I've had over 1,000 page views on this blog since I started it at the end of October, very exciting! I'd like 2011 to bring in an even more exciting year of blogging for me.
Here are my blog resolutions:
- Post at least once a week
- Tell more stories about my students
- Bring in guest writers!
If you have any suggestions for more goals for the year, you should let me know!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Reflections on a Recent NYT article
Last week, my friend Judy e-mailed me an interesting article from the New York Times, and I now finally have some time to write about it.
Find the article here... hopefully
For anyone who doesn't feel like reading the whole thing, here's the gist. It's a December 17th article entitled "Is Going to an Elite College Worth the Cost?"
The article begins by discussing well cited studies that have claimed that:
And:
The author then brings up that it has been over a decade since the research yielding these results was completed and that the incredibly high cost of elite colleges in the present day should have an effect on these results. He goes on to discuss the different factors in this discussion from cost of college, strength of alumni ties, the current job market, job satisfaction, and strength of different academic department, to ultimately conclude that the best choice for each student will be different and dependent on many different factors.
While I find this whole article interesting, especially as it is relevant to my status as the graduate of an elite college, there were some statements made about low-income students that I found particularly worthy of discussion.
First, the author discusses a study that compared the earnings of students of the same academic caliber (based on SAT scores and class rank) who went to highly selective and less selective schools. The study found that:
I found this little side note about 'disadvantaged' students incredibly interesting and found myself wondering why the authors of the study refused to speculate as to why disadvantaged students benefit so much from an elite college education. To me, the answer is perfectly clear: Social and Cultural Capital. In the sociology classes that I've taken, I learned that groups that are widely considered disadvantaged are not only lacking in income or savings financially, they are lacking the social and cultural resources to allow them to be mobile in society. Social and Cultural Capital refer to the resources, physical or imaginary, that aid in social mobility. Social capital refers to who you know: the types of people and communities that you are connected to. Cultural capital refers to different experiences or knowledge that you can acquire. Members of higher social classes tend to have a lot of both types of capital- they gain social capital by knowing powerful heads of companies, community leaders, politicians, etc. and they gain cultural capital by going to 'good' schools, being exposed to music and the arts, or travelling. These people, in general, have more and stronger connections beyond their immediate communities or families than members of less privileged social groups. As far as this particular example of elite colleges go, the study results do not surprise me. For wealthy students, the level of selectivity of their college has little relation to their future success because with or without the resources such an institution has to offer, they have family and cultural connections that will help them succeed in society. For disadvantaged students, however, the resources and types of capital they can gain from an elite college are most likely very unlike those they were exposed to growing up, and without attending those schools they might have never been exposed to them. Thus, they gain much more from their experience in an elite school then their wealthier peers. Of course, this then brings up issues of the dominant society and expectations of mobility, but I think that's more than I would like to go into tonight.
Later on in the article, the author discusses the worth of an elite college education for those interested in being trained in college to go directly into the work force:
This excerpt struck a chord with me for a number of reasons. First, many of the students I work with fall in the category of wanting or needing to study what this article refers to as "practical" subjects that will lead more logically to specific careers and jobs. And, while I agree that bigger public state schools often have those more specialized programs of study, I resent the implication that broader (perhaps liberal arts) degrees prepare students less well for those specific occupations (can you see my liberal arts education shining through yet??). Furthermore, I fear that statements like this only perpetuate the idea of a worthless liberal arts degree and allow employers to resist students with them regardless of how qualified or able they are. My second issue with this excerpt comes with the discussion of students "finding themselves" in college. To me, this quote seemed to imply that college as a time for personal exploration and development is a privilege reserved for the wealthy, or those students who don't actually have to worry about finding jobs after graduation. I have a number of reactions to this- first, I kind of understand it because I do remember feeling during much of my 4 years of liberal arts education that there was no direct applicable point to what we were doing. We spent a lot of time talking, arguing, and surrounding ourselves with smart, like minded people. I often found myself frustrated with the feeling that we weren't actually doing anything and that often felt like a privilege associated with attending an elite college. However, I also think this points out a very unsettling quality of the social class system of this country: not only do we find ourselves separated by the amount of money we have, the people we know, and the resources available to us- we are also permitted different ways of spending our time, learning, and even thinking. This seems to imply that privileged students are allowed, if not expected, to lounge their way through college- searching for themselves and thinking lofty thoughts, while their 'disadvantaged' peers have no time for such things and must instead focus on gaining specific marketable skills so that they can enter the job market quickly and efficiently.
All in all, I find some of the implications of this article unsettling, even if I feel that the general questions raised in it are good ones. However, I worry about what all of this means for the students I serve and the organization that I represent
Find the article here... hopefully
For anyone who doesn't feel like reading the whole thing, here's the gist. It's a December 17th article entitled "Is Going to an Elite College Worth the Cost?"
The article begins by discussing well cited studies that have claimed that:
Strong evidence emerges of a significant economic return to attending an elite private institution, and some evidence suggests this premium has increased over time.
And:
Alumni of the most selective colleges earned, on average, 40 percent more a year than those who graduated from the least selective public universities, as calculated 10 years after they graduated from high school
The author then brings up that it has been over a decade since the research yielding these results was completed and that the incredibly high cost of elite colleges in the present day should have an effect on these results. He goes on to discuss the different factors in this discussion from cost of college, strength of alumni ties, the current job market, job satisfaction, and strength of different academic department, to ultimately conclude that the best choice for each student will be different and dependent on many different factors.
While I find this whole article interesting, especially as it is relevant to my status as the graduate of an elite college, there were some statements made about low-income students that I found particularly worthy of discussion.
First, the author discusses a study that compared the earnings of students of the same academic caliber (based on SAT scores and class rank) who went to highly selective and less selective schools. The study found that:
The earnings of graduates in the two groups were about the same — perhaps shifting the ledger in favor of the less expensive, less prestigious route. (The one exception was that children from “disadvantaged family backgrounds” appeared to earn more over time if they attended more selective colleges. The authors, Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger, do not speculate why, but conclude, “These students appear to benefit most from attending a more elite college.”)
I found this little side note about 'disadvantaged' students incredibly interesting and found myself wondering why the authors of the study refused to speculate as to why disadvantaged students benefit so much from an elite college education. To me, the answer is perfectly clear: Social and Cultural Capital. In the sociology classes that I've taken, I learned that groups that are widely considered disadvantaged are not only lacking in income or savings financially, they are lacking the social and cultural resources to allow them to be mobile in society. Social and Cultural Capital refer to the resources, physical or imaginary, that aid in social mobility. Social capital refers to who you know: the types of people and communities that you are connected to. Cultural capital refers to different experiences or knowledge that you can acquire. Members of higher social classes tend to have a lot of both types of capital- they gain social capital by knowing powerful heads of companies, community leaders, politicians, etc. and they gain cultural capital by going to 'good' schools, being exposed to music and the arts, or travelling. These people, in general, have more and stronger connections beyond their immediate communities or families than members of less privileged social groups. As far as this particular example of elite colleges go, the study results do not surprise me. For wealthy students, the level of selectivity of their college has little relation to their future success because with or without the resources such an institution has to offer, they have family and cultural connections that will help them succeed in society. For disadvantaged students, however, the resources and types of capital they can gain from an elite college are most likely very unlike those they were exposed to growing up, and without attending those schools they might have never been exposed to them. Thus, they gain much more from their experience in an elite school then their wealthier peers. Of course, this then brings up issues of the dominant society and expectations of mobility, but I think that's more than I would like to go into tonight.
Later on in the article, the author discusses the worth of an elite college education for those interested in being trained in college to go directly into the work force:
Someone who knew he needed to earn a reliable salary immediately after graduation, and as a result chose to study something practical like business or engineering, might find the cost-benefit analysis tilted in favor of a state school, he said [referring to a sociologist mentioned earlier in the article].
“Students from less affluent backgrounds are going to find themselves in situations where college is less about ‘finding themselves,’ and more about skills acquisition and making contacts that will lead straight into the labor market,” Mr. Thomas said. For such a student, he said, a state university, particularly a big one, may also have a large, passionate alumni body. It, in turn, may play a disproportionate role in deciding who gets which jobs in a state in a variety of fields — an old-boy (and increasingly old-girl) network that may be less impressed with a job applicant’s Ivy league pedigree.
This excerpt struck a chord with me for a number of reasons. First, many of the students I work with fall in the category of wanting or needing to study what this article refers to as "practical" subjects that will lead more logically to specific careers and jobs. And, while I agree that bigger public state schools often have those more specialized programs of study, I resent the implication that broader (perhaps liberal arts) degrees prepare students less well for those specific occupations (can you see my liberal arts education shining through yet??). Furthermore, I fear that statements like this only perpetuate the idea of a worthless liberal arts degree and allow employers to resist students with them regardless of how qualified or able they are. My second issue with this excerpt comes with the discussion of students "finding themselves" in college. To me, this quote seemed to imply that college as a time for personal exploration and development is a privilege reserved for the wealthy, or those students who don't actually have to worry about finding jobs after graduation. I have a number of reactions to this- first, I kind of understand it because I do remember feeling during much of my 4 years of liberal arts education that there was no direct applicable point to what we were doing. We spent a lot of time talking, arguing, and surrounding ourselves with smart, like minded people. I often found myself frustrated with the feeling that we weren't actually doing anything and that often felt like a privilege associated with attending an elite college. However, I also think this points out a very unsettling quality of the social class system of this country: not only do we find ourselves separated by the amount of money we have, the people we know, and the resources available to us- we are also permitted different ways of spending our time, learning, and even thinking. This seems to imply that privileged students are allowed, if not expected, to lounge their way through college- searching for themselves and thinking lofty thoughts, while their 'disadvantaged' peers have no time for such things and must instead focus on gaining specific marketable skills so that they can enter the job market quickly and efficiently.
All in all, I find some of the implications of this article unsettling, even if I feel that the general questions raised in it are good ones. However, I worry about what all of this means for the students I serve and the organization that I represent
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Numbers and Their Meaning
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.
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.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Watch this and you will be happy...
Holiday Cheer!
This is courtesy of Victoria. Also special thanks to Chuck for helping me figure out how to put a link in the blog!
This is courtesy of Victoria. Also special thanks to Chuck for helping me figure out how to put a link in the blog!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Letting our Inner Artists Shine Through
Today was a review day for our students, we printed out a million review sheets an set them free. This led to some fun free time for me and Victoria during late session so we decided to draw pictures of ourselves on the white board.
We started off with Mitch:
Important characteristics to note: The blond hair/pale skin, the vest which he only wore once but it made our day, the hand rash (it's an issue), the college application in one hand and special official transcript stamper in the other. We think this is our best/most accurate drawing of the four.
Here's Colin! Essential traits: V-neck cardigan, buttoned, work shirt over blue apple store shirt (an ex-employer), skinny-ish pants, brown "dress" shoes, guitar, and he's singing his famous recruitment song, "Hey Sophomores"
Moving on to Victoria- it's important to note that Victoria pretty much always wears the same thing to work. Jeans, above ankle height boots, a work shirt, and a cardigan of the black or grey variety. She is shown here carrying an LSAT book, which if she's not actually carrying, she's thinking about in some way.
This is me. I'm told that I made the hair a little too much, but other than that I think it's a good representation. I always try to stretch the limits of my green work shirt by pairing it with various colorful cardigans that may or may not actually match. In the fall I also favored the skirt instead of pants, but this is changing. In my hands I hold a copy of Twilight which, by the way, I am not READING... I'm listening to it on cd during my commute (does that excuse it at all?)
So, here we are! For any of you readers who haven't seen us all in person, maybe this can paint you a picture.
We started off with Mitch:
Important characteristics to note: The blond hair/pale skin, the vest which he only wore once but it made our day, the hand rash (it's an issue), the college application in one hand and special official transcript stamper in the other. We think this is our best/most accurate drawing of the four.
Here's Colin! Essential traits: V-neck cardigan, buttoned, work shirt over blue apple store shirt (an ex-employer), skinny-ish pants, brown "dress" shoes, guitar, and he's singing his famous recruitment song, "Hey Sophomores"
Moving on to Victoria- it's important to note that Victoria pretty much always wears the same thing to work. Jeans, above ankle height boots, a work shirt, and a cardigan of the black or grey variety. She is shown here carrying an LSAT book, which if she's not actually carrying, she's thinking about in some way.
This is me. I'm told that I made the hair a little too much, but other than that I think it's a good representation. I always try to stretch the limits of my green work shirt by pairing it with various colorful cardigans that may or may not actually match. In the fall I also favored the skirt instead of pants, but this is changing. In my hands I hold a copy of Twilight which, by the way, I am not READING... I'm listening to it on cd during my commute (does that excuse it at all?)
So, here we are! For any of you readers who haven't seen us all in person, maybe this can paint you a picture.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Creating Overly Dependent Students
This past weekend was our first practice ACT for our students. Because we really wanted them to be there and we knew that without reminders they would probably not get themselves up on a Saturday morning at 7am to get to school, we tried to contact every one of our students the night before. We even called students repeatedly the morning of until they woke up and made their way to school.
On Monday, one of my very favorite school traditions occurred: administrator hall sweeps! Here's how it goes: the bell rings, students begin to walk to class, an announcement sounds informing students that hall sweeps are occurring, then staff members appear out of nowhere and begin herding students to their classrooms. I've mentioned sweepers before, but this time I came up with a new comparison: they remind me of snatchers in Harry potter! Here's a picture to jog your memory:
So, I started wondering if we're doing a little more coddling of our students than necessary. Is our over-attentiveness actually poorly preparing them for college? In college no professor is going to call his/her students the night before an exam and remind them to be there, eat a healthy breakfast, and bring a calculator. Furthermore, no one roams college campuses herding students to class. If students aren't going to class or other important academic events now, what will ensure that they attend in college? Some might argue that being on top of students in this way now will encourage them to subconsciously value such activities in the future. However, I worry that it actually inspires rebellious activities- if someone doesn't think I'll want to go to class on my own, why don't I just prove them right? And, doesn't the amount of people forcing students to do various activity merely validate these activities as not fun or worthwhile? For example, if I had to be nearly physically forced into my physics class, I'd consider it an admission that physics class is really as awful as I think. Don't we want to foster an environment where students are self motivated, not where they need our constant gentle (or not so gentle) nudging?
On Monday, one of my very favorite school traditions occurred: administrator hall sweeps! Here's how it goes: the bell rings, students begin to walk to class, an announcement sounds informing students that hall sweeps are occurring, then staff members appear out of nowhere and begin herding students to their classrooms. I've mentioned sweepers before, but this time I came up with a new comparison: they remind me of snatchers in Harry potter! Here's a picture to jog your memory:
So, I started wondering if we're doing a little more coddling of our students than necessary. Is our over-attentiveness actually poorly preparing them for college? In college no professor is going to call his/her students the night before an exam and remind them to be there, eat a healthy breakfast, and bring a calculator. Furthermore, no one roams college campuses herding students to class. If students aren't going to class or other important academic events now, what will ensure that they attend in college? Some might argue that being on top of students in this way now will encourage them to subconsciously value such activities in the future. However, I worry that it actually inspires rebellious activities- if someone doesn't think I'll want to go to class on my own, why don't I just prove them right? And, doesn't the amount of people forcing students to do various activity merely validate these activities as not fun or worthwhile? For example, if I had to be nearly physically forced into my physics class, I'd consider it an admission that physics class is really as awful as I think. Don't we want to foster an environment where students are self motivated, not where they need our constant gentle (or not so gentle) nudging?
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