Obama wants students prepared for college, careers

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Associated Press

The Associated Press
Sunday, February 21, 2010; 8:51 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will urge states to better prepare high school students for college and careers when he meets Monday with the nation's governors.

In remarks released Sunday by the White House, Obama praises governors for working in tandem with his Race to the Top program to reward school systems that raise standards and prove that through tougher student assessments.

At the same time, Obama will tell the governors that too many states are churning out graduates unprepared for the 21st century.

And he is taking a swipe at the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act, declaring that "between 2005 and 2007, various states have lowered their standards in reading and math."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022104093.html

[Brickbat]

1. Well, he could start by firing his secretary of education.

Just a thought.

[Hannah Bell]

2. +100.

[tonysam]

5. +1,000,000

And he could actually work on creating jobs instead of pushing more students to go into more debt to train for jobs that don't exist.

[girl gone mad]

35. It seems like half the people I know are going back to graduate school..

because they can't find work with the degrees they already have. So the new goal is to keep taking on more and more debt in a never ending effort to retrain and/or hone your skills for jobs that are unlikely to materialize, and won't pay enough to cover your student loans even if they do.

America has become the Amway of countries; Our job market is just a giant multilevel marketing scheme.

[KansDem]

58. Funny you should mention this...

From the "Chronicle of Higher Education"

The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind'
February 8, 2010

The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind'

By Thomas H. Benton

A year ago, I wrote a column called "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go," advising students that grad school is a bad idea unless they have no need to earn a living for themselves or anyone else, they are rich or connected (or partnered with someone who is), or they are earning a credential for a job they already hold.

In a March 2009 follow-up essay, I removed the category of people who are fortunately partnered because, as many readers wrote in to tell me, graduate school and the "two-body problem" often breaks up many seemingly stable relationships. You can't assume any partnership will withstand the strains of entry into the academic life.

Those columns won renewed attention last month from multiple Web sites, and have since attracted a lot of mail and online commentary. The responses tended to split into two categories: One said that I was overemphasizing the pragmatic aspects of graduate school at the expense of the "life of the mind" for its own sake. The other set of responses, and by far the more numerous, were from graduate students and adjuncts asking why no one had told them that their job prospects were so poor and wondering what they should do now.

I detected more than a little sanctimony and denial in most of the comments from the first group and a great deal of pain and disillusionment in the latter. The former seem used to being applauded by authorities; the latter seem to expect to be slapped down for raising questions. That's why they write to me, I believe. They want confirmation that something is wrong with higher education, that they have been lied to, systematically.

--much more--
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Lie-About-the-Life-of/63937/

[maxsolomon]

68. I'll show you about the life of the mind!

[defendandprotect]

7. +1000% ---

[salguine]

12. Having jobs and careers actually available for graduates would work wonders too. If we don't

do something to make it not worthwhile for companies to keep shipping jobs out of the country, then what? We've lost 90% of the manufacturing jobs we once had. NINETY PERCENT! I mean, what the fuck? That's why I just laugh whenever I'm told I should "buy American!" as if we make anything to buy anymore.

My Dad graduated from Penn State in 1958. He told me that there were representatives from hundreds of American companies literally right there at the graduation ceremony just waiting to snap up the new graduates. And this was at a time when, if you got a job out of college, it was yours for life if you wanted it. And even lower-level jobs paid enough to buy a house and raise a famliy. Kind of boggles the mind,doesn't it?

[Joe Bacon]

43. +!,000,000!

Precisely!

I can still remember as a kid growing up in Ambridge, PA that a millworker made enough to buy a house, car and send his kids to college and his wife didn't have to work. And he would still have some cash left over.

Those days are long gone. And I thought I had it bad when I graduated with my MA and I was $10,000 in debt. And that was in 1979...

[avaistheone1]

70. Bravo!!!!!!!!!!

You are entirely too logical.

[change_notfinetuning]

13. But that would leave an odd number at the WH basketball games. n/t

[w4rma]

14. +1,000,000 (nt)

[Mithreal]

18. +1 21st century jobs = direct competition with those willing to work for subsistence wages

If he wants students and others to be prepared, then protect American labor and don't make every student who wants to go to college a debt slave.

All the talk about teachers and students means so little when families and communities have been devastated by 30+ years of conservative economic policies and our President continues them.

[saigon68]

87. Do the ghetto math

If Jimmy sold 12 8 balls of crack at $25 a piece

How many oz's of coke would Sally have to sell at $33 to get the same amount of money. ?

Answer --she'd better have a scale.

[Freddie Stubbs]

40. Duncan is simply carrying out Obama's education policies

Unless you get rid of President Obama, Duncan's replacement would just me more of the same.

[Mithreal]

54. I'll risk it.

[RayOfHope]

73. +1,000,000,000

[saracat]

76. +1 million!

[saigon68]

86. Never happen--That person is out to bust a few unions first

[InkAddict]

3. The Pres needs to understand that when kids see their educated

parents without jobs and/or ruined careers, when they drop out to "contribute" to the household finances to keep the heat or fans on, when they don't get enough food to eat or a sense of safety to sleep easy, no program in the world will make them better students than what they learn firsthand in their homes about their government and this land of dishonesty, hypocrisy, and criminal opportunity, LOL.

[Mithreal]

19. +1

[JDPriestly]

30. The incentive for getting an education is the promise of a good,

high-paying job. There are no jobs, therefore there is no incentive to go into debt to get some meaningless degree. That is understandable.

[paulk]

4. I thought the new model was going back to college every

ten years as your "career" gets obsoleted...

[Mithreal]

20. Absolutely

[JDPriestly]

34. And every time you go back, it costs you more and more.

[Nay]

82. And you are older and older, and yr new degree is more and more worthless

because your age starts to knock you out of the competition.

[DissedByBush]

59. I don't go back to college every 10 years

But in the IT field I have to constantly learn and take courses or I'll get completely overrun by new technology.

Learning isn't a one-time thing in college. It's life-long.

[No Elephants]

83. Staying current n your own field is very different from

having to train for an entirely different career because jobs in the field for which you are already trained no longer exist in this country.

[pattmarty]

6. What we ought to be doing is looking at various European and...............

..........Asian countries to see what they are doing right. I don't think it's privatization or vouchers. How come many countries have k-16 public education? How come so many "foreign" students can speak 1 or more languages? AND, how come many American students can't point out Germany or Japan on a fucking map? Or spell beyond a 6th grade level? Fuck Arne Duncan, NCLB and Obama's race to the top or whatever the privatization shit he's pushing is called. AND, most importantly how come we went from the top in math & science in the 50's & 60's to what we are now?

[defendandprotect]

9. Do you want our students to be educated intelligently?

Are you kidding?

[JCMach1]

25. Forget the other country BS. I have seen enought of other curricula

to realize they aren't much punk... What we need to look at is where America is doing it right!

What are they doing in colleges and universities to get it right?

What do the best schools do in this country? i.e. best practices


Then, just FIRE Arne and deep six NCLB...

[vegiegals]

32. The WH is making NCLB more important in this budget.

[JCMach1]

37. Exactly, of all issues

(Even during the campaign), Obama was weakest on education. HE sincerely has no clue.

His Sec. of Ed. is even worse!

[JDPriestly]

33. A lot of countries reward the best students with opportunities

for academic educations -- free or relatively free of charge.

Students who do not learn academic materially easily or who don't work in school are encouraged to go into vocational training.

That is the way it was in France, Germany and Austria when we lived there some years ago.

The Germans and Austrians had the Gymnasium -- an academic high school and then the Hauptschule or Handelsakademie. The lowest performing students went into apprenticeships during which their academic schooling was very limited.

Educators provided the most challenging academic education to the students who wanted it the most, had the most talent for it and were willing to work for it.

Europeans probably have the same or a similar system today. At every level, I believe the outcome was superior to our one-size-fits-all education system.

[JCMach1]

38. We are not even that... for almost 10yrs. now, we have been a skills

and test driven system.

I don't support European style dual track systems either. Why does a person need to focus on just the one area.

I did academic subjects...
Computers AND Electronics.

One thing that used to work about American Education was that sort of freedom and flexibility.

That kind of freedom really doesn't exist anymore with the test or perish mentality!

[tonysam]

66. I don't want kids tracked into anything

We should NOT be copying other countries.

[SkyDaddy7]

42. That sounds exactly how my high school was run...

Folks looking to go to college persued a diploma called the "College Endoresment" and those who wanted to jump straight into a vocational job persued a Vocational diploma that required much less class time and basically allowed kids to start a career while still in school.


So, that approach would be nothing new in Georgia and that is the worse state education system in America! Well, we might have moved up to 49th?

Am I missing something?

[JDPriestly]

44. The curriculum or the college-bound track in Europe was far more rigorous

than that in college preparation sections in U.S. high schools.

[pattmarty]

45. And their outcomes I am sure a hell of a lot better.

[JDPriestly]

56. Right. Far more rigorous = far better outcome

In my experience (I studied for a year over there), their universities do not require quite as much discipline on the part of students. That may have changed and may be different in the sciences because of the labs.

[Igel]

65. It's still different.

I lived with a Czech family one summer in which the daughter wanted to be college-track. It wasn't just "pursuing" the program.

She had to have the courses necessary to enter the appropriate high school and pass a test with sufficiently high marks. If she missed either, her choice was made for her and she'd default into vocational. Since her English scores were a bit low for the academic track she spent 6 weeks of the summer in English-language summer school, 9 am to 1 pm 5 days a week so that her test scores would put her over the top.

The vocational program didn't require less time, either.

(My high school was vaguely like yours except we had formal apprenticeship programs. You could graduate high school having finished 3 or 4 years of, say, metal shop and be qualified as a journeyman machinist. Otherwise you could take two years of a given shop track at most. My class valedictorian was a machinist.)

[Igel]

64. Can be.

If you're one of the better students.

On the other hand, in the US we also go for volume. There are a lot of jobs that require some college but not a whole lot. It makes for a bit of a mismatch.

I saw some number--last fall, perhaps? last spring?--that looked at the employment situation, at least as of 2005 or 2006 and pointed out that we have far too many high school drop-outs than the workforce could accommodate, too many people with just high school diplomas, and far too many college graduates. What was needed were more people with 2-year degrees. College grads could easily quickly and easily train for those jobs, but were overskilled (at least on paper); high school grads would need a couple of years to train for them, if they were prepared to the necessary level.

Vocational training can handle a number of careers that take 2-year degrees here. I suspect that in some cases the AA degrees are equivalent to vo-tech high school certificates and in many cases superior. But the college grads are usually better off, in some respects--more able to cross train later, better prepared after training, and they think differently.

[Igel]

63. First you have to get your mind around the present state of affairs.

What they're "doing right" is, first and foremost, restricting the numbers of students who qualify as "high school seniors". Do that and you'll see US scores jump. They parcel students into vocational and academic programs. We insist that everybody is college bound and that turns up in the test scores.

Most of the "privileged" students in the US have continued, on average, to improve over the last 30 years. That cohort is still larger and better trained than their peers in most other countries. A number of countries are about where we are (or you could say we're about where they are), or close enough. The standards are also different, so a lot of high school seniors in the US are better prepared for the kinds of questions asked at the undergrad level. By the time they finish college, the best students are on par; we seldom see deep into the rankings for foreign students, so we again compare the top tier of foreign university students against the average US student. Moreover, the intellectual rigor that's needed to do post-grad college work is often greater among US student than among their overseas counterparts; again, the first thing to do is parse the actual current state of affairs, not just the students that we see in the US.

The second seriously different thing is that standards are rigorous in academic programs. Which means if you don't do well, they fail you. You transfer to vocational or hobble along so that while you may finish high school you will not be going to college. It also means that your parents make sure you do well. Note that deep-seated alienation on the part of parents translates to crappy offspring education. A desire to make sure that no student feels bad leads to diminished standards or standards that are difficult to implement. Both in the US and in Europe and in India and pretty much everyplace else.

Then thirdly in college there are various alternatives (usually by country).

In some, it's more like engineering or education programs here. You have to pass rigorous requirements to get into college, then the dept. accepts you or not based on additional criteria. If they don't, you're not in. You reapply or apply to another major the next year. There are far, far more students than there are openings--and, for the most part, the university stipulates the maximum number of majors. You're funded well, but if your GPA drops, ciao. The universities I've been at in the US have far more English and psych majors than chemistry or EE, and scramble to find money to hire faculty for the popular majors. No such problem. You have room for 100 psych majors, you have 100 or fewer psych majors. You want to college and be a psych major and the only openings are going to be in physics, you have to decide: physics or try again next year.

Then there are others where everybody can go to college; these are very few. The problem is that this is really the same as the preceding option. Why? Because there are good, well-funded schools and then there are stink tanks where those who can't get into good schools go to kill a few years between high school and unemployment or manual labor.

In some systems you can compare how students do because both their students and ours get grades and have benchmarks. Sometimes the expectations are so disparate that comparison is difficult.Once took a grad class from a foreign professor in residence here. A week before finals he said, "The secretary tells me I have to award a grade. I've never done this and don't know what basis to use. I asked if I could just give you all As." However we realized that the "suggested reading list" was not just a list of pertinent sources for future research, but a list of works we were expected to have mostly read.

[tonysam]

67. Nonsense

Those countries are much more stratified than ours.

I'll be goddamned if I want a country where kids are tracked by the time they are in kindergarten.

[dysfunctional press]

78. "How come so many "foreign" students can speak 1 or more languages?"

couple of things- if the u.s. was like europe, in that each state had it's own language, a LOT more americans would speak more than one language.

and for those people from non-english speaking areas, learning english can be an important part of moving up, economically, as it has historically pretty much been the language of global commerce. and most americans already speak english, at least somewhat.

[pattmarty]

79. You missed my point. Our system has become a "McJob" grist mill.............

..........Most of our kids are from working class families and our system has become since the 70's a factory to produce "bodies" to fill these Mcjobs. They don't need a second language or knowledge of what a tsunami is or where the fuck Indonesia is. Teach them just enough to fill a McJob. Sure our higher education is good but for a relative few. Look what happened after the second WW, we had huge numbers of returning soldiers that HAD THE OPPORTUNITY to go to a college and we had 20+ yrs of a really good education system for the masses. Now, hardly anyone has the opportunity to go to college from a family that makes under 50K per yr.

[dysfunctional press]

80. the point is- most americans have no real need for a second language...

in other countries, it's much more important to do so. even since way before the 70's, most americans that weren't 1st or 2nd generation immigrants didn't speak more than one language.

[defendandprotect]

8. Obama's backing charter schools vs public education -- and giving taxpayer

money to "faith-based" organizations --

Great start!!!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

49. I don't like charter schools

[Mithreal]

55. White House-Backed Charter Schools Lag Behind Public Schools

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/8/20/white_house_backed_charter_schools_lag

Plenty of traditional public schools are constantly innovating and outperforming but don't fit the conservative agendas.

[defendandprotect]

10. Then instead of investing in corrupt capitalism, we need to invest in a fund to send

kids to college --

A national fund -- every kid goes to college --

in fact, it should be for just about anyone who wants more education or to

finish their education --

[Mithreal]

21. +1

[Iowa]

28. +1

[Fumesucker]

11. You really don't need a college education to ask: "Do you want fries with that?"

Better off to take the tenth grade graduation option and go straight into your "career".

We are headed for a neo-feudal society with a few ultrawealthy on the top and a miserable mass of wage-serfs on the bottom.

We have not made a net gain in jobs in ten years and about 100,000 jobs are needed just to break even.. That's 12 million jobs over ten years. Nobody is predicting anything like 12 million jobs to be added in even the most rosy scenarios.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

53. Start career training in 9th grade

there are so many waste of time subjects at school which students hate. I loathed English literature. Our school was obsessed with it. What use is Jane Austen?

[havocmom]

15. Great! Let's see him start working for REAL healthcare for everyone

A healthy student is more likely able to achieve than one whose parents cannot afford health care.

[wordpix]

17. affordable health care WOULD help small businesses survive and thrive

[havocmom]

23. It would help students survive and thrive too

If families could get the care they needed, well, many more doors would remain open to students.

Nothing like medically induced bankruptcy to destroy a family's ability to provide a stable platform from which the children could worry about school work and get into college instead of worry about the meaning and ramifications of works like 'foreclosure' and 'depleted savings'.

When kids have to worry about helping make ends meet so family can eat, there is not gonna be great opportunity to focus on school.

When parents or kids are up night after night due to medical conditions that aren't getting addressed, test score probably won't be as good as they might be if care were available.

It's all connected, isn't it? Why won't the pols admit the realities?

[wordpix]

16. as an educator who works with students with learning problems

I am not going into all the details but these: poverty, neglectful parents, latchkey kids, crowded classrooms, need for social workers in the schools but "no money," kids addicted to internet games and texting, and in short, social problems that permeate the schools.

In addition, social promotion puts kids who should have flunked first grade into second, where the probs. are compounded. And on up the ladder they go, until they're in high school and can barely read, write or do math, but they're expected to write 10 pg. term papers and do algebra.

Don't get me started. :grr:

[JDPriestly]

31. Overworked parents with no time for the children -- no time to read,

tell stories, listen, show empathy. That's the world too many children are growing up in.

Cut the workweek to 30 hours and raise the minimum wage. That would create more jobs. In the end, workers would be more productive if they were more rested and had more time with their families.

A shorter workweek would encourage working people to improve their skills by taking courses maybe a night a week if they don't have children.

[WriteDown]

51. That's one half of it....

I've seen the other half too. Dated a woman who couldn't be bothered to read to her son if the hottest new reality show was on during his bedtime. And she had plenty of friends who were just like her. Pathetic.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

74. Not so much overworked as too self-involved to care. n/t

[TwixVoy]

22. Let's be real

A LARGE amount of the population is simply not cut out to be a college grad. (well maybe associates, but not bachelors)

So what about them?

[DissedByBush]

24. We waste money on them

We send them to college anyway because it's seen as something everybody's supposed to be able to do.

We could be honest and tell him flat-out you're not smart enough to go to college, so we will not help you get in. We need our resources for other kids who are smart enough for college.

But that's not politically correct.

How does Germany have its system with free college?

Not everybody goes, only the smarter ones.

If you're not targeted as college material by approximately junior high, you are simply not going to college.

It's vo-tech for you, and they have some very good vo-tech schools.

Free, of course.

[alp227]

26. +infinity.

Some people have enough untapped potential, some don't. America needs to get more shoes because not all of them fit.

[timo]

41. just stop

you will make the not so smart kids feel bad about themselves and that is just not allowed in todays schools!!

[Art_from_Ark]

77. I knew some students who did not appear to be college-bound

in junior high, they were total goof-offs, but they turned around in high school.

Children develop at their own pace.

[DissedByBush]

81. They can jump tracks these days

It used to be more strict, but now there are ways that students who have turned themselves around can jump over to the college track.

It isn't easy, but it can be done.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

52. high schools need to become like training colleges

Schools could do a lot more training for careers like plumbing, heating/cooling techs, business, law, computers etc. Our school here is more interested in Victorian literature!

[tonysam]

75. They USED to emphasize vocational training,

but thanks to the garbage promoted by "reformers," the emphasis has shifted towards more and more college prep.

The mission of high schools needs to go back to bedrock.

[newtothegame]

27. That's a headline?

:shrug:

[iandhr]

29. He is trying to...

... indoctrinate our kids

:sarcasm:

[Demeter]

36. We Must Start By Educating Our Clueless President

and the Congress, about what they have been doing wrong since Reagan. And then they have to CHANGE.

And then cider will squirt out of my ear. (cite the reference, if you can).

[iandhr]

39. guy's and dolls

50s Broadway Show

[Demeter]

47. You Are Today's Winner!

I love that show--so significant in today's world of big-time cons.

[No Elephants]

85. Never saw that, but saw the movie with Sinatra and Brando on TV.

[No Elephants]

84. Relating advice his daddy once gave him, Sky Masterson said....

"One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider."

[OhioChick]

46. Ummm...prepare for "what jobs?" n/t

[avaistheone1]

71. The jobs of tomorrow -

which will be off-shored and free traded before noon.

[OhioChick]

72. You're absolutely right. n/t

[MARALE]

48. Then we need to get rid of NCLB

My principal friend says this program is killing the wonderful standard of teaching that our schools used to have. Instead of teaching what is needed depending on the child's situation (ie poverty, disabilities, second language issues) her teachers have to teach to the tests for all of these types of students so as not to loose jobs and funding. these schools are already so strapped that the quality of teaching is going down and the focus is drawing away from what is needed to be taught. all of our schools will be as bad as the ones that are in Texas soon. (my apologizes to the Texans on this board)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

50. yes please! Get rid of NCLB - the teacher's nightmare!

[woo me with science]

57. What a courageous stance to take,

to be in favor of that.

[warm regards]

69. Yes, I am for "the children" too.

[c brand]

60. Heroic audacity, say historians

[KamaAina]

61. "tougher student assessments" = more high-stakes standardized testing

= more teaching to the test = LESS real learning, especially in the humanitites, social sciences, etc. :dunce:

[Mari333]

62. hahaha what world does he live in

maybe he will meet with grads from INDIA



there arent even jobs at the McDonald's here.

[saigon68]

88. Same here-- in my county north of GB the effective Unemployment rate is 28%