high school

Maria Kefalas has written an interesting post at The Atlantic. She begins by relaying a phenomenon she heard immigration scholar Frank Bean discuss, pointing out the decrease in the number of native-born men who have completed the 12th grade while also noting the increase in the number of men enrolling in post-secondary education. Kefalas and Bean posit that immigrant men--mainly from Mexico--account for the discrepancy. On the ladder of social mobility, both black and white native men from the working class are going head-to-head at an increasing rate with the immigrant men, and the latter group is winning.

Why? Kefalas explains:

In this competition, immigrant men have the edge, not simply because they take lower wages and don't have union protection, but also because, as a group, they have lower rates of criminality and drug abuse--and that may become even more true as today's out-of-work blue collar workers remain out of work for a year or two or more. So as more and more native high-school-educated workers find themselves unemployed (and possibly become unemployable), Bean speculates that immigrant workers may fill the gap, and get many of the blue collar jobs that return, as we recover.

Kefalas, while noting her support of immigration and its societal benefits (which I also share), goes on to raise a concern regarding what this means for young native men who, out of options, look for some way to express their frustrations. The consequences of a large, downtrodden segment of the population recognizing their impotence would probably have enormously detrimental--possibly destructive--effects on society, especially when other complicating factors like race, ethnicity, and generational dynamics are thrown in (cue the footage of the London riots).

Kefalas sees the notion of "college-for-everyone" as a pipe dream doing a disservice to this group of native men; even as someone working in higher education, I tend to agree that college is not for everyone. Yet, school systems today won't hear any of this. Kefalas proposes her own solution.

Americans hate the idea of educational tracking, and I'm not proposing is a system that would give teachers and administrators all the power to determine a teenager's educational trajectory. But right now the only tracks are "college" or "bust." We need to provide alternative pathways for high school students, including those that would mix classroom learning with apprenticeship and applied-skill training.

What would be wrong with creating a system that honors a young person's dreams but also respects the practical concerns of a kid's abilities and talents? What purpose does it serve to tell a kid graduating from high school who tests below 9th-grade levels in math and English that he or she should head off to college to become a doctor?

No other system in the developed world would allow such a thing to happen. It wastes people's time, money, and resources. And it is soul-destroying for the young people who endure it. Foundations and philanthropists should be looking to programs like those in Germany where kids can finish the equivalent of high school (for free) with the training to enter the full-time labor force in a good job. Here, high school graduates end up in community colleges only to languish in remedial courses when they could be in trade and vocational programs preparing them for work that is respected, well-paying, and secure.

I mostly agree with Kefalas' proposal. I do believe that our educational system does a relatively poor job of preparing students for a variety of options not including college. One report from 2006, called "The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts" and released by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart and Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, cited a handful of reasons why high school students drop out. Two of the reasons are particularly interesting when thinking about the dilemma of young native men discussed above:

• Nearly half (47 percent) said a major reason for dropping out was that classes were not interesting. These young people reported being bored and disengaged from high school. Almost as many (42 percent) spent time with people who were not interested in school. These were among the top reasons selected by those with high GPAs and by those who said they were motivated to work hard.
• Nearly 7 in 10 respondents (69 percent) said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard, 80 percent did one hour or less of homework each day in high school, two-thirds would have worked harder if more was demanded of them (higher academic standards and more studying and homework), and 70 percent were confident they could have graduated if they had tried. Even a majority of those with low GPAs thought they could have graduated.

In addition to agreeing with Kefalas that more educational "tracks" may be needed, the statistics above also leave me wondering if part of the problem lies with the staffing of junior high and high school teachers. Are we hiring teachers whose experiences connect with these students? Are we providing educational experiences that match a variety of students' backgrounds, situating the learning in their worlds, or are we shoving the cliched square peg through the round hole in the name of efficiency and standardized testing? Granted, The Silent Epidemic statistics represent the experiences of both men and women, but they still hint that many of those young men leaving school experience significant boredom with their education. They, and we, deserve better.

The White House announced today that the President will be speaking at a High School Commencement. "Race to the Top" is a competition - one school will be selected from applicants to receive a visit from the President. Principals of public high schools can apply for the "Commencement Challenge" online.

Six schools will be selected from the applicants by the White House and Department of Education. They will be posted on whitehouse.gov and the public will have the chance to vote for three to move forward. The President himself will choose the winning school from among these three finalists.

The application includes several essay questions and a video submission, giving local administrators the chance to get their students and teachers involved in the process of applying.

The White House has also set up a Facebook page specifically for "Race to The Top".

Pretty cool stuff, I think. High School students should let their administrators know about this.

Lauren Forcella, of the Orange County Register, has written a nice article where she asked a panel of millennials about their opinions on the state of humanity and what we face in the next decade. She intends to interview more young people and post their responses soon. I was struck by just how progressive their answers were.

"Let's stop lying and hating each other and instead support each other. World peace starts here." said one student. Another said, simply, "We need more love." There were comments about homophobia, racism, and prejudice in general.

One panelist offered up an opinion on college - how college without vocational and practical training can still leave you without the vital knowledge your new job may require.

Others spoke about the environment, waste, the food industry, and there were several more "let's be nicer" style comments. I agreed with pretty much all of them. It made me wonder...are all millennials this progressive in their views? I thought surely they wouldn't be in my rural hometown.

Today, I asked a few randomly chosen kids at school about their opinions on issues and about the next decade. Several of the answers were really surprising for me.

I noticed that most responded negatively to questions about President Obama...but, still, many didn't have any problem with gay marriage, believed in working with other nations to solve problems, and believed Iraq was a mistake and a mess.

What got to me was that these students agreed with the President on so many issues and yet didn't support him personally. Of course, there were a few areas where they were actually conservative...things like gun control and sportsmanship got strong responses. It seems like they're scared of losing these things that play such huge roles in their lives.

I guess most millenials are progressive, naturally. There are many who don't pay enough attention to politics or public policy to realize it, though. There were only a few people who were truly conservative in their views.

I think next time I'll take a camera with me and throw something together with their responses.

My parents teach at a rural Oklahoma High School. The entire district has around 500 students. Many schools in the region and across the nation have decided not to show the President's Speech to America's Students on Tuesday. I'm proud to say my that my school is doing what's right - they're incorporating the speech into class curriculum.

My dad didn't vote for Barack Obama (despite my best efforts to sway him). He doesn't support many of his policies and he makes no secret about it. But when he found out that the President was planning to address the nation's students, there was no question about whether to show it or not. It was just the natural thing to do - the President of our Nation wants to address students, just like others have before.

So Dad was surprised when school districts nearby decided not to show the speech. He was surprised when Conservatives in the media criticized the President harshly about what Dad sees as a non-issue. He was surprised when Oklahoma legislators started accusing the President of attempting to indoctrinate young people. But what really iced the cake was when parents started calling his school to complain.

"Are you sure this is constitutional?"

"Doesn't the Constitution prohibit this sort of thing?"

"I don't want my child brainwashed."

"Will students be forced to watch?"

"SOCIALISM!"

"Will my child be counted absent if I take them out of school?"

Luckily, the administration backed my him up. Students will be going to specific classrooms to watch the speech. Those who don't want to view it will be sent to another classroom to work on assignments or study. Those who don't come to school Tuesday will be counted absent.

Many students don't receive any sort of support at home. There isn't anyone encouraging them, pushing them forward, and congratulating them for their successes. And for minority students, there often isn't any sort of role model or figure in their lives to prove that they can do whatever they want, with a little hard work. So I'm glad those students will have the chance to listen to the President speak directly to them. It's not going to be about votes, health care reform, or anything else political. It's about encouraging students to stay in school, get good grades, and work hard. What's wrong with that?

I'm proud of my rural Oklahoma school district for making the right decision and I'm proud of my barely-Democratic Dad, too. For him, this was an easy decision...It was just common sense.

WireTap's Aaron Tang picked up a story from Duluth, Minnesota that shows another example of millennial high school students using technology and working with/through institutions to create positive change.

Duluth's school district has been through some rough times as of late, mostly due to division created in the community following the school board's adoption of a long-range facilities plan. These rough times and what some students say is a "declining" education combined to form a rallying point for a student group called "Students for the Future."

Calling themselves Students for the Future, about 50 high school students dressed in blue filled the back of the room at the Duluth School Board meeting Tuesday night. A handful of them stood up and told board members the problems they see in their schools and what students plan to do to try to fix them.

“We believe that the education in the Duluth school district has been in a decline over the past couple years … and we need to take action in order to save our education,” said Sam Seering, a senior at East High School and one of the spokespersons for the group. He pointed to teacher layoffs, cuts to programs and the subpar performance of some schools on statewide math and reading tests as evidence of the decline.

“All of that is taking away from the education students are getting,” Seering said.

The group's immediate plan is to advocate for the passage of an operational levy for the school district in 2010, while forming tutoring initiatives centered in all three of the district's high schools. Citing a lack of participation in the governance of the school district, the group is also planning a student forum, an opportunity for all Duluth students to question those candidates running/applying for leadership positions in the district.

What's more, this group is on Facebook and is slowly but surely adding Duluth students, Minnesota high school students, and high school students from all over the country who are sick of being on the receiving end of a weak education. The group is collecting all publicity it gets, so you can review that and more information on its initiatives here.

I think we're going to be seeing more of this as the consequences of the recession continue to filter through localities across the country. Youth are beginning to get sick of seeing problems pile up while blame is kicked around among those "in charge." These high school students in Duluth provide a great blueprint for other developing activists to challenge the status quo in their own backyards.

I would echo Tang's commentary, though, in pointing out that the media likes to publicize this story due to its novelty. Many times, society has a difficult time taking student groups seriously, and as a result, the focus is on their initiative and not the outcomes. I'd love to see these students rise above that and enjoy full participation in defining the long-term strategy of their school district.

The Columbus Dispatch published a story today that highlights a failure on the part of educators to prepare our generation for life after high school.

Amy Brotherton and her daughter, Katie, spent the past two months touring Ohio colleges.

The message they received didn't waver: Colleges want well-rounded individuals whose high-school activities show that they would get involved in their college communities.

So where does that leave Katie and other students in the South-Western district, where the defeat of an operating levy Tuesday ensured the cancellation of extracurriculars?

"I don't want her limited by this, and I'm afraid she will be," said Amy Brotherton. Her daughter, an incoming senior at Grove City High School, played in the marching band and was a member of various clubs.

My first reaction to this was to think of the admissions essay that nearly every school requires as a part of its application process. Some of them have prompts that attempt to dictate what you write about and some of them don't. Either way, these experiences that Katie and her peers have gone through are exactly what admissions officials want to read about. These are the types of formative experiences that begin to shape a young person's identity, and if a student can make a good faith effort to articulate the thoughts/frustrations felt and the learning that goes on in these trying times, they'd probably find the college admissions process to be easy compared to their expectations.

There's a problem, though: many high school students are being shortchanged in their curriculum. The practice of writing in many high school classes (even English) has been set aside, and so what otherwise would have been a great way to capitalize on a unique experience is potentially its own liability for many students.

This focus on the quality of completed writing has infused recent policy debates, and both national and state-level efforts have introduced standards for writing and testing programs. Because writing varies considerably across tasks and contexts, developing valid standardized tests that reliably measure achievement and growth is an enterprise fraught with challenge. Although the most credible tests include actual writing samples, the cost of rating such exams has led some to advocate the use of machine-scored tests assessing students' knowledge of vocabulary and grammar; because students' scores on such tests often correlate well with scores on actual writing, argue some, they offer an affordable and efficient alternative. Because tests tend to drive curricula, teachers and literacy scholars worry that such assessments may encourage teaching practices predicated on an insufficient model of proficiency in writing–one that privileges discrete skills over an ability to negotiate the demands of writing for real purposes and audiences. As literacy educators argue the need to ground instruction in a broader conception of writing achievement, test-makers continue to work toward assessment strategies that better encompass the range and complexity of the kinds of writing people do in their lives beyond school. During the 1990s the National Council of Teachers of English convened the New Standards project, a group of literacy educators charged with formulating approaches to portfolio assessment that might serve both classroom-level and larger-scale purposes. The cost and complexity of such endeavors have relegated portfolios primarily to the levels of schools and classrooms, where they continue to provide evidence of students' processes, products, and growth over time.

Math, science, and standardized tests now drive curricula, reducing the influence of the development of general writing skills. While Amy would do well to reflect on her experiences and organize her thoughts into a cogent argument as to why she should be allowed to enter a college community, she very well might not know how to do that (though I concede that she may also know how to do this but merely hadn't thought of it yet).

As we push toward getting more math- and science-minded students to our colleges, are we prepared to lose the ability to express ourselves? Math and science aren't going to be the only disciplines that get us through recessions.

Youth voting was up in 2008, but volunteering was down in 2007 ('08 data will be available later this year). Yet, it's not all bad news, as Peter Levine notes, "They're still volunteering at higher rates than their parents did." Additionally, some of us - depending on when your parents were born - are voting at higher rates, too. (So, stop calling Millennials 'lazy'.)

This news of a drop in high school volunteering may come as a surprise, especially as other stories report increasing service in 2009, which is partly due to the flagging economy and the growing number of under- and unemployed young Americans. CIRCLE's research uses data from the Current Population Survey, the largest public data set gauging the country's volunteerism, which is fielded annually in September. So, 2009 volunteer data still has some time to be recorded, and it's likely (when the data is released in 2010) given recent anecdotal evidence, and the signing of the GIVE/Serve America Act last Tuesday, that data will confirm a rise in volunteering this year.

While the AP story focused on 16-18 year olds, the overall pictures of youth volunteering has changed somewhat, too.

The data for 2007 show some decline in volunteering among young people, particularly high school students and college freshmen. The rate of volunteering for 16-to-18 year-olds peaked in 2005, at 33%, but has since declined by six percentage points. Traditionally, the 16-to-18 year-old cluster volunteered at a slightly higher rate than other age groups, but in 2007, people 25 or older volunteered at a slightly higher rate than 16-to-18 year-olds. The volunteer rate for the population aged 25 years and older has changed very little (2% or less) since 2002, and was 28% in 2007. (PDF)

Some trends did not change. The plurality (21%) of young volunteers got involved through religious organizations, but that varies by location, naturally.

While many factors are related to volunteering rates, perhaps the most notable feature of Salt Lake City volunteers is their affiliation with religious organizations...about half of 19-to-24 year-old SLC volunteers did [sic] performed their services at or though religious organizations. This is especially notable in contrast to their peers in the Boston area, where only 21% of volunteers donated their time at religious organizations.