The Power of Assuming All Need College

Here are some of his more irksome sentences, inspired by his reading of the ETS study: "Aiming to prepare 100 percent of students for the 40 percent of society's jobs that require college skills makes good politics, but bad economics, and it will create a lot of disappointment." Or: "Simply offering [low-achieving students] 'college for all' dreams and delusions--especially given their 80 percent likelihood of dropping out of college with few or no credits--may be the wrong way to go. They may need something that differs from raised standards and traditional approaches to instruction."

The many high school educators I know who have been successful in preparing low-achieving students for college and good jobs would say two things about Rosenbaum's widely accepted but deeply wrong-headed pessimism:

First, he is ignoring the power of the college myth in American society, particularly in low-income communities. Of course not all students are going to go to college and succeed there, but the dream of college has led many students struggling in school to work hard on the soft skills and study habits Rosenbaum so smartly promotes, and eventually get their degrees. The new book "Passing the Torch," by Paul Attewell and David E. Lavin, reviewed in my June 5 column, shows that many of these students take many years to fulfill that dream, but it keeps them going. Their college degrees, even if they take 10 years to earn, help those students get jobs that not only change their lives, but the lives of their children.

Second, if we are not going to try to sell the college dream to all students, how and when do we decide which ones to keep on the college track and which ones to shift into something less ambitious? (Rosenbaum raises my ire even higher by suggesting this is the humane approach, saving those low-achieving students "a lot of disappointment." I would like to see some research on these allegedly disappointed students, since the ones I have interviewed who tried and failed to get a degree still realize that they have many more opportunities in the job market than their high school friends who never tried college at all.)

I shared my concerns with Rosenbaum, and he got right back to me. "You distort my position," he said. "Do you really feel happy leaving large numbers of students with no back-up options if they fail at college? All students can attend college, and they know it. Eighty percent of high school graduates already do. Is that sufficient? . . . I think we all should worry about ONLY pointing these students toward college, without giving them the social skills, work habits, and job skills that would give them other options, in case they need them. . . . All students can benefit from these soft skills, so you don't have to decide people's fate."

So he and I actually agree. He doesn't say these soft skills are the most important college skills, but they sure sound like that to me. And he wants all high school students get them, which puts him on the prepare-everyone-for-college, right beside me.

I suspect I misread him because he did not have enough space to make the depth and sophistication of his views clear. I know the feeling. But I fear that some people may misuse what he has written to back up the still entrenched view that some kids will benefit from the college track, and others won't.

We already know what would happen if we decided to talk college to just our high-achieving students. The designated non-college students would understand rather quickly that they were rejects, not entitled to the great teachers and challenging projects offered to their college-bound friends. We know this is how it would work because this is precisely what most high schools have been doing for nearly a century. Even today, only a relatively few schools attempt to sell the college dream to every student and open up college level courses to anyone who wants to a chance to work hard for a better future.

I can give you the names of several successful adults who were told in high school they were just not college material. The bile still rises in their throats when they talk about it. The great truth is that, although most inner-city kids will not get college degrees, educators lack the soothsaying skills to predict accurately which of those students would do well in college and which would not.

We can, of course, do what we have always done: Let their test scores be our guide. But would you want to be the person who tells a future general or cabinet officer or CEO that he should give up on college because he got a low score on the state English test in eighth grade? I wouldn't, and I am happy to discover, neither would Professor Rosenbaum. Score one for our side.