Thursday, June 30, 2011

Why College Access is Still Not Diverse

By Patrick O'Connor


In their well-researched book, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal:  Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford pay considerable attention to the academic achievement gap between races and social classes.  While the authors recognize it will take significant resources and ample time to succeed in closing this gap, an immediate, affordable opportunity exists to improve the quality of academic preparation and postsecondary planning for all students, especially poor students and many students of color.

The need for improved college admission counseling is widely known and well documented. Data to support these concerns was presented in a recent study by Public Agenda, where a majority of young adults felt their school counselor was of little or no help in providing information about good college choices or applying to college.

What is not known is that a vast majority of school counselors, especially public school counselors, do not receive any meaningful training in working with students and families in college admission counseling.  The American School Counseling Association identifies 466 college-based programs that offer graduate training in school counseling, but the National Association for College Admission Counseling lists only 42 degree granting programs that offer a course in college admission counseling—and only one of them is known to require the course of all graduates.

The results of this policy decision are clear, and the policy clearly disadvantages large groups of underserved students.  Affluent private schools often hire former admissions officers from well-known colleges to serve as their college admission counselors, giving students and families insights into the preparation, process, and strategies needed to make strong college choices based on the student’s needs and interests.

Similarly, public schools in communities where college attendance is an expectation—most often in the suburbs-- devote substantial funds to providing training in college admission counseling for their school counselors.  Through professional workshops, conferences and visits to college campuses, these counselors develop an understanding of the need to tailor college choice to student’s interests, abilities and needs, and become familiar with a wide array of colleges—skills all counselors should have learned in graduate school.

At the same time, counselors in urban public schools typically have larger numbers of students to work with and smaller budgets to spend.  The same can be said of counselors in rural schools, who have the added limitation of being miles away from most colleges and the location of most conferences.  This not only gives these counselors fewer funds to spend on professional development, but it offers them less opportunity, since principals are unwilling to let their lone counselor leave the building.


Combined, these factors raise the likelihood that students in rural and urban areas—the students who play a vital role in making college campuses diverse-- will be less supported in college choice and unsuccessful in college.  These factors increase the chances the underserved student will drop out of college, with only lowered self-esteem, insufficient job skills, and untenable student loans as memories of the experience.

The absence of college admissions training and its subsequent consequences have been raised with a number of stakeholders, and all express sympathy for the problem, but none wish to correct it.  College professors who run counselor training programs often deride college admission counseling as “not real counseling”, but something akin to academic advising, a simplistic conclusion that is counter to the experiences of the counselors they educate.

The irony is that counselors want this training.  A poll of new counselors in Michiganindicated 95 percent of new counselors polled thought a course in college admission counseling should be offered in graduate school, and 61 percent thought it should be mandatory.  Since many colleges offering the course are willing to share the course syllabus and other materials at no charge, replacing an elective course in graduate school programs with this needed class could be done swiftly and economically.

All school counselors care deeply about their students, but without proper, in-depth graduate school training in the college admission process for school counselors at all grade levels, well meaning counselors can only do so much—and they are the first to admit more is needed.  The long standing paucity of college admission training will continue to contribute to the equally well-established academic achievement gap between rich and poor, and white and black and Hispanic. That one contributes to the other is intuitively and empirically supported; why those who could easily alter this arrangement, but instead choose to prolong it, is a mystery, a disservice, and a shame
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Education Reform Finally Hits Home

By Patrick O'Connor


Real change in education may finally be coming to Detroit, a change that should be noted by counselors everywhere.

The woes of the city of Detroit are well known (note: I am a native Detroiter and live in theMetro Detroit area).  The former mayor had affairs with at least two staffers, and only left office after he spent millions of city money trying to cover up his indiscretions.  The census shows Detroit lost 25% of its population in the last decade, giving it the same population in 2011 as it had in 1911.  Recent test scores showed many Detroit elementary schools with 1 in 4 students reading at grade level, leading Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to call Detroit “ground zero” for public education.

Detroit’s need was made clear Tuesday when Secretary Duncan (a Democrat), Republican Governor Rick Snyder, the State Superintendent and at least three extremely well-financed foundations decided enough was enough.  Using state laws crafted in the last two years, the governor has created a new, boundary-free school district that will ultimately include every “failing school” in Michigan.

The first schools included will be the failing schools in Detroit.  They will receive funding separate from the other Detroit public schools; a local university will offer teacher trainingin these schools; 95 percent of all funding will be directed to classrooms, and principals will have the right to hire and fire staff at will.

All of this makes for great drama, but the real change is in the small print of each newspaper carrying the story; parents sending their children to these schools must agree, in writing, to support their child’s efforts to learn.

And that, my friends, is headline news.

For the last 20 years, and especially for the last 6 months, educators everywhere have borne the brunt of attacks from the right, the left, the rich, the poor, and the unemployed.  All of these attacks have three things in common:

i)                    Some of our kids aren’t learning enough.
ii)                   All of our kids go to school.
iii)                 All schools have to change.

But wait.  All kids go to school, but only some kids don’t learn—even in the worst Detroit schools 25% of the kids know what they’re doing.  Same school, same teachers.  What do they have going on that the other kids don’t?

It’s clear none of these critics have ever been teachers, because this is something teachers and counselors have known for years.  Who shows up at parent conferences?  The parents of the good students.  Who calls counselors for help, sometimes to the point of distraction?  The parents of the good students.  Who volunteers for the PTA, field day, the refreshment table at back-to-school night?

It isn’t a perfect relationship—there is no study that shows kids will go to Harvard if their parents bake cupcakes for school-- and teachers are trained to make a difference in the lives of all students, while parents receive no such training.  But it’s still there, and Tuesday’s press conference in Detroit shows that government leaders are starting to admit this.

So what took them so long?  Why, instead, have they tried merit pay, eliminating tenure, teaching to the test, degrading teachers as a group, and denying teachers the right to negotiate for a salary commensurate with their education?

Simple.  No public funding is tied to parenting, and you can’t legislate a change you can’t control.  You can ask parents to change, but that won’t happen unless they want to change.  Counselors have known that for years, too.

Maybe education’s leaders need to go back to counseling school
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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Planning Ahead is a Piece of Cake!

By Pat O'Connor



I was heading Baltimore to confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob with my fellow counselors. I usually try to sponsor some kind of event while I’m there, and I had the perfect plan--an afternoon tea, featuring a Charm City Cake.
My daughter is insanely devoted to Ace of Cakes, the show that features this bakery, which has created cakes that blow your mind, and blow up--no, literally (look at www.charmcitycakes.com.) Since Charm City is based in Baltimore, I figure I would buy a cake, grab a photo op with Chef Duff, and all would be well-

-and all would have been well, if I had ordered the cake a year ago, and picked up deposit bottles along the highway from Detroit to Baltimore. I went to the Web site to order the cake--a month ahead, just like I would at the local bakery--and found that the next available Charm City Cake date is November 9th. I also discovered that the quality of the cake and the genius behind its design costs you at least $1000
.
Am I miffed? Yeah--at myself. It should have dawned on me I wasn’t the only guy on the planet who watches the show; if I was, there wouldn’t be a show. Duff’s cakes rule so much, people from states that don’t even border Maryland will order ahead and pay to have a cake delivered from several states away.

What might this have to do with college? Watch and learn, rising seniors!


*   Planning ahead rocks. You don’t need to worry about your ACT scores when you’re in eighth grade, but if seniors haven’t taken the ACT or SAT, now is the time to do that in order to get it done by October. That may seem a lifetime away, but twenty thousand of your closest personal friends will be taking the test, and if you wait too long, you may end up taking it at Patterson Park High School. Can you say Good Morning, Baltimore?
*   To find your wallet, follow your heart. I’ve never seen Cake Baker on the list oflucrative careers. That’s because it isn’t--unless you see something in it that no one else does, and you have the strength to give oxygen to that vision. Chef Duff might or might not own a Bentley, but he sure owns the cake baking industry. Don’t believe me? Name ten professional athletes. Now, name 10 professional cake bakers, besides Duff. ‘Nuff said.
*   Quality drives price, not the other way around. The Charm City Web site shows you why the cakes command the price they do; great stuff deserves commensurate pay. Keep this in mind when you college hunt--start with the qualities of the college, and when you find one that blows you away like Chef Duff’s Nightmare Cake (under Gallery), paying for it becomes a goal, not an obstacle--there’s a huge difference.
*   Value your friends. Genius that he is, Duff can’t do it all by himself, so it’s a good thing he’s tight with his friends, who happen to work at the bakery. Moments of Sturm and Drang sometimes seem larger than life--especially during college app season and senior year--but the seas are calmer if you’ve got a crew who knows how a bilge pump works, and you know how to return the favor.
Making it to college, let alone a career, is almost never a cakewalk, but the lessons of Charm City can get you to your college graduation party in style.

Just be sure to order the cake early.

How About a Race To Somewhere?

By Pat O'Connor PhD


It’s been a year since Vicki Abeles released Race to Nowhere, a documentary that looks at the negative impact our culture of teaching-to-the-test, getting into the “right” college is having on the lives of our students and families.  I thought the message was drowning out some of the media-driven college frenzy that has nothing to do with really preparing and applying to college.

Then two quotes came along that hit me harder than a slap in the face with the Fiske Guide.

“My daughter’s in 9th grade and will have all this free time this summer.  Can you tell me what community service activities she should get involved in?  You know, the ones the colleges like?”

The dad who called wasn’t wrong to ask the question—he loves his daughter, and wants her to have every opportunity to create a bright future.  He thinks “right” community service activities will open doors at the “right” colleges that “wrong” community service activities won’t.  Since that’s what he ‘knows”, he’s just trying to close the deal…

…and that’s why Vicki Abeles made Race to Nowhere. Like it or not, our No Child Left Behind culture not only tells us there’s just one answer to the capital of Nigeria and 3x+2= 5i; it also suggests all answers can be known without being explored, and the first one to get all the right answers wins.  College isn’t like that; college admission isn’t like that; life isn’t like that. Just ask Thomas Edison about finding the right filament for the light bulb.  It wasn’t the destination; it was the journey.

Our society certainly took some hits when students graded themselves in college (ask your parents), but we seem to be overcorrecting.  If classrooms can’t ask students what water feels like, or how world hunger will end, then knowledge is finite—and if we had admitted that 20 years ago, you wouldn’t be reading this column, because the Internet wouldn’t exist. Meandering has its purpose, too.

On the other hand, we have quote two:

“If Harvard receives 35,000 applications for a mere 1,640 freshman spaces, something is clearly amiss in our value system.”

This is Vicki Abeles herself, in an article where she argues the only two choices in parenting are to “push” children or “encourage” them.

But Vicki Abeles is wrong on both fronts. If bright students have worked hard in school and enjoyed understanding who they are and what the world looks like without feeling the stresses of doing so, why not Harvard?  Harvard is a great fit for the free thinkers Race to Nowhere wants to nurture, and it’s free to families who make under $60,000.  Given that, it’s a wonder a million kids don’t apply.

As for the argument that parenting is either about pushing or encouraging, whatever happened to it being a little of both?  If your child loves music, encouraging them to practice is a snap; if the discipline to practice is part of the recipe of enjoying music, then pushing enters the picture.  Just ask Yo Yo Ma, who, to this day, hates to practice.

Schools need to wonder why kids who spend five hours nightly on homework can’t remember what they were tested on last week.  At the same time, encouraging students to do their best without learning anything gives us the same result—dysfunctional kids who don’t know where they’re heading, or why they need to get there. The truth is somewhere in the middle; now that the extremes have been established, we need to get there, and in a hurry.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Planning Ahead is a Piece of Cake!

By Pat O'Connor

I was heading Baltimore to confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob with my fellow counselors. I usually try to sponsor some kind of event while I’m there, and I had the perfect plan--an afternoon tea, featuring a Charm City Cake.

My daughter is insanely devoted to Ace of Cakes, the show that features this bakery, which has created cakes that blow your mind, and blow up--no, literally (look at www.charmcitycakes.com). Since Charm City is based in Baltimore, I figure I would buy a cake, grab a photo op with Chef Duff, and all would be well-

-and all would have been well, if I had ordered the cake a year ago, and picked up deposit bottles along the highway from Detroit to Baltimore. I went to the Web site to order the cake--a month ahead, just like I would at the local bakery--and found that the next available Charm City Cake date is November 9th. I also discovered that the quality of the cake and the genius behind its design costs you at least $1000.

Am I miffed? Yeah--at myself. It should have dawned on me I wasn’t the only guy on the planet who watches the show; if I was, there wouldn’t be a show. Duff’s cakes rule so much, people from states that don’t even border Maryland will order ahead and pay to have a cake delivered from several states away.

What might this have to do with college? Watch and learn, rising seniors!


  • Planning ahead rocks. You don’t need to worry about your ACT scores when you’re in eighth grade, but if seniors haven’t taken the ACT or SAT, now is the time to do that in order to get it done by October. That may seem a lifetime away, but twenty thousand of your closest personal friends will be taking the test, and if you wait too long, you may end up taking it at Patterson Park High School. Can you say Good Morning, Baltimore?
  •  To find your wallet, follow your heart. I’ve never seen Cake Baker on the list of lucrative careers. That’s because it isn’t--unless you see something in it that no one else does, and you have the strength to give oxygen to that vision. Chef Duff might or might not own a Bentley, but he sure owns the cake baking industry. Don’t believe me? Name ten professional athletes. Now, name 10 professional cake bakers, besides Duff. ‘Nuff said.
  • Quality drives price, not the other way around. The Charm City Web site shows you why the cakes command the price they do; great stuff deserves commensurate pay. Keep this in mind when you college hunt--start with the qualities of the college, and when you find one that blows you away like Chef Duff’s Nightmare Cake (under Gallery), paying for it becomes a goal, not an obstacle--there’s a huge difference.
  • Value your friends. Genius that he is, Duff can’t do it all by himself, so it’s a good thing he’s tight with his friends, who happen to work at the bakery. Moments of Sturm and Drang sometimes seem larger than life--especially during college app season and senior year--but the seas are calmer if you’ve got a crew who knows how a bilge pump works, and you know how to return the favor.

Making it to college, let alone a career, is almost never a cakewalk, but the lessons of Charm City can get you to your college graduation party in style.

Just be sure to order the cake early.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The Perfect Graduation Gift

By Patrick O'Conner, PhD

Seniors, here are some recommendations on how to spend your summertime.  College is about trying new things, so give these a spin, and you’ll hit the campus more flexible than Gumby after a yoga class:

                Movie You Must See Before You Go To College   The Shawshank Redemption was overlooked when it was released the same year as Forrest Gump.  Now it’s on TNT every month.  A story about  second chances , forgiveness and negotiating with the world, this isn’t an easy movie to watch, but it talks about hope, determination, and always knowing what’s right.  It will give you the skills to handle Intro to Econ, eccentric roommates, and more.

                Movie Clip You Must See Before You Go to College  Call it cheesy, but the first scene in The Sound of Music is worth the five minutes and 46 seconds it will occupy in your life.  All you see are the mountains of Austria, and all you hear is the remarkable voice of a young Julie Andrews.  Success in college demands an ability to stop and appreciate that which is simple and beautiful.  Watching this clip will also help you understand why your father’s adolescence was complicated by having an intense crush on a nun.

                Song You Must Listen to Before You Go To College  The second movement of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp is the finest piece he ever wrote, and its potential was fully realized by Jean Pierre Rampal.  Rampal started as a pre-med major, but his heart had other designs, and he went on to become the premiere flutist of all time.  This reminds you that anyone who believes all works of Mozart are the same has no idea what listening is all about—keep that in mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxgyZYdtAj8&NR=1

                Song Clip You Must Watch Before You Go To College  It took less than two minutes for Ella Fitzgerald and theManhattan Transfer to find their place in Grammy history in 1983 with this rendition of How High the Moon. Your goal in college is to work this hard to make everything look this easy—and if you leave college without an appreciation for good jazz, your tuition was wasted.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBBiH92T-Ws&feature=related 
                Phrase You Must Add to Your Vocabulary  “Ma’am.” Colleges are run by administrative assistants—veteran, organized, secretaries who have a way of doing things that is older than Stonehenge. This method almost always works to your advantage, except at peak times when every student needs help, and their system of order is on the brink of collapse.  That’s where you come in.

You:  “I need to drop a class.”
Administrative assistant, peering over half glasses: “Have you seen your adviser?”
You:  “Yes ma’am.”

You have made her day, and she will never, ever, forget you.

This is good.  Trust me.  Unless the assistant is male—then, never mind.

                Phrase You Must Delete from Your Vocabulary “No problem.” One of these assistants may thank you for doing something.  The only way you can get off their good side is to respond with anything but “You’re Welcome.”  Practice now.

                Book You Must Read Before You Go To College  How the Irish Saved Civilization  by Thomas Cahill. Neither fiction nor a scholarly work, it’s like your Irish neighbor telling you the enriched but true story of the vital role Irish monks held in restoring education to Europe during the time of St. Patrick.  You won’t read anything this easy or biased in college, but its story of how modest people can engage in diligent efforts that change history will stay with you forever. 

Congratulations.

Patrick