"But commission leaders said they especially want to help students who are among the first generation in their families to attend college."Wednesday's P&C featured a program [Focus on Future] meant to help seniors fill out their college applications on-line with the help of guidance counselors and other mentors. Wando High School was picked as one of 11 participating high schools statewide after Cynthia Mosteller, a member of the Commission on Higher Education, originated the idea.
Her idea must have been to pick a high school where most of the parents have attended college, even graduated from college, to pilot a program for students whose parents didn't go to college. That should surely predict how the idea works!
How will the commission tell if the program makes any difference? Did it occur to Mosteller or anyone else that piloting the program at Burke or North Charleston or Stall might have helped more students whose parents don't know the ropes?
There I go, thinking again.
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4 comments:
My comment is: if Wando students need help in filling out applications they shouldn't even be considering college. When are we going to get away from political correctness and realize that not all are college bound?
Think ya missed the point bug.....
...the point is CCSD has created isolated pockets of grossly neglected students. These schools lack the diversity of experience found in schools like Wando where active and involved parents become the advocates for more than just their own children.
The question is what can a school do when there are few if any students with parents who have been to college at all. How difficult is it to paint a picture of the possibilities where everyone's classmates have no view of anything beyond a GED or a basic high school diploma? Once again CCSD isn't filling an obvious gap.
What about a school where kids are ridiculed by peers and even some teachers (including more than a few abusive principals) for wanting more than what's on the standard menu those students have been given? In the academic ghettos operated and maintained by CCSD, a kid's chances to compete at a higher level are vastly reduced, if chances exist at all.
At Wando, at least choices and opportunities to seek different levels exist. There is less 'one size fits all' approach from the staff. At schools like Burke, it is so rare for a student (or parent) to reach up or out to a different level because they know there's no one there to share experience or to build a network. They would be alone and without support, so why bother? And CCSD appears to be comfortable with that. Wando is a safe investment with predictable results the superintendent can use.
Showing a kid how to fill out a college application at Wando should be part of the standard job description. It should be at every CCSD school, but it isn't. Showing a kid how to do it better at a school where creativity and going the 'extra mile' are exceptions isn't to give Wando less but to place resources where they are needed most. To load up or stack the resouces in a few places where good results are almost guaranteed shows CCSD doesn't believe in its own programs to improve its poorer performing schools. If CCSD believed in what it's been selling to the rest of us it would have already made and stuck with lots of small investments like this being placed at every school. It would demonstrate an investment being made in the entire community with the potential of far greater returns than what it's now getting.
Investing this project at Wando instead of Burke is like putting all your money in Coca Cola in 1980 without putting at least a few dollars with a couple of kids working off the beaten path called Microsoft. No risk, no gain. An apt description of CCSD.
Why not invest more in a proven winner like Wando? Why waste meaningful resources on Stall or Lincoln? So when the returns are virtually the same in a year or two or five, should we be surprised?
Calling it 'political correctness' is off target. Limiting it to schools like Wando is also short sighted. Taking a small but thoughtful risk in time and money to lay a foundation where no support currently exists is just common sense. It might even be called a wise initial investment. How else do we begin to cultivate a climate for educational growth? Why not tap the natural wisdom of kids trapped in CCSD's lost schools?
CCSD has never been known for having or bestowing, let alone rewarding wisdom.
See bug, that last writer did get the point.....
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