Lol! @dfbdfb - I agree - and my first degree was in engineering. math is not the only constituent of logic.
Is the needle on that broken record stuck again?
I think our education system is fine. It’s in the delivery we failed. We need better teacher training. That’s where funding is needed not in “how to reform our education”.
I agree, that having head in a sand preserves mental health. Not all of us have this option though. For those who do, I am happy for you!
After spending 2 summers (I work in higher ed, so sometimes I still take “summer” jobs) deciphering engineering reports and other communications for a nearby municipality, I’d have to agree with you on the communications part!
I do think certain majors, like engineering and nursing, are guilty of what you’re describing–expecting 17 year old applicants to know exactly what they want to do, with probably very minimal exposure to much of anything, walking in the door because starting the major later means more time in college and more money spent.
I’m also not a big fan at all of AP/DE courses designed to help students get gen eds “out of the way” because the exposure to some fields is so different at the college level. Both my own kids, for example, took DE history so they could fulfill that gen ed before getting to college. Make me sad because history classes in college were my favorite. I think they filled up ALL my electives!
Critical thinking is a more difficult concept as brain maturity plays a role, and let’s face it, a lot of students just aren’t ready for some of that in high school. It’s got nothing to do with intelligence, just like how soon a kid walks is no indicator of a high or low IQ. My school district recently stepped back from some of its math acceleration. You can teach a kid to compute at a high level, but real understanding? There’s some maturity involved that high schoolers just may not have. Could public schools do more with critical thinking? Probably, but I’d argue that we already push high achievers past what they can grasp. I think any critical thinking curriculum would have to be appropriate for the maturity level of the student (which has nothing to do with IQ), and good Lord, can you imagine the outcry among the CC set if there wasn’t an “AP” style curriculum for that!
While I don’t agree that there is a (mis)perception of critical thinkers as "troublemakers,’ I do, as a teacher who has left the public system, agree with this:
CT has been so excised from the curriculum that those of us now in private and supplemental education are offering classes in it, LOL. And there is, of course, more to “foundation” than CT, while that is important. Entire areas of learning have been ignored. I’m shocked at some of the ignorance of my h.s. students taking supposedly all-advanced classes. The fact that so little reading is required (breadth and depth), from elementary through high, is very problematic for college readiness. Reading is important for all fields. Many students and parents do not understand how much reading is involved in math and in science. I just reviewed this recently with one of my ACT prep students: the science test is a reading test; it’s applied reading more than it is “how much science you know.” You damn well better know how to read if you have a prayer of becoming a successful physician or any other scientist.
No, it would not. The HS dropouts are really lost in middle school, or K8, which you would leave alone.
@bluebayou I do not agree with you. Your statement implies that dropouts are solely because of kids being lost in K8. There are a multitude of causes. Some can be due to kids not getting proper educational foundation in K8, some due to being confused in high school, some due to being lost in a new college atmosphere without the guidance of parents. I am considering the entire chain. Even kids who are ok in K8 lose themselves later on.
That’s ok, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
HS drop out rates exceed many 50% in urban areas. These kids are really lost to the education world in middle school. And if we, as a society don’t fix that problem, nothing else much matters.
Regardless, the college drop out rate is far, far lower*, and and I would bet mostly due to lack of $$, or other personal/family issues, unrelated to education per se.
*The feds say its 40%, but that excludes transfers (which is a quarter of all college students) and excludes folks who begin at a local community college to take a few classes with no real intention of staying for an AA degree.
If one looks only at those students who begin college FT, the grad rate is near 80%. And don’t forget our favorite anecdotes, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were college dropouts! 
Maybe having one’s head in the sand is preferable to having it in an orifice.
@bluebayou i am not saying that K8 education deficiencies don’t also need to be addressed. But that is a separate topic. And for that we should probably establish a separate thread.
My focus here is highlighting that the HS to college transition itself is jarring and might need a fix of its own. Most HS kids don’t know what they can study, should do at college or after college. The college process is a curious mix of dumbing down some portions of academics and overemphasizing others. And it is sometimes too generic and at other times way too specific. This is why I suggested an approach that lets people reset and adjust after 2 years and allows them to follow a path naturally.
Emphasis added.
And this is what I disagree with. If ~80% of those who start college on a FT basis complete their degree, I don’t see a big problem. Heck, I don’t see any problem, particularly since we have so many colleges in the US, that students who should not be going, go anyway.
@bluebayou firstly i agree that a lot of kids should not be allowed to go to college. they are not prepared and end up wasting resources. However, i find it hilarious that any 6 year graduation at 4-year college is considered a success! Why only 6? Why not 7? Or 8? Also please bear in mind that number is a blend of public and private institutions and that number masks some extremes as illustrated later on.
My measure is only “On or before time” graduation rates. In which aspect of real life do you get a 50% time leeway to complete your tasks? Did seal team 6 get 50% more time to take out bin laden? Did your bank give you 50% more time to pay the mortgage? So, um no, that 80% graduation number in 150% of time allocated is completely meaningless to me. Why is 6-year graduation rate at a 4-year institution a metric at all? Is this a reflection of the “well you participated so you get a trophy mentality?” How have we become accustomed to measuring graduation rates in 6 years?
Private college and university graduation rates are typically healthier compared to public universities with some obvious exceptions on both sides. This is a bigger issue at public institutions - lets just focus on the public 4-year institutions. Within these: Only 19% of non flagship public college/university students graduate on time, and the average 4 year graduation rate at flagship public universities is only 36%. How is that not a problem?
http://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/4-Year-Myth.pdf
– the link above is the source of my data. NCES does not even publish on-time graduation rates. Why not? Is a Bachelors degree a 4-year degree or a 6-year degree?
The simple (and I would have thought) obvious reason that public Universities have a slower grad rate than privates is mostly due to the financial aid. Only a couple of publics meet full financial need, whereas most of the top privates do. It’s a whole lot easier to graduate on time if one only has to take out federal loans to attend. (And some of the privates are loan-free.)
But, a student who needs to work 20+ hours/week to make ends meet (and send money home to help out the family) can struggle academically and will easily end up on the 5-year plan. Just bcos that is “completely meaningless” to you doesn’t make it not a relevant aspect of life of the poor.
So, no, I don’t see it as a “problem.”
So 81% and 64% of the kids at 4-year public non-flagship and flagship institutions have to work to support themselves and send money home to the parents? I am sorry but that explanation is just not credible enough.
Most privates do not meet 100% of your financial aid either - only the top ones do. Heck, even highly revered privates like RPI and BU don’t meet much of your aid and mind you their sticker prices are way higher and they still graduate people on time by the boatload! Meanwhile, to meet your financial need at a public, you only need some financial aid, not as much as you might need at a private. Just some Pell, Stafford and institutional grants. And yet their on time graduation rates are abysmal.
The simpler explanation is that most college kids at publics don’t know what they are doing, lose their way, some party too much and some are just not academically prepared to be at a 4-year institution. I submit that these kids simply should not be admitted to 4-year colleges, period.
Using http://www.heri.ucla.edu/GradRateCalculator.php to predict 4/5/6 year graduation rates, we see:
School Predicted Actual
RPI 60/77/80 61/80/82
Boston Univ 57/74/78 80/84/84
RPI performs about as expected, while BU outperforms. However, BU appears to have about 63% of students paying list price, meaning that they are from very high income/wealth families, so there is probably less concern among BU students than those at most schools about needing to work to afford school (and having to take light course loads as a result) or dropping out due to running out of money. RPI has about 35% paying list price.
@ucbalumnus went to the heri calculator but could not figure out where you got the results from. Can you please also post the UC Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, USC, NYU, BYU numbers as well?
Inputs and actual graduation rates are from entries at http://www.collegedata.com .
School Predicted Actual
Boston Univ 57/74/78 80/84/84
BYU 53/72/75 29/53/79
NYU 60/76/80 72/80/82
RPI 60/77/80 61/80/82
UCB 67/83/86 72/88/91
UCLA 64/80/84 73/89/91
USC 62/78/81 76/89/91
UVA 67/82/84 87/94/94
It would not be surprising if other things not used by that calculator (e.g. SES level, LDS missionary service) also had relevance to graduation rates.
@khanam #32: So a student who had to take a year off due to medical issues (and so takes five years) has failed to graduate in a reasonable amount of time according to your standards? That seems a bit overly rigid.
I do not see the OP’s proposed “fix” to k-12 education as very good. Current HS college bound classes do NOT mean a “jarring” transition to college. The senior, and some junior, classes become more like college classes with increased student responsibility, especially in AP classes where the teachers treat them as college classes with the same responsibilities for students. My son’s blue collar city district did not hand hold students their entire HS career- they kept pace with preparing students for life after HS. Maybe Wisconsin really does have better public education than the majority of states (along with some other states).
Another reason for graduation rate differences between private and public schools can be costs. It can be cheap enough that a student can afford to take more time and work more hours while taking fewer classes at public U. Or they need to work just to manage public tuition and may be part timers some semesters. We do not see what happens to those who transfer out of a school- do they finish elsewhere?