Category Archives: Education

ACT Scores Are Even Worse

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The posting last week mentioned that about two thirds of high school graduates are ready to succeed in college. An article in the Denver Post indicates that the most recent results show many fewer are ready for college. “In its annual score report…the testing company said only 38 percent of graduating seniors who took the exam hit the college-prepared benchmark in at least four core subjects tested—reading, English, math, and science. That compares with 40 percent last year.” The composite score also declined from 21 to 20.8 (on a scale of 1 to 36). Only 64% of the 2016 graduates took the test, and one would have to guess that the many if not most of the students who weren’t interested in taking the test wouldn’t have improved the results.

For some of the individual test results, 61 percent met the English benchmark, 44 percent reading, 41 percent math, and 36 percent science. The composite result is that 34 percent did not meet any of the four benchmarks. The comparisons by race have not shifted that much from previous years, but they are still depressing.  Only 11 percent of African-Americans were able to hit the college-ready benchmarks in three or more of the subjects. There were 23 percent of Hispanic test-takers who achieved college-level in three or more compared to 49 percent of whites.

Should we consider the Chinese model where achievement is the basis for admission and promotion in education? Perhaps only students “graduating” from the eighth grade who test at a certain level should be promoted to high school while the others are given the opportunity to attend trade schools. (An educator friend says this is a really bad idea.) What we are doing now, which costs an enormous amount of money, doesn’t seem to be preparing children for a productive role in society. We are instead encouraging youngsters who aren’t prepared for college to incur enormous amounts of debt to enjoy the college experience.

Back to School

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All of the grandkids are back in school, and, from everything I know, they are getting good educations. That’s good news, but the same can’t be said for all students. Let’s first talk about the costs.Total expenditures for public and secondary schools in the U.S. were $620 billion in 2012-2013, or $12,296 per public school student. About 90% of that cost was for school operations, 8% was on expenditures for property and maintenance, and the remainder was on school debt interest. The staggering fact is that the average school operation cost per student for twelve years of primary through secondary education is over $130,000. I’m guessing the only reason we don’t often hear about this is that the students don’t have to incur student debt to pay for it. The money is wrung out of taxpayers and the costs become invisible.

Are students becoming educated? I suppose the answer could be, “sometimes.” Almost two thirds of high school graduates in Colorado in 2014-2015 were judged to be academically ready to succeed in college level curriculum. Of course that’s one way of glossing over the fact that 35.4% would require remedial education before they could attend actual college classes. In case you’re counting, that’s an increase of a bit more than one percent compared to the previous year. I don’t recall any measure of education that indicates improvement. I do recall year after year of campaigns asking for more money to be spent. The campaigns often result in approval of increases in spending, but seldom show improvements in student performance. I wonder when we’re going to stop putting up with this?

More Problems for College Graduates

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The problem of student loan debt has been extensively reported, but there is an additional problem. There are more graduates in several fields than there are jobs available. I doubt that most young people entering college consider the marketability of the degree they are pursuing, but it would be wise to think about whether there will be a job available when you graduate. You will spend many tens of thousands of dollars to get your education, and one goal should be to be rewarded with a job that pays well.

The Colorado Office of Economic Development reports that there are more than enough graduates in the state to replace everyone currently employed in the fields of advertising, marketing and public relations. There are fifteen times as many students with a degree in physical science than there are open positions and thirteen more in life sciences. There are shortages of graduates to fill logistics and teaching jobs. There are too many graduates with management degrees while there are shortages of people trained in office and administrative support positions that don’t require four years of college. There are also sufficient positions for engineering and health care graduates.

We need to be encouraging high school graduates to think about going to trade schools instead of college. They would miss out on the college parties but would begin life with decent jobs and no college debt.

Colorado School Performance after Millions Invested

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The subtitle of an article by Jennifer Brown in the Denver Post is, “Colorado ‘turnaround’ schools received $50 million since 2010 but many have not improved.” “Among the 29 schools in Colorado that have one year remaining on their ‘accountability clock’ before the state school board could move to shut them down or turn them into charters, most have not made significant progress, and some have gotten worse.” The analysis of student achievement data for schools receiving federal “…School Improvement Grant funds (and) found little correlation between money and academic gains.”

A spokesperson for the non-profit Bellwether Education Partners commented, “If you funnel a lot of money to the same dysfunctional districts that have been running the dysfunctional schools, these are the results you should expect…What’s mystifying to me is that people thought the school improvement grant program was going to get dramatically different results from the dozens of other similar efforts at school turnaround in the past.” That statement reminded me of the saying that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

The article is filled with statistics and examples, and it was obviously researched quite well. I wish there had been more about why school performances are so universally abysmal. There is one example of a new principal at a school “…where 90 percent of the kids are minorities and almost everyone is eligible for free or reduced lunch…” She realized she had to change the culture of gangs, drugs, and fighting. She used grant money to hire two additional assistant principals. They were told to learn the student’s names, greet them in the morning with fist bumps and high fives, and celebrate with them when they demonstrated good performance. The school had a 24 point improvement in math proficiency. Maybe other schools should try making the kids happy to be coming to school and acknowledging when they do well on a test. Refusing to allow gangs, drugs, and fighting would seem to be a good idea also.

College Scorecard

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We have commented previously about the problem of student loan debt. One web site says that 69% of graduates from public and nonprofit colleges in 2013 had an average student loan debt of $28,400 per student, which was two percent higher than 2012.

I read recently about a government-managed web site that allows comparing the costs of colleges and decided to check it out. I struggled a bit at first with getting to a comparison of Colorado State University with Colorado University, but I persisted and saw that CSU costs $15,303/year and CU $21,249. CU wins with a 69% graduation rate versus 63% for CSU. CU also wins with a $48,000 annual salary versus $44,300 annual salary (I’m assuming for graduates). I was disappointed that the same information came up when I entered a four-year Bachelor degree in Computer sciences instead of searching for any field of study.

The “Institute for College Access and Success” site is easier to use and has more information. The home page has a map that allows you to scroll to see average debt per state. For example, there are 56% of Colorado students who have debt averaging $24,520. Click on the state and it takes you to a listing of all of the universities. It reveals that the Colorado averages are skewed by the fact that there are slightly more than 4,000 cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy who have no debt because there is no tuition.

Citizenship Tests for Citizens

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The subject for this commentary was from a magazine in a doctor’s office waiting room. Doctors seldom see patients on time, but they do often have a good collection of old magazines.

The Bloomberg article I read centered on how Americans are becoming less and less educated. Late night comedians have been having much fun exposing how little citizens know about their country. I don’t find it funny. One of the highest achievements by citizens was that three fourths of U.S. citizens tested knew that the declaration of independence was against England. Of course that means one fourth had no clue. A third of those tested couldn’t name a single branch of government and three fourths had no idea why the Civil War was fought. Most high school students are required to take a civics class, but only 27 percent “…demonstrated proficiency in the subject…” in 2010.

A movement has developed to require high school students to pass the same citizenship test given to immigrants. Arizona and North Dakota have adopted the requirement with 19 other states considering it. The driving force behind the movement is that “…ignorance has never been an excuse for failing a test in high school—on civics, chemistry, or anything else.”

The federal government’s citizenship test has basic questions about U.S. history and government. “Each year, more than half a million immigrants take the test and pass to become citizens. A survey in 2012 found 65 percent of U.S. citizens tested passed by answering six of ten questions correctly.”

My cynicism is exposed by my thought that the number of people passing the test would undoubtedly improve if it was required before someone is allowed to register to be on the social media sites.