5.7% Say What!?
Education is a key factor for a successful life and it can come in many forms. Some people have different styles of learning like auditory, visual, verbal, physical, logical, social, or solitary. These styles are introduced in one form or another in your younger education, kindergarten through 12th grade, that will prepare you for your higher education have that be college and then graduate school, trade school, or an apprenticeship. Sometimes there isn’t a higher education option thus putting people into the work force not necessarily because they want to but because they need to. When this happens, a person might not have the tools to succeed later in life anywhere else because of the job they took early in life.
I remember over Winter Furlough my grandparents and I were all talking about college and how it was so amazing I could get a higher education especially at a place like VMI. I am very lucky but what stuck out most was not their praise for the school and the fact I have worked hard to get into such an institution but the fact they kept telling me about 5% of the population gets to go to college. I knew it couldn’t have been right so I did some research. I found that they were off but only but a little, per the United State Department of Education, “latest figures available in 2015, the US has a total of 4,726 Title IV-eligible, degree-granting institutions: 3,026 4-year institutions and 1,700 2-year institutions. The US had 21 million students in higher education, roughly 5.7% of the total population.” This was really shocking to me I know that some people don’t go to college or don’t have the opportunity to but I didn’t know that about 94% of the country didn’t get a higher education. It’s upsetting because most jobs these days you need at least a 4-year degree from a University to even be competitive for it and the 94% of the population who doesn’t have that 4-year degree won’t be considered. They could have gotten exceptional marks in high school but had other circumstances make that not possible.
My aunt and uncle both teach in Baltimore County school district which is highly ranked in the nation’s top school districts and has some of the top 20 schools in Maryland. Although it has schools in the country and suburbs there are some schools in that district that are closer to the city line than the suburbs. These schools educate a different population than what I went to school with and for many years these students were my aunt and uncle’s students. They taught at Overlea High and Finance Academy, even though this school was in the accredited school district of Baltimore county the graduation rate was about 14% lower than other high schools in the county. Not only was the graduation rate so low but what really stuck out what that the ‘college readiness’ section of the U.S News and World Report was 11.2 out of 100 while other schools who were not in the suburb’s as well had higher college readiness scores. It made me question what was wrong with America’s educational system that a school not more than 30 minutes away from the high school I went to had a college readiness score about 49 points lower than my high school. I know all schools aren’t the same but some factors must be able to be changed in order to get these schools students prepared for college.
When they first started teaching there I was so interested in the stories they would tell of how kids acted in class. I remember one kid brought a parrot, an actual bird not a toy parrot, to class one day and it would repeat his name the whole class and the teachers couldn’t get it to stop. They had Lil’ Wayne and Drake playing on the morning announcements while at my schools I think we had some old 70’s pop playing because it was ‘acceptable music’ to play. Some of the stories were more upsetting or frustrating than funny. Stories of kids not having a meal until teachers or the cafeteria ladies realized they haven’t eaten in days and are taking scraps off of other trays, how some 10th graders can’t finish the year out because they have to go on ‘maternity leave’, and how the seniors can’t wait to graduate so they can be done with that place. My aunt was shocked to hear students talk about their dreams of wanting to be a McDonalds manager one day and get whatever benefits they get. It was her first month or so teaching there and she brought those types of stories into the break room. The veteran teachers looked at her and almost laughed they would say something along the lines of, “Well at least they have aspirations kids in my class can’t wait to turn 18 so they can collect that ‘good easy government money’ as they call welfare.”
In my source from National Civic Review I saw how research can positively affect a community. This research took people that didn’t get to pursue their higher education and may have wound up with a criminal background or other enabling circumstances that made society view them as unable to contribute positively yet this group allowed this group of ‘undesirables’ to partake in volunteering. Giving back in underprivileged communities is proven to help the younger kids by giving them positive role models to look up to as well as something to keep their time occupied rather than using their time for something else that would be unproductive for a positive future or could impact their life negatively. But this research wanted to prove that volunteering and service in the community could help the underprivileged who want to give back just as much as the kids it helped in the community. Not only do some groups look down upon ‘undesirables’ but volunteering can require multiple service requirements that can be viewed as, “barriers to participating… disruption of home life; the need to care for parents, siblings, or their own children; and homelessness (consistent or episodic)”.(Gates, 5).
This group came up with three tentative ways to success through civil service in low income or communities of minorities. One is, “easy start down these civic pathways… engaging youth in service well before high school graduation… early understanding of the value of service”.(Gates, 8-9). Secondly, “promote the real impact of service programs on the lives of those who participate in them”.(Gates, 12). Lastly, “need to scale up existing pathways for disconnected youth and young adults”.(Gates, 13). This point was later elaborated on in paragraph 14 by stating “Though the country does not have a comprehensive second- chance system for youth and young adults who have dropped out of school, are ex-offenders, or are leaving the foster care system, many strong second-chance programs have begun to figure out how to use service for reengagement and success achievement for those who have been disconnects from pathways to higher education and employment”.(Gates).
These are all great points and solutions made by this organization. I think it is very important to give second chances. I learned a lot from this research and that allowing these people who may be a little behind in life to follow civic pathways in volunteering can benefit not only the community but themselves too. This research is valuable in developing what I think will be a solution to the higher education problem our Nation is facing. I will need to look up the links that are listed in the over view of this research published and go more in depth so I can be more educated on this topic as well as include more logos in my paper. I chose to put this source first because it presents an alternative topic to a revisited topic in higher education.
Another source of research that brings me closer to a solution is the national standards state by state across the nation of the requirements for students to graduate high school. This was listed in more of a chart and bullet point fashion but I could still gather information from it. It was easy to see that most states require about 3-4 years of English, Math, and Science. The electives differed as well as the physical education courses and electives. This source is just missing the types of courses they require because I know in my high school your main 4 credits from English had to be from English 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade but you were welcome to take electives. These certain courses covered specific material while electives didn’t. So, if a school doesn’t require the same type of English credits just the same number as another school in another state when two students from these respective schools get to a higher education institution there might be a knowledge gap even though they graduated with the same amount of credits.
I have grown up in some questionable neighborhoods I know of the bad school districts, the 3rd and 4th generation welfare, and the kids who skip class to do God knows what but thinking of it more these kids only know what they have been taught by their parents or their role models in life. Some of these parents, guardians, and role models aren’t equipped to inform the kids they have other options than what their aspirations in life are. But thinking of all of this it should be in someone else’s hands to inform and provide these kids with the knowledge that there IS something after school in order to put them ahead in life and opportunities are out there to make a better living than ‘good easy government money’ or minimum wage. It should be the schools and local communities responsibly to educate and inform them that of this.