College Ready Blog

A recent study of DC public schools finds that for every 100 high school freshman, only 9 go on to complete a college degree within five years of enrolling in college. DC already spends nearly $12,500 per student, the highest in the nation. The result - a district of 65,000 students only produces 400 college grads per year. That’s not even enough college grads to staff the vacancies each year in the public schools.

Another way to think about this. With an $811 million budget, DC Public Schools spends roughly $2 million per college grad each year. While less money is clearly not the answer, this is blood-in-the-water for fiscal conservatives who want to defund public schools and a cautionary tale for “throw-money-at-the-problem” Democrats.

DC is not alone here. Recent reports from Chicago show an 8% college completion rate. Our own research shows similar numbers out of Los Angeles, and there is no reason to expect other large districts are faring any better.

This is a civil rights crisis of epic proportions. It’s become trendy to say high schools are the top priority thanks to Bill and Oprah. And districts are slowly getting into the action by hiring Assistant Superintendents of Secondary Education, breaking up comprehensive high schools into small schools, creating freshmen academies, etc. But it’s hard to justify incremental change against a problem of this magnitude. Seriously. Has anyone seen Jesse?

Ohio is the most recent state to legislate more stringent high school course requirements to boost college preparation.

The Good

Aligning high school course requirements with college admission criteria is an easy win for lawmakers and simple, straightforward policy. In this economy, where it’s nearly impossible to make a living wage without a college degree, every student should have the option of attending a four-year college after high school. Jay Greene at the Manhattan Insitute estimates that only a third of students exit high school with the minimal qualifications necessary to apply to a four-year college.

The Bad

• Rigorous course requirements hardly guarantee rigorous courses.
• The “get-tough” legislators do not require a fourth year of high school mathematics, even though it is the best indicator of college readiness (and STRONGLY recommended by any college or university worth its salt).
• Broad course requirements across the subject distracts from the real goal of teaching students to read, write and think critically. Colleges lose sleep because their incoming freshmen lack skills, not because they lack content knowledge. The single subject focus in high schools, particularly in the 9th and 10th grades, only fractures efforts to teach college skills in a systematic way. More on this later.

The Ugly

While stricter course requirements have not galvanized the “low expectations” lobby to the same extent as the high school exit exam debate, critics still contend that additional requirements will result in fewer high school graduates, penalizing low-achieving students, many of whom are disadvantaged by attending low-performing schools.

Hmmm… We know low expectations don’t work (or work too well depending on your perspective)…

A favorite corollary, although often left unstated, is that not all students are college material, and that these students should not be held to strict standards.

I’m still waiting for someone to name the names of students that “deserve” lowered expectations. My experience is that most students are “college material” if exposed to great instruction over a sustained period of time. This means I had to treat every student as if they were going to Harvard, regardless of how many risk factors they were dragging around.

The low vs. high expectations debate is already moot as global competition requires more and more from our high school graduates. The bar is being raised for us - there is no need to wait for congress to pass a new law.