were told to “eliminate the writing assignments and choose a different textbook,” Nancy said.
The seminar instructors were told: “Our current ninth-grade reading level textbook is too difficult for our incoming students. Make the course have a 100 percent pass rate, no matter what,” Nancy said. She said this last bit of advice eliminates the usefulness of the course as a tool for helping students adjust to college expectations and reduces it to social promotion.
My fear is that the same people who "fixed" K-12 now want to "fix" higher ed.
Posted by: Michael Berberich | December 02, 2015 at 01:03 AM