Friday, March 29, 2013
More on college
Here's an update - an encouraging look at what happened when the kids mentioned below received a substantial amount of information about colleges, prices and application procedures.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
I think I can
Some friends have been asking if my blog is dead... and just when I thought I had nothing more to say, I read this very interesting study. It says that low-income students who are high achievers don't typically even apply to top US colleges.
So what? No big surprise there, for a number of reasons: college is substantially more expensive at these institutions, and students from low-income families are often needed at home to help out, whether financially, or to care for other family members. Or, these students do not even know anyone who has ever attended a selective elite college.
But, surprisingly, the study, which involved every high school student who took the SAT last year, also found that when these students do attend top colleges:
high-achieving, low-income students tend to thrive there, the paper found. Based on the most recent data, 89 percent of such students at selective colleges had graduated or were on pace to do so, compared with only 50 percent of top low-income students at nonselective colleges.
I find this galvanizing, for several reasons. First, because I believe the education system tends to be biased towards people coming from middle class and wealthy families. I don't believe this is necessarily intentional, but is the result of teachers coming from these backgrounds, and the overall design of the system (curriculum, testing, etc.).
As John Mighton puts it in his fabulous book "The Myth of Ability," our society has largely accepted the notion that intelligence is an innate gift, not something that comes through good teaching and individual practice. This bias, along with children from low-income families being less "ready" for school in the early years, we sometimes mistakenly accept the conclusion wealthier families have "smarter" children.
However, when we acknowledge that all children are equally intelligent and that a child's economic class should not be a limiting factor in their education, we can see the low-income, high achieving students who are encouraged to apply to top universities excel in that environment. The role of parents, teachers, community mentors and guidance counsellors is clear: encourage these young people to aim high. They can do it.
Another interesting facet of this study: the vast majority of these students (nearly 70%) are white.
Affirmative action in the the US is currently defined by race, and indeed, this ought to be a component of the criteria. But in an era where social inequality is rapidly increasing, kids from poor white families are not able to access the same educational (and thus, financial) advantages as their wealthier counterparts. I am not minimizing the need for affirmative action based on race, but at the same time, the social barriers faced by working class white families are intense, and perhaps it's time for "affirmative action" to be reformulated as a combination of known barriers, race and class included.
If you are interested in this topic, I would also recommend reading Richard Sennett's excellent book "The Hidden Injuries of Class," which takes a great account-based look at working class families, their educational decisions, and why they tend to, as noted in the Times article "stay local" instead of embracing upward mobility and leaving their families behind.
It is refreshing to see a study that takes a look at a very under-studied group of students: high achievers from low-income families. It reminds us that all humans are capable of achieving a meaningful education, but that the choice to take advantage of that opportunity depends in large part on whether we are encouraged to do so by our peers and by our elders.
So what? No big surprise there, for a number of reasons: college is substantially more expensive at these institutions, and students from low-income families are often needed at home to help out, whether financially, or to care for other family members. Or, these students do not even know anyone who has ever attended a selective elite college.
But, surprisingly, the study, which involved every high school student who took the SAT last year, also found that when these students do attend top colleges:
high-achieving, low-income students tend to thrive there, the paper found. Based on the most recent data, 89 percent of such students at selective colleges had graduated or were on pace to do so, compared with only 50 percent of top low-income students at nonselective colleges.
I find this galvanizing, for several reasons. First, because I believe the education system tends to be biased towards people coming from middle class and wealthy families. I don't believe this is necessarily intentional, but is the result of teachers coming from these backgrounds, and the overall design of the system (curriculum, testing, etc.).
As John Mighton puts it in his fabulous book "The Myth of Ability," our society has largely accepted the notion that intelligence is an innate gift, not something that comes through good teaching and individual practice. This bias, along with children from low-income families being less "ready" for school in the early years, we sometimes mistakenly accept the conclusion wealthier families have "smarter" children.
However, when we acknowledge that all children are equally intelligent and that a child's economic class should not be a limiting factor in their education, we can see the low-income, high achieving students who are encouraged to apply to top universities excel in that environment. The role of parents, teachers, community mentors and guidance counsellors is clear: encourage these young people to aim high. They can do it.
Another interesting facet of this study: the vast majority of these students (nearly 70%) are white.
Affirmative action in the the US is currently defined by race, and indeed, this ought to be a component of the criteria. But in an era where social inequality is rapidly increasing, kids from poor white families are not able to access the same educational (and thus, financial) advantages as their wealthier counterparts. I am not minimizing the need for affirmative action based on race, but at the same time, the social barriers faced by working class white families are intense, and perhaps it's time for "affirmative action" to be reformulated as a combination of known barriers, race and class included.
If you are interested in this topic, I would also recommend reading Richard Sennett's excellent book "The Hidden Injuries of Class," which takes a great account-based look at working class families, their educational decisions, and why they tend to, as noted in the Times article "stay local" instead of embracing upward mobility and leaving their families behind.
It is refreshing to see a study that takes a look at a very under-studied group of students: high achievers from low-income families. It reminds us that all humans are capable of achieving a meaningful education, but that the choice to take advantage of that opportunity depends in large part on whether we are encouraged to do so by our peers and by our elders.
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