Originally posted on 4/15/2011 at http://behindtheconcessionstand.blogspot.com/2011/04/can-low-income-students-afford-to-be.html
So, I haven't posted in a bit and have a ton to catch up on with this blog, but I'm up late waiting for a brisket to cool and reflecting on my day, and here are some thoughts.
Right now our students are applying for summer enrichment program- basically any program of any length over the summer that will keep them active mentally or physically, help them explore an interest, aid in developing college related skills, or give them some experience on a college campus. One of my students is applying to do a summer program at a local art school- a 2-week pre-college program on comic illustrations. Anyone who applies to the program has to fill out an application with the basic types of question about parents and emergency contacts and a brief statement of interest, and most students pay an application fee and a multiple hundred dollar tuition, though there are scholarships available. However, to apply for a scholarship, students must not only fill out the regular application, but they must also submit a portfolio of 10 of their pieces of artwork. When I learned this it started to rub me the wrong way: basically students who could afford it could just sign up for the class, but lower income students have to prove their interest and talent in ways that wealthier students do not. In some ways, it makes perfect sense. How could anyone expect to get free money without proving some level of skill or talent? Scholarship money, of any sort, should go to students who truly want and need it- and in this case, to students who show an active interest (and probably talent) in art.
So, despite the fact that this policy does make sense to me, I continue to feel kind of icky about it, especially when I think about my childhood experiences. Growing up, I would be the kid who decided two days before the due date that I wanted to do a program like this art program. I would write a little paragraph about how great art is and how learning blah blah blah would help me develop some skill or understand the world or reflect on blah blah, my parents would write a check, and I would be set- excited to try something new and my parents happy to have something to entertain me over the summer. I was a child of many extracurricular activities. Seriously. I took lessons on 3 instruments, ice skated, horseback rode, played 3 racket sports, and did gymnastics. In fact, the only activities I can think of that I never tried are organized field team sports, speech or debate, and karate (or similar combat sport). And, for the most part, I was/am terrible at every activity I tried. In fact, I'm actually best at making fun of myself, shopping, baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and arguably writing- and I learned none of these things through private lessons over the summer or school year. Despite being terrible at every activity I tried, I still had the opportunity to try many new activities and meet a lot of different people- gaining a large amount of cultural and social capital along the way.
My students, for the most part, do not have the opportunity to explore activities the way that I did and that's because, for the most part, they have to prove an actual talent or incredibly strong interest in something to make a commitment to it. Their families require this proof in order to legitimize dedicating their time, effort, and sometimes money to this activity for their child and the activities themselves require it to allow fees or tuition to be waived or subsidized.
This whole phenomenon is mirrored perfectly within college as well. I have written a number of times about my privilege to be able to "tool around" in my elite liberal arts school majoring in religion and taking courses like "Jewish Ethics"- a path that is somewhat impractical but interesting. Many of my students, on the other hand, are incredibly focused on finding schools with the pre-professional programs they think that they want. Because while I had the luxury to try out a number of activities, classes, etc, with the hopes of finding my "calling" or interests, many low income students must find the most direct and practical path that draws on their strengths and talents.
To end this babbling I have two big questions:
- First, does this phenomenon of low income students having less opportunities to explore areas where they have yet to develop any particular talent only contribute to the lack of socioeconomic mobility in society? I ask this because it seems that having the ability to explore a number of paths or activities connects someone with many people, ideas, or organizations that will ultimately be helpful in the future. For people without the access to such resources achieving the same types of mobility may be difficult.
- Second, I wonder if any studies have been done on the success or achievement of low income students in various extra curricular activities versus their wealthier peers. I would hypothesize that low income students in such activities are often better at them than their wealthier peers because they often have to demonstrate a talent in order to become involved instead of simply signing a check.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
A Classist ACT Prompt?
Originally posted on 2/6/2011 at http://behindtheconcessionstand.blogspot.com/2011/02/classist-act-prompt.htm
Last weekend my students took their third practice ACT. This is an exciting time because they have finally had a few good weeks of ACT strategy and they are eager to see if their scores have improved. This is also an important time for me to figure out which students are understanding the material and which students need some extra attention. While most of my students seemed confident that they had at least improved a little on each section, they left the test with defeated looks on their faces after finishing the last section, the essay. After reading the prompt, it's not hard to see why my students felt this way.
The prompt goes:
"Most people enjoy having a yard so that they can design both the exterior and the interior of their homes. Some people prefer landscaping that is polished and controlled, with lush green lawns, carefully trimmed shrubs or bushes, and flowers that are replaced each season so that they remain fresh and colorful. Proponents of this type of landscaping believe that the visual design of a yard is the most important factor and that neighborhoods should have standard guidelines so that the area looks uniform and consistent. Opponents of polished landscaping believe that yards require a variety of treatments, based on factors such as the climate conditions of the region, and advocate for choices that incorporate water conservation, native species, and edible plants. In your opinion, should people follow standard landscaping guidelines that focus on a yard's visual design, or should they vary their landscaping design out of consideration for other factors like climate or conservation?"
As I see it, there are two main problems with this prompt:
1. We told our students that every prompt they would get on the ACT would have something to do with their lives as students, something they could relate to. We gave examples of debates surrounding school uniforms, year round schools, single sex education, serving fast food in the cafeteria, weighted grades, the list goes on. This prompt has nothing to do with the lives of the majority of high schoolers in this country and I'm pretty sure that most high schoolers would have no opinion on the issue whatsoever (unless you're one of my good friends who worked summers with a landscaping company).
2. This prompt certainly has no relevance or context for most low income or urban students- who may be living in housing without yards or might not have the income to afford landscaping. This is the issue I will be focusing on for the remainder of this post.
Most of my students qualify for free or reduced lunch and if they don't, they definitely make well under the average income for the state. The neighborhoods surrounding the school where I work have small yards, but, as far as I can tell, no neighborhood association regulating landscaping or anything else. When I think of neighborhood associations, I think of wealthy neighborhoods where the residents can afford to pay dues to have a council that puts on BBQs and gives gifts to the mailmen. That is certainly not the kind of neighborhood my students come from. For those who don't live in single family homes, they live in apartments or town homes without yards. Thus, this prompt brings up a concept that almost none of my students have any experience with.
In fact, quite a few of my students did not know what landscaping was- and this was true among my coworkers as well. In their essays we had students argue for having landscapes instead of yards or having a back yard, or what to put in your yard (think swimming pool and playground). It was clear that besides not having any personal experience with landscaping in their own yards, they had never even encountered the term.
To me this begged the question: 'is this a classist prompt??' And honestly, I believe the answer is yes. The definition of 'classist' is "biased based on social or economic class." For a writing prompt to be classist it would have to give an unfair advantage to those of a certain social or economic class. I believe this prompt does just that. If I had this prompt when I was taking the ACT (or SAT in my case), I would have had absolutely no trouble answering the prompt. Why? Because most if not all of the neighborhoods I lived in growing up had guidelines for landscaping. More than that, I'm pretty sure that for at least the last 13 years my family has had a LANDSCAPER. I grew up seeing drawings for new gardens in our yard, hearing about the installation of underground sprinklers, and watching my parents ask permission from neighborhood councils to put fences in my yard (and wouldn't you know they even cared about what material the fences were made out of). I grew up surrounded by this information because my parents had the expendable income to pay for everything that comes with landscaping and because we belonged in a social class that expected it of us.
Most of my students do not have the same exposure to landscaping as I did, giving them an unfair disadvantage when approaching this prompt. In the words of one of my co-workers: "they might as well have asked if hired help should be full time or part time or if neighborhoods should be gated or not!"- this prompt was clearly aimed towards a set of students with a certain life style, one which, from my knowledge, most urban low income students do not share.
It's incredibly frustrating to think that a standardized test, one which is supposed to put students on an even level regardless of their high school, background, religion, race, etc. can so blatantly give an advantage to some students over others. What's worse is that it is really difficult to help our students overcome this type of disadvantage. We can teach our students how to write a well structured essay, but we cannot give them life experiences they've never had- and when a whole prompt is based on such an experience, having it can make or break one's score.
Last weekend my students took their third practice ACT. This is an exciting time because they have finally had a few good weeks of ACT strategy and they are eager to see if their scores have improved. This is also an important time for me to figure out which students are understanding the material and which students need some extra attention. While most of my students seemed confident that they had at least improved a little on each section, they left the test with defeated looks on their faces after finishing the last section, the essay. After reading the prompt, it's not hard to see why my students felt this way.
The prompt goes:
"Most people enjoy having a yard so that they can design both the exterior and the interior of their homes. Some people prefer landscaping that is polished and controlled, with lush green lawns, carefully trimmed shrubs or bushes, and flowers that are replaced each season so that they remain fresh and colorful. Proponents of this type of landscaping believe that the visual design of a yard is the most important factor and that neighborhoods should have standard guidelines so that the area looks uniform and consistent. Opponents of polished landscaping believe that yards require a variety of treatments, based on factors such as the climate conditions of the region, and advocate for choices that incorporate water conservation, native species, and edible plants. In your opinion, should people follow standard landscaping guidelines that focus on a yard's visual design, or should they vary their landscaping design out of consideration for other factors like climate or conservation?"
As I see it, there are two main problems with this prompt:
1. We told our students that every prompt they would get on the ACT would have something to do with their lives as students, something they could relate to. We gave examples of debates surrounding school uniforms, year round schools, single sex education, serving fast food in the cafeteria, weighted grades, the list goes on. This prompt has nothing to do with the lives of the majority of high schoolers in this country and I'm pretty sure that most high schoolers would have no opinion on the issue whatsoever (unless you're one of my good friends who worked summers with a landscaping company).
2. This prompt certainly has no relevance or context for most low income or urban students- who may be living in housing without yards or might not have the income to afford landscaping. This is the issue I will be focusing on for the remainder of this post.
Most of my students qualify for free or reduced lunch and if they don't, they definitely make well under the average income for the state. The neighborhoods surrounding the school where I work have small yards, but, as far as I can tell, no neighborhood association regulating landscaping or anything else. When I think of neighborhood associations, I think of wealthy neighborhoods where the residents can afford to pay dues to have a council that puts on BBQs and gives gifts to the mailmen. That is certainly not the kind of neighborhood my students come from. For those who don't live in single family homes, they live in apartments or town homes without yards. Thus, this prompt brings up a concept that almost none of my students have any experience with.
In fact, quite a few of my students did not know what landscaping was- and this was true among my coworkers as well. In their essays we had students argue for having landscapes instead of yards or having a back yard, or what to put in your yard (think swimming pool and playground). It was clear that besides not having any personal experience with landscaping in their own yards, they had never even encountered the term.
To me this begged the question: 'is this a classist prompt??' And honestly, I believe the answer is yes. The definition of 'classist' is "biased based on social or economic class." For a writing prompt to be classist it would have to give an unfair advantage to those of a certain social or economic class. I believe this prompt does just that. If I had this prompt when I was taking the ACT (or SAT in my case), I would have had absolutely no trouble answering the prompt. Why? Because most if not all of the neighborhoods I lived in growing up had guidelines for landscaping. More than that, I'm pretty sure that for at least the last 13 years my family has had a LANDSCAPER. I grew up seeing drawings for new gardens in our yard, hearing about the installation of underground sprinklers, and watching my parents ask permission from neighborhood councils to put fences in my yard (and wouldn't you know they even cared about what material the fences were made out of). I grew up surrounded by this information because my parents had the expendable income to pay for everything that comes with landscaping and because we belonged in a social class that expected it of us.
Most of my students do not have the same exposure to landscaping as I did, giving them an unfair disadvantage when approaching this prompt. In the words of one of my co-workers: "they might as well have asked if hired help should be full time or part time or if neighborhoods should be gated or not!"- this prompt was clearly aimed towards a set of students with a certain life style, one which, from my knowledge, most urban low income students do not share.
It's incredibly frustrating to think that a standardized test, one which is supposed to put students on an even level regardless of their high school, background, religion, race, etc. can so blatantly give an advantage to some students over others. What's worse is that it is really difficult to help our students overcome this type of disadvantage. We can teach our students how to write a well structured essay, but we cannot give them life experiences they've never had- and when a whole prompt is based on such an experience, having it can make or break one's score.
Numbers and Their Meaning
Originally posted on 12/15/10 at http://behindtheconcessionstand.blogspot.com/2010/12/numbers-and-their-meaning.html
The organization I work for uses a lot of numbers and statistics. After all, it is due to some sobering and unfair statistics that the organization exists at all, for example: low income students are almost 30% less likely to enroll in college as their wealthier peers, every year there are 200,000 low income student who graduate from high school and are capable of going to college but do not go, and, in a 2005 article I just found, only 6% of low income students can expect to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24, compared to 51% average nationally.
It is only logical, then, that since we base our existence on statistics, we must be able to show statistics that prove our effectiveness. The amount of numbers floating around my head and our organization-wide friday meetings is overwhelming: number of students, rate of reliability for rsvps for a college visit, number of schools applied to, amount of scholarship money received, average baseline score, percentage increased, number of students enrolled, number of students dropped... the list goes on and on.
Yesterday, a new set of numbers came out: ACT 2 scores and percentage increase from baseline scores. With 82% of my 41 students tested, they've had a 7.7% score increase. Victoria, of course, blew me out of the water with 97% (functionally 100%) of her students achieving a 13% score increase. In a desperate attempt not to feel like such a loser, I began breaking my numbers down into more numbers. 22 of my students increased their scores with an average of an 18% increase. Six of my student got the same scores. 5 of my student's scores decreased an average of 11%, and I have one outlier, we'll deal with him later. Before I knew it I had a major excel document with every students baseline and ACT2 score and their score increase/decrease percentage color coded by percent attendance. It was getting a little scary.
With all of these numbers floating around in my head, I went to session and began having brief check-in meetings with each of my students, and it was then, cheesily, that I realized that my statistics, no matter how specific, broken down, high, or low, could never do justice to the experiences of my students. No percent could make me more happy than the smile on my student's face who improved from an 11 to a 17, or more determined to solve the mystery of my incredibly attentive student who dropped from a 16 to a 12, or more proud of my ridiculously high achiever who started with a 28 and has made it a goal to improve by 2 points every practice test and might actually do it, or more frustrated with the student who overslept and went from a 6 to a 10 on his reading section but got 1's on English and Math because he completely missed those sections.
So while I might sit here wishing that 7.7% score increase could be just a few percentage points higher, I must constantly strive to remember that the 7.7% is actually 41 different stories of happiness, triumph, frustration, determination, confusion, sadness, hope, and faith, each one as statistically significant as the next.
The organization I work for uses a lot of numbers and statistics. After all, it is due to some sobering and unfair statistics that the organization exists at all, for example: low income students are almost 30% less likely to enroll in college as their wealthier peers, every year there are 200,000 low income student who graduate from high school and are capable of going to college but do not go, and, in a 2005 article I just found, only 6% of low income students can expect to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24, compared to 51% average nationally.
It is only logical, then, that since we base our existence on statistics, we must be able to show statistics that prove our effectiveness. The amount of numbers floating around my head and our organization-wide friday meetings is overwhelming: number of students, rate of reliability for rsvps for a college visit, number of schools applied to, amount of scholarship money received, average baseline score, percentage increased, number of students enrolled, number of students dropped... the list goes on and on.
Yesterday, a new set of numbers came out: ACT 2 scores and percentage increase from baseline scores. With 82% of my 41 students tested, they've had a 7.7% score increase. Victoria, of course, blew me out of the water with 97% (functionally 100%) of her students achieving a 13% score increase. In a desperate attempt not to feel like such a loser, I began breaking my numbers down into more numbers. 22 of my students increased their scores with an average of an 18% increase. Six of my student got the same scores. 5 of my student's scores decreased an average of 11%, and I have one outlier, we'll deal with him later. Before I knew it I had a major excel document with every students baseline and ACT2 score and their score increase/decrease percentage color coded by percent attendance. It was getting a little scary.
With all of these numbers floating around in my head, I went to session and began having brief check-in meetings with each of my students, and it was then, cheesily, that I realized that my statistics, no matter how specific, broken down, high, or low, could never do justice to the experiences of my students. No percent could make me more happy than the smile on my student's face who improved from an 11 to a 17, or more determined to solve the mystery of my incredibly attentive student who dropped from a 16 to a 12, or more proud of my ridiculously high achiever who started with a 28 and has made it a goal to improve by 2 points every practice test and might actually do it, or more frustrated with the student who overslept and went from a 6 to a 10 on his reading section but got 1's on English and Math because he completely missed those sections.
So while I might sit here wishing that 7.7% score increase could be just a few percentage points higher, I must constantly strive to remember that the 7.7% is actually 41 different stories of happiness, triumph, frustration, determination, confusion, sadness, hope, and faith, each one as statistically significant as the next.
Is a 4-year degree program right for every student?
Originally published on 11/3/2010 in http://behindtheconcessionstand.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-4-year-degree-program-right-for.html
One of the primary goals of the organization that I work for is to get all of our students accepted to and enrolled in 4-year degree programs. The idea behind this is that graduates of 4-year program make more money over their lifetimes than graduates of 2-year programs or those who do not go to college. Additionally, students who go to a 4-year school are more likely to stay in school than those in other programs. Lastly, more often than not 4-year programs have a greater emphasis on the Liberal Arts than two year programs which usually focus on specific occupations, thus 4-year programs are considered simply better or more intellectual.
So, sitting here with my Liberal Arts school degree in Religion, in a job I adore but which is in no way financially supportive, with the knowledge that if I decide to finally get a "real job" I'm going to have to go back to school to get a degree in something actually useful- I find myself wondering if a 4-year degree really is the right thing for every student.
Is getting a liberal arts degree specifically and a 4-year degree generally more of a privilege than a necessity? Is forcing our students into 4-year programs only setting them up for failure?
When talking about this with Mitch yesterday after session he mentioned the cases of a few of his students who he is not sure should be going to 4-year schools. Some, he worries, are simply not ready for college- they rarely show up for session, they have poor writing skills, or they have a very difficult time verbally communicating in English. He worries that these students, even if they get into 4-year schools, will end up dropping out because they will be too discouraged and not receive the support they need. Or, there's the student who has a child and very little motivation. Could a 2-year program be a quicker path to a career for this student so that he could start truly providing for his family? Then there's the student who is dead set on being an auto mechanic- there are a few 4-year programs that do exist in that area, but the majority are definitely two year programs. Should that student be forced into a 4-year program simply because that's what the organization has decided is the best place for him regardless of the incredible additional expense and potential time wasted by choosing that program over a 2-year program in the same area?
Then I think of some of my students who are in similar situations. One of them, who wants to be called AMP in this blog (she'll be mentioned again, so I guess it's good for her to have a fake name) really wants to be an orthotist or a prosthetist- aka someone who designs and makes orthotics and prosthetics. When she approached colleges at the mini college fair held at our school all of the representatives told her about pre-med programs and how she would need to go to medical school for that degree. In reality, its a 2-year program at most. Or, there's my student who wants to be a pastry chef and would love to go to the Culinary Institute of America or Le Cordon Bleu. However, both of these schools are considered for-profit institutions that we are supposed to steer our students away from because of their less than stellar retention and graduation rates. I understand the concern, especially with for profit schools that are not specialized, but I also have no interest in sending my students to schools where they cannot study what they want.
So I wonder, then, if our emphasis on 4-year degree program is really motivated by theories of social mobility. Education is widely considered one of the primary sources of social mobility. All of our students are low income and I'm sure that parts of the unspoken goals of the organization is to help them move up in the socioeconomic class ladder. Is it then classist of me to believe that some of our students would be in some ways better off to do shorter programs that would land them in jobs faster rather than enrolling in longer term, less career specific, more expensive programs? Or, is that a good suggestion that would help our students more gradually change their social class standings: instead of jumping from low income, potentially non-educated groups to over educated liberal arts minded groups- taking a brief stop at the educated, hard working class that would actually allow them to support their families and communities?
One of the primary goals of the organization that I work for is to get all of our students accepted to and enrolled in 4-year degree programs. The idea behind this is that graduates of 4-year program make more money over their lifetimes than graduates of 2-year programs or those who do not go to college. Additionally, students who go to a 4-year school are more likely to stay in school than those in other programs. Lastly, more often than not 4-year programs have a greater emphasis on the Liberal Arts than two year programs which usually focus on specific occupations, thus 4-year programs are considered simply better or more intellectual.
So, sitting here with my Liberal Arts school degree in Religion, in a job I adore but which is in no way financially supportive, with the knowledge that if I decide to finally get a "real job" I'm going to have to go back to school to get a degree in something actually useful- I find myself wondering if a 4-year degree really is the right thing for every student.
Is getting a liberal arts degree specifically and a 4-year degree generally more of a privilege than a necessity? Is forcing our students into 4-year programs only setting them up for failure?
When talking about this with Mitch yesterday after session he mentioned the cases of a few of his students who he is not sure should be going to 4-year schools. Some, he worries, are simply not ready for college- they rarely show up for session, they have poor writing skills, or they have a very difficult time verbally communicating in English. He worries that these students, even if they get into 4-year schools, will end up dropping out because they will be too discouraged and not receive the support they need. Or, there's the student who has a child and very little motivation. Could a 2-year program be a quicker path to a career for this student so that he could start truly providing for his family? Then there's the student who is dead set on being an auto mechanic- there are a few 4-year programs that do exist in that area, but the majority are definitely two year programs. Should that student be forced into a 4-year program simply because that's what the organization has decided is the best place for him regardless of the incredible additional expense and potential time wasted by choosing that program over a 2-year program in the same area?
Then I think of some of my students who are in similar situations. One of them, who wants to be called AMP in this blog (she'll be mentioned again, so I guess it's good for her to have a fake name) really wants to be an orthotist or a prosthetist- aka someone who designs and makes orthotics and prosthetics. When she approached colleges at the mini college fair held at our school all of the representatives told her about pre-med programs and how she would need to go to medical school for that degree. In reality, its a 2-year program at most. Or, there's my student who wants to be a pastry chef and would love to go to the Culinary Institute of America or Le Cordon Bleu. However, both of these schools are considered for-profit institutions that we are supposed to steer our students away from because of their less than stellar retention and graduation rates. I understand the concern, especially with for profit schools that are not specialized, but I also have no interest in sending my students to schools where they cannot study what they want.
So I wonder, then, if our emphasis on 4-year degree program is really motivated by theories of social mobility. Education is widely considered one of the primary sources of social mobility. All of our students are low income and I'm sure that parts of the unspoken goals of the organization is to help them move up in the socioeconomic class ladder. Is it then classist of me to believe that some of our students would be in some ways better off to do shorter programs that would land them in jobs faster rather than enrolling in longer term, less career specific, more expensive programs? Or, is that a good suggestion that would help our students more gradually change their social class standings: instead of jumping from low income, potentially non-educated groups to over educated liberal arts minded groups- taking a brief stop at the educated, hard working class that would actually allow them to support their families and communities?
What this is
I love to write- and in the past, I've written some things that I'm quite proud of. I've created this blog to collect and share some of my favorite blog posts and essays from the past, present and future.
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