Trends in College Completion

In a previous post I pointed out, much to my surprise, that the percentage of 25-29 year old's obtaining at least a bachelor's degree had leveled off over the past decade. Since that time they've made another year of data available and I also made some colorful graphs while trying to avoid reading for a course I'm taking.

First of all, there was a significant jump from 2006 to 2007 (from 28.4% to 29.6%) in the percentage of 25-29 year-olds with at least a bachelor's degree. I don't know if that means that there were some sampling errors that year, sampling errors in previous years, if a lot of people got degrees over the course of that year, and/or if there were a lot of 29 year-olds without degrees the previous year. Nonetheless, the flattening trend is still evident -- particularly compared with the growth in bachelor's degrees among the entire adult population (defined as 25+ years old). The chart below shows the growth in bachelor's degrees amongh both 25-29 year olds and the total population since 1940.


Historically, there has been a significant gap between the two statistics -- 25-29 year olds are much more likely to have a bachleor's degree than are the entire adult population. As you can see, the gap has narrowed considerably in recent years -- with the lines almost crossing in 2006. Of course, they almost intersected in 1994 as well before the gap increased dramatically so this might not mean much of anything. Below is the percentage difference between the two figures over the years.



As you can see (again), the difference between the two figures has decreased substantially.

So, why does this matter? After WWII a lot more people started getting college degrees. At that point in time, the younger generation was much more likely to have a college degree over time than were their parents or grandparents. Over time this has become less and less true. In part, this should come as no surprise -- we'd expect a shrinking of the gap as baby boomers age. But, it could also indicate at least one of a few other things:

1.) A lot of people seem to assume (myself included) that the number of people obtaining bachelor's degrees continues to increase rapidly and that pretty soon a master's degree will be what a bachelor's used to be. In fact, it seems that degree attainment has stalled among the youngest demographic of post-college-age adults. Which might mean that any worries about the effects of too many people being encouraged to go to college are somewhat unfounded.

2.) It's fairly likely that the overall growth in the percentage of college-educated adults is about to stall out as well. That statistic (as evidenced by the first chart) has continued to grow steadily over the past few decades, but 25-29 year-olds aren't much more likely to have a bachelor's degree than are older adults then it would be difficult for that growth to continue.

3.) The only way it could is if there was growth in degree completion among those who are 30+ years old. I don't have data on that in front of me right now, so I'm not willing to count that out -- particularly given the advent of places like the University of Phoenix and the proliferation of online degree programs.

So, why the sudden interest in the topic? Well, it came up at a party last night. Yes, I really am that much of a nerd. Anyway, I continued the discussion with one friend today and he asked another related question. He remains unconvinced that more people aren't enrolling in college and wonders if the numbers might mean that more people are dropping out. That's a good question. I'm sure somebody out there has the answer.

Update: More on this topic here (I think #3 has been disproved). And I neglected to say that I got the data here.

Replicating Paternalistic Discipline

More follow-up on my review of David Whitman's new book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism:

I've written I don't know how many times about the discipline problems that my school faced and that I've seen and heard about in other schools. Whitman argues that eliminating discipline problems may be the key to success in the schools he describes, writing that "the most distinctive feature of new paternalistic schools is that they are fixated on curbing disorder" (p. 37).

From what he describes, and from what I've heard, about these schools it seems like they've found a way to create an orderly environment where so many others have failed. So here's the key question: can their strategies be replicated by others? The biggest red flag that I, and others, have raised is that these schools may be able to use strategies that traditional public schools cannot.

Below are some excerpts from the book regarding the schools' discipline policies.

Cristo Rey:

"Merely fraternizing with gang members can lead to expulsion." (p. 38)

"If a student even draws gang graffiti on a notebook or piece of paper, we deal with it. They might be suspended for a day the first time. The second time it happened -- well, that would be your last day here." (p. 137)

American Indian Public Charter School:

"has never expelled a student" (p. 82)

"I've added Sunday school as well [for disciplinary infractions]. Sunday school is at [the principal's] house. The kids come by and do yard work." (p. 93)

Amistad Academy

"Over eight years, Amistad has expelled only two students" (p. 114)

"are expected to keep student attrition to less than 5 percent a year (not counting youngsters who move out of the district)" (p. 119-120)

KIPP

"students learn the rubric of SLANT in class (Sit up straight, Listen, Answer and ask questions, Nod your head if you understand, and Track the speaker)" (p. 156)

"has two fulltime social workers who meet with the most at-risk students on a dialy basis and with all KIPP students regularly." (p. 170)

"hardly ever expels a student" (p. 176)

SEED

"unapologetically expels more students than day schools: 5.6% of its pupils each year, on average, compared to 1.8 percent at other charter schools" (p. 205-206)

"on average, about 30 percent fail to move on to ninth grade during their first attempt and must repeat eighth grade as a 'growth year.'" (p. 213)

University Park

"In its ten years to date, just one student has dropped out of UPCS" (p. 226)

A student "recalls that the "other teachers said to me 'we know you're a good kid, but you can't act like that and stay here'" (p. 232)


Overall, the picture looks mixed. Some of these schools certainly rely on expulsion, or at least the threat of expulsion, to keep students in line. Beyond expulsion, some schools clearly rely on convincing students to leave -- particularly by holding back students if they choose to remain. Whitman writes "Studnets who flunk grades and face repeating a year, and those intimidated by the academic demands of rigorous schools, exit to neighborhood schools that practice social promotio" (p. 255). On the other hand, some of the schools cited have exceedingly low attrition rates. It's possible that a school can use expulsion as merely a threat and not actually implement it, but the picture is unclear on how much that happens.

Lastly, principals in particular at some of these schools use techniques that would be explicitly prohibited in many schools. The principal at AIPCS makes students do yard work at his house on Sundays as punishment. That is, plain and clear, corporal punishment -- a big no-no in NYC and many other areas. Furthermore, it's hard for me to imagine that many schools are allowed to mandate that students do anything on weekends much less show up for detention. Whether he's able to do this because he's running a charter school or because he simply doesn't care about the consequences if somebody finds out he's doing this is unclear.

I don't know whether or not these discipline systems can be successfully replicated in traditional public schools, but some red flags certainly exist. Let's just assume for a minute that they cannot in the current system. The question then would whether we should: create more charter schools; give traditional public schools more power (e.g. allowing expulsion); or look to other sources to create discipline systems.

Testing Kindergartners

Ok, I am truly baffled. I just read this piece in EdWeek on NYC's plans to test kindergartners in math. The article says that the city wants to spend $400,000 to test a program that gives kindergartners math tests that can take up to 90 minutes to complete.

As a researcher I can see why we need to test the youngest kids in order to get baseline data. But I'm confused about a few things, including:

1. Exactly what math knowledge are kindergartners supposed to have? I remember counting in kindergarten and that's about it.

2. Why in the world would it take up to 90 minutes to test students on such a limited base of knowledge?

3. What sane person would expect a kindergartner to sit still for 90 minutes to do anything, yet alone take a multiple choice test?

I'm tempted to declare this a sign of the apocalypse, but there's got to be some information missing here. I must be missing something. Right?

Update: Another article is now up on CNN. Also, the commenter kiri8 points out below that kindergartners do a lot more than count -- I stand corrected. But even with the list that they provide, I still doubt the utility of such a long test and now wonder how useful baseline data would even be.

Paternalism at What Age?

More follow-up on my review of David Whitman's new book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism:

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse, but I think the issues that Whitman raises are quite important. Whitman describes a number of ways in which the six schools he observes essentially acculturate students to middle/upper-class social and behavioral norms. They refuse to assume that students know how to do anything and teach the most basic behaviors from walking in line to listening to speakers. Having taught in a school where teenagers didn't seem to know how to do these things, I can certainly see the value in teaching these things.

But here's my question: why are we teaching these behaviors to middle and high-schoolers? Obviously if middle and high-school age students haven't learned these things yet then they need to know them, but why aren't we making an effort to teach these to younger students?

In other words, if we want to replicate the success of these "paternalistic" schools are we sure that we should aim these strategies at these particular age groups? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to teach these skills to elementary school students so that they can move on to higher-order thinking in middle and high school?

Imagine, for a second, if students coming into a KIPP school, for instance, had attended a similar school K-4 and had learned all these behavioral norms. The kids were used to sitting up straight and tracking speakers with their eyes, knew that the slightest bit of disrespect toward a teacher was unacceptable, walked quietly through hallways, etc. Wouldn't it be a heck of a lot easier for the KIPP school to then focus on academic endeavors instead of spending so much time teaching students how to behave?

Consider the alternative: replicating these schools at only the middle and high-school levels. While wealthy/suburban schools start to loosen the reins and teach students to think creatively and independently, poor/urban schools are teaching kids to sit up straight, make sure that their shirt is the correct color and is tucked in, and using chants to reinforce behaviors. In order to eliminate our current two-tiered system of education we'd be creating a different type of two-tiered system of education. The inner-city kids might be proficient at basic reading and math skills and more likely to graduate, but there would still be an education gap.

Uniforms and Discipline Problems

I just got around to reading the article under an interesting headline in the Nashville paper yesterday -- "Uniforms may have contributed to safer Metro schools."

Here's the first line of the article: "Fewer Nashville students brought guns, knives or drugs to school during their first year wearing school uniforms, but district officials can't draw a direct link between the clothes and the numbers."

A few things to say about this:

1.) The headline is irresponsible. First of all, there's really no way to establish causality in this case. Second of all, although "serious assaults" may have decreased, "Overall, simple assaults on students — ones not involving weapons or serious injuries — increased 89 percent across the district and 211 percent in traditional high schools." I'm willing to bet that "simple assaults" generally have a much larger influence on school climate and student learning than do the much rarer "serious assaults."

2.) I'm at least 99% sure that the discipline data is meaningless. Which incidents get reported vary so much by teacher, administrator, and circumstance that comparing one year to another most likely means nothing.

3.) I have yet to see any rigorous empirical research that finds that uniforms cause fewer discipline problems, but uniforms seem to be more of gut-level decision anyway. When Nashville adopted the new uniform policy the school board was told that no evidence was available that this would work, but proponents of the plan literally shed tears as they pleaded their case.

I can't blame anybody for wanting kids in chaotic schools to wear uniforms. In such an environment it's entirely logical to think that orderly dress might bring a little more orderly behavior (I certainly would have supported uniforms at my school). But I get the impression that uniform policies are driven at least as much by class and culture. Teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board members are, with few exceptions, college graduates. Which means that, for the most part, they come from middle to upper income homes and neighborhoods. When they see kids running around acting and dressing strangely they get frustrated that the kids don't act more like the way they did when they were kids. So I'm guessing, even if most people won't say it, that what's running through a lot of people's heads is something to the effect of "if they dressed more like us, maybe they'd act more like us."

Convincing Teachers to Choose High-Poverty Schools

I just read an interesting (and very short) piece in the latest Teacher's College Record. In it, Tom Carroll and Souma Sathya argue that we need to "change the conditions that make high-needs schools hard to staff" (which is also the title).

Their most important point, to me, is "that at the end of the day it will be the teachers who will make the decisions about where they will teach." As such, they argue that we should make high-needs schools more attractive to teachers.

Their recommendations are, in short, that we award bonuses to teachers who teach in these schools, ensure that there are competent and supportive leaders, that novices are not left to "sink or swim," and that paths to rise from novice to master teacher be created.

The purpose of this post is to encourage you to read the piece (it will only take two minutes, really), so I'll keep the analysis short. Though short on details, all of the recommendations seem logical and fairly straightforward. High teacher turnover certainly crippled my school and given the demographics of the current teaching force it seems likely both that reducing turnover in the future will benefit high-poverty schools and that making schools better places to work will reduce turnover.

What if Paternalism Boosts Achievement the Wrong Way?

More follow-up on my review of David Whitman's new book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism:

I see the argument that more paternalistic schools boost achievement -- and not just because Whitman details the paternalism in these successful schools. It makes logical sense that a more paternalistic school would have higher test scores.

Whitman leads off the second chapter with a quote from Thomas Schelling -- "Ben Hur didn't have to make himself keep rowing. The man with the whip took care of that." We can translate that to schools. Students don't have to "make" themselves do homework if a teacher is all over them about it. Technically, no human being can "make" another do something -- one always has a choice -- but a person can make the alternatives so bad that they're virtually eliminated.

For example, my 8th grade math teacher checked my homework the second that class began every single day. Class was based around review of the homework, and homework grades were heavily weighted. I could be wrong, but I don't remember ever not doing my homework in that class (nor do I remember many others not doing their homework). In 9th grade, however, our teacher checked homework maybe a handful of times over the course of the year. It took me about a month to figure that out and then I pretty much stopped doing it.

If I'd taken a standardized test in both grades, I probably would've done better on the one in 8th grade simply because I spent more time immersed in doing the types of problems that would be on a standardized test. My 8th grade teacher was a really good teacher, and the strong scores would have reflected on that. But my 9th grade teacher was possibly the best teacher I ever had.

But enough of my tangent. Here's my point: it's quite logical to assume that students will perform better when they're micromanaged and when not following directions results in severe consequences. A child will keep their room cleaner if their parents do weekly checks and refuse to let them go out and play until it's immaculate than if a parent just chides them for having a dirty room every so often. And a child will have higher test scores if they're told how to do every little part of every little problem on the test and practice it repeatedly.

But is this really for the better? What are the long-term consequences? Let's go back to the child with the clean room. How will the respond when they no longer have their parent practically forcing them to clean their room each week? Will they have the self-discipline to keep their abode clean on their own? Will the habit be so ingrained that they won't consider not keeping their place tidy? Or will things fall apart? The child who never had much pressure to keep a clean room, on the other hand, will probably continue to do what they were doing (which could be either good or bad) because things haven't really changed.

I'd making the following argument: paternalism will yield more success in the short-run -- with few exceptions. But I can't help but wonder about the long run. If students are only exposed to uber-paternalistic management, what happens when they get into a situation that's not so strict (e.g. college)? Do their habits carry over, or are they unable to survive without somebody telling them what to do? I don't know the answer. If anybody's an expert on child development then please let me know what the research says.

Eduwonkette Unmasked

She's no longer anonymous . . . gasp!

Seriously though, now that I know she's a grad student I feel like a slacker.

More Links on Paternalism

More follow-up on my review of David Whitman's new book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism:

George Will weighs in on the book today (hat tip: Mike Petrilli). I normally find Will's columns engaging and intelligent, but I must be missing something today. I'll read it again later, but it seems like a random mishmash of thoughts and opinions. Two things stand out to me most about the column:

1.) He begins by chronicling a student who has been told that he's not good enough to attend AIPCS and is working hard so that he will be admitted. This is either semantics or illegal. Unless I'm mistaken, AIPCS (like virtually all charter schools) admits students by lottery. A student cannot be refused admittance because they're not "up to the rigors" of the program. I'm guessing that the student was admitted via lottery but Ben Chavis, the principal, simply told him that he had to earn his way in. Either way, how many traditional public schools wish they could tell their students that?

2.) He decides to blame the failure of our educational system on Democrats, liberals, Education Schools, and teachers unions in the last paragraph without really providing any evidence. Granted, it's a short column -- but he could've devoted another paragraph to why he was assigning blame to these groups. He might be right, but it comes across as sloppy, ideological finger-pointing to me. And I don't buy his assertion that these schools prove that "we know how to close the achievement gap" and the only reason we can't is because these groups are standing in our way.

Also, I neglected to point out earlier that Whitman wrote a quasi-summary of his book for the next issue of Education Next (posted here). Quite handy for anybody who doesn't have the time right now to read the book in whole.

Is Paternalism for Everybody?

More follow-up on my review of David Whitman's new book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism:

The book raises a number of interesting questions, many of which I'd like to discuss this week. The central tenet of the book is essentially that paternalistic schools are better for poor students living in the inner-city. The follow-up question would be whether they're better for everybody.

In other words, should we be replicating (for example) the KIPP model in suburbs and wealthy areas -- or do inner-city students benefit uniquely from the KIPP model?

I think the book implies that it's the latter. Whitman writes that these schools assume that "the poor lack the family and community support, cultural capital, and personal follow-through" to succeed (p. 35). In other words, these kids have some gaps that these schools fill. If a student does not have these gaps, would attending such a school benefit them as much?

If the answer to that is no, then that would lead us to a situation where the inner-city poor attend schools that are very different from those that the middle-class and wealthy attend. Of course, that's already the case -- but I would argue that it's not necessarily purposive right now. In other words, all schools right now are supposed to operate the same way, they just don't due to a number of factors and constraints. But what if a school in Scarsdale and a school in the Bronx were designed differently from the beginning on the theory that different populations need different types of schools? And then the really tricky question becomes what to do when a school has a mix of students from different backgrounds.