Harvard’s “Pathways to Prosperity” report explains in its pages a ‘“college for all” goal...seems doomed to fail” in our country. Less than one-third of students actually graduate college with a degree. In fact, this report shows that only 40% of 27 years-old in the United States have a degree. With the United States owning “the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world” (pg. 16).
What I gleaned from these project:
Our fundamental problem is that our system has not evolved to serve young adults in this radically different world. Behaving as though four-year college is the only acceptable route to success clearly still works well for many young adults, especially students fortunate enough to attend highly selective colleges and universities. It also works well for affluent students, who can often draw on family and social connections to find their way in the adult world. But it clearly does not work well for many, especially young men. (pg. 19)
This project was headed by Robert B. Schwartz, Academic Dean and Francis Keppel Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Ronald Ferguson, senior lecturer at HGSE and the Kennedy School of Government and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University
In response to this project is RiShawn Biddle’s Dropout Nation Podcast: The Importance of High Expectations. Biddle is an advocate for school reform in the United States and takes a liberal stand against what he deems “traditionalist” points of view concerning education like those at Harvard and those who support Harvard’s “Pathways..” which in a sense explains that the younger students who are minorities and often of a lower SES do not always benefit from a high education. So far the key efforts of the school reform movement according to Biddle have been overhauling curricula and aiming towards college preparatory education. Most recently, this has been seen as a revising of the common course standards. Biddle says these course standards, in fact, have been a cause of the nation’s dropout numbers.
While Biddle says that Harvard’s goal is in good spirit what they are really doing is just rehashing old concerns that this nation has had since the early 1900’s. As a pre-service teacher, I obviously want to do my best and promote the well-being of any and all students I come in contact with and teach. My education I believe is leading me to a certain place where I can be comfortable in a classroom as well as effective, engaging and understood at the level I want to teach. Yet, Biddle would disagree. He believes poor recruiting, poor training (especially for the urban classroom environment), poor help in the early years of a student getting an education to become a teacher, as well as a poor system (mainly the topic of tenure) has teachers who aren’t great educators are being protected while at the same time it is disregarding new and innovative ideas from new and/or younger educators. I agree with him in some aspects here. I wish I knew the field better. I wish I knew the technical side of the “business” because when I get into teaching am I safe and secure and are my ideas going to be heard?
In bringing up Biddle’s argument against Harvard’s propositions I mainly want to get a sense of what both sides of the coin are. Is our education system where it needs to be? Who, if anybody, is getting left to the side? Why now are these concerns coming to light if it has been noted multiple times how poorly our nation’s students are doing when they reach college. In the end, I would argue Biddle’s concerns are not to bash Harvard or the elitist Ivy League schools but rather his care lies with the kids. He believes “every kid needs a high quality education,” that we should “improve instruction early” or get to the source of the problem of education which can be in elementary. The students' successes really should be the mindset of every new or seasoned educator and I am hopeful that it is.
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