Writer: Rethink the College Push
Posted on March 1st, 2010 by ASEE
If you are a high school teacher, you want most of your students go on to post-secondary education, right? Time magazine writer Ramesh Ponnuru wonders in a recent opinion piece whether maybe we should reconsider the big college push. The notion that most high schools students should seek a college degree may not be such a great idea after all, he writes.
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Tenth grade and out? That’s the plan behind a pilot program beginning next fall at around 100 public high schools in eight states. At the end of 10th grade, students who pass a battery of board examinations, covering a number of subjects, including mathematics, science and English, can opt to immediately enroll in a community college.
Federal money comprises more than 10 percent of the budget for Teach for America, the highly touted program that places recent college graduates in distressed school districts. But under a plan proposed by the Obama administration, Teach for America would compete with other organizations that train teachers for troubled schools for a share of a $235 million pool of grant funds.
Gary A. Ybarra is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University, an expert in microwave imaging and director of undergraduate studies in his department. But he’s also a keen proponent of improving STEM education at the K-12 level. One of his programs, Math Understanding through Science Integrated with Curriculum (MUSIC), combines standard course studies with engineering problem-solving tasks.
Homelessness among high school students is rapidly increasing. Nationally, 794,617 K-12 students were homeless in 2007-08, up from 679,724 the year before, with 39 states reporting increases. A 2005 Massachusetts study found that homelessness and poor academic results were linked.
The House Education and Labor Committee plans a bipartisan push to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known in its latest version as the No Child Left Behind law–but with a major overhaul that may not get done this year. 
Can taking part in summer research programs that require hands-on lab or field work help make science teachers more effective? Yes, it can. A Columbia University study found that teachers who participated in an intensive, hands-on summer science research program produced a 10 percent increase in their students’ pass rate on state science tests. 
A pre-engineering course at the all-girls Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md., has become a big success. Subjects covered in the course include artificial limbs, bridge disasters and robotics. Betty Shanahan, executive director of the Society of Women Engineers, is a fan: “The real challenge for reaching out to young women is to get over the stereotype that this isn’t something girls do, and then help them build their confidence.”
Advanced Placement courses are more popular than ever, but perhaps that’s not such a good thing. While a record 2.9 million students took AP exams last year, the failure rate keeps climbing. The national failure rate last year was 41.5 percent, up from 36.5 percent in 1999.
