Stop Sending Your Kid to College.

“College for All” – it just ain’t working.

I think we all have read about the state of our educational system on multiple occasions over the past decade.  The ranking of our students worldwide is growing worse.  The anecdotes are numerous. 

In 23 Baltimore City Schools, zero students tested proficient in math in 2022, according to a report by Project Baltimore. An analysis of 150 Baltimore City Schools showed that in 23 of them, including 10 high schools, eight elementary schools, and five middle schools, no students met math grade-level expectations, according to a report by Project Baltimore.

To compensate, multiple Baltimore high schools changed more than 12,500 failing grades to passing over a several-year span, according to the findings of an audit released by the Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education.

No wonder they call the Baltimore Public School system the “Failure Factory.”

Ballou High School is a public HS in Washington, DC.  It serves 636 students in grades 9-12.

Ballou High School placed in the bottom 50% of all schools in District of Columbia for overall test scores.

The percentage of students achieving proficiency in math is ≤5% (which is lower than the District of Columbia state average of 32%) for the 2018-19 school year. The percentage of students achieving proficiency in reading/language arts is ≤5% (which is lower than the District of Columbia state average of 38%) for the 2018-19 school year.  The student:teacher ratio of 12:1 is higher than the District of Columbia state level of 11:1.

Oh, by the way, Ballou ranks in the TOP one-fifth of DC public high schools.  Wonder who’s doing the counting.  The Washington Post trumpeted that 100% of its graduating students applied to college, but forgot to tell you only 57% graduated from high school.

California reported an increase from 69% to 86% in testing proficiency, only to have DOE disqualify the results on the basis of extensive inaccuracies or completeness.

The LeBron James’-funded I Promise school in Akron, reported:

Their first year in the school, when they were in the third grade, 17% of the class tested proficient in math,” the outlet reported. “The following year, there were no tests because of COVID, and ever since, they have not had one student pass the test.”

And on the English test this spring, only 8% of I Promise students tested proficient.

And on and on…  Few honest brokers would deny the state of American education is in decline.  Teacher unions are largely to blame.  One-parent families don’t help.  What it’s not is the money.  Spending on education has doubled since 1970.  And yet scores in reading and math have been FLAT for 17 years.  Forbes reports in NYC, $36,000 is spent per year per student, which means a class of 20 costs $720,000 a year.

In states where SATs are prevalent, only 33% score high enough to predict a B- average at a four year public college.

The “college for all” mantra ain’t working.  Neither did Obama’s plan for the US to have the highest % of kids with college degrees in the world by 2020.  Not even close or righteous.

I write this email because in Oren Cass’ book, The Once and Future Worker, he poses an interesting, at least partial remedy to this solution.  Tracking!

The author (who provides attribution for all his claims in the book) states –

• One-fifth of the 3.2 million kids who reach HS graduation stage every year in the US will not graduate.

• A second one-fifth will graduate but do no more schooling.

• Another fifth will enroll in college but never graduate.

• A fifth will complete some form of college but fail to get a job related to their degree, and

• Last but, not least, 20% will graduate and begin a career related to the degree they earned.

• 
  

In other words, 80% of HS seniors are below the Mendoza line.

So, the question Cass poses could be summed in the definition of insanity we all know.  He hypothesizes, in my opinion correctly, that college for all not only ain’t working, it’s flat out the wrong track for most.

The concept of TRACKING is simple. 

It starts with a clear focus on the main objective of higher education, which is to improve future earnings.  Pure and simple (I said that, not Cass).  To prepare students for a more productive life in which they can afford to live with greater prosperity, to support and raise a family and to contribute to their community.  The main objective is not to make students broader-minded, more mature or better able to think.  Although those are worthwhile objectives. And it certainly is not to babysit them for four years, so their parents can say my Johnny or Jezebel is "at university".  The main goal is to help students become more productive adults with higher self esteem.

While it would help if we drastically reduced one-parent families, trained teachers better, put students ahead of the teachers and administrators, involved parents fully and so on.  All good stuff to pursue.  But, as Cass opines, that ignores reality.  Even if we did all that stuff, we would not change the fact that college is not for everyone.  It is not what every individual is cut out for or needs nor is it what will serve our communities or country best.

What would be a far more effective approach is to provide vocational tracks for those unsuited or uninterested in college.  Like most of the industrialized world does.  In Switzerland, 67% of college age kids are on a vocational track – not college.  In Germany, there are apprenticeships offered in 350 occupations and 80% of its young people have a job within 6 months of finishing schooling.  An OECD study concluded in most developed nations 40-70% of HS seniors are in vocational or technical programs.  The US was not ranked because we didn’t pop up on the radar.

Not all coal miners can become coders!  Or even want to be.

So why not do it?

Because the politicians and colleges professors and presidents have brainwashed us.  Starting in 1892, when the President of Harvard, C.W. Eliot exclaimed, “I refuse to believe the American Public intends to have kids sorted into clerks, watchmakers or lithographers when they are teens.”  Today the left calls tracking racist.  But then they call everything racist. Is it not so that he who labels all others racists is, by definition, a racist himself?  They claim TRACKING targets the less advantaged by channeling them to lower paying jobs, thus a life of low wages and self esteem.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  It is the less advantaged who find the college track most perilous.  Sure, there are Horatio Alger stories, but that is far from the norm.  A well-trained young person with marketable skills could be earning $50,000 a year with $30,000 in the bank (instead of college loans) at age 20.  Pretty sweet deal.  Beats flipping burgers or slinging them.

To reengineer our society, culture and educational system is a herculean task on which few politicians care to stake a career.  Why not start with reality and go for some quick wins?  Why not add vocational and technical career tracks to the options for our high schoolers?  Get the employers involved, match the academics to the trade and convert a majority, instead of a minority, into productive adults.