College isn’t for everybody.
According to a friend of mine who is a reading specialist, someone with a seventh-grade reading level would struggle with that sentence. “College” is a word that isn’t easily sounded out; “isn’t” is a contraction; “for” has multiple homonyms; and “everybody” is a compound word. However, for someone at, say, a 10th-grade reading level, that sentence should be cake.
And yet, according to a chorus of protests emanating from a collection of professional do-gooders, a local college is supposed to admit just about everybody who applies, whether they can read that sentence or not. Of course, it’s better to be a do-gooder than a Republican any day, but gee whiz, people; there are limits. You’re not going to clean up every crackhead; you’re not going to straighten out every knucklehead; and you shouldn’t support the notion of every single person being admitted to a college—without exception—just because the idea of matriculation happens to strike their fancy at that particular point in their lives.
After a bit of wrangling and, quite frankly, a shocking amount of public wailing and gnashing of teeth, the Pima Community College governing board voted last week to raise admission standards, and to restructure and redirect its efforts in the area of remedial education. For those of us who are fans of the community-college system (and of education in general), please allow me to say, “It’s about damn time.”
I am indeed a huge supporter of community colleges. Despite being the occasional butt of jokes from the snob crowd, they serve a great many needs, and they do so almost universally well. Community colleges provide two-year programs that can serve as the base for a lifetime career in a well-paying job. They offer a wide variety of specialty classes for part-time and returning-to-education students. And, perhaps most importantly, they offer the financially strapped student the opportunity to take and pass fully transferable general-education classes for a small fraction of what those same classes would cost at the university.
What community colleges shouldn’t do is be forced to attempt to provide college-level instruction to people who read, write and/or do math at a seventh-grade level.
One person I talked to tried to offer up as an analogy that of Jesus leaving the flock and going off in search of the lost sheep. Well, Jesus did mad tricks with food and wine, so we’ll shrug on that lost-sheep thing. I’m sure Jesus had his reasons, but a lot of His stuff was bewildering. (For example, if I were relating that one parable, I would have had the returning Prodigal Son pimp-slapped and forced to sleep in the barn.)
I was discussing this with my neighbor the other day, and he said, “Wow, Tom, that’s rather un-liberal of you.” I replied, “That would be ‘illiberal,'” which pretty much ended the conversation, but his point struck me as odd. When, exactly, did liberals cede the concept of personal responsibility to the Loud Talkers on the Far Right? Personal responsibility should be the guiding principle and personal mantra of all people, not just those on one side of the political spectrum.
Personally, I believe that college freshmen should be reading, writing and doing math at the bare-minimum level of college freshmen! What a concept, huh? Of course, if that were strictly enforced, you’d be able to find parking at any time of day on the UA campus, and Arizona State University would look like The Rapture had hit Tempe. However, in this kid-coddling culture of ours, that’s probably expecting too much. But, at the same time, isn’t allowing someone with a seventh-grade-level of education to enter college expecting way too little?
Now, I’m sure that there are a few good reasons why an adult would be employing those vital skills at a seventh-grade level: a crappy home life, a lack of parental support, a transient lifestyle, an astronomically improbable unbroken series of bad teachers, knucklehead friends and so on. But there are also the kids who chose to go to the charter school in the shopping mall because it allows them to smoke between classes. Or the guy who can read and understand every word in an instruction manual for the latest blood-and-guts video game, yet has never in his life picked up a book without having been forced to do so. Or the girl who can text 140 characters in under 10 seconds, but doesn’t know that “Ur” was an important Sumerian city-state, and instead believes that it’s a correct way of conveying the meaning of “you are.”
Those in the latter group shouldn’t be cut any slack at all. Those in the former group who have a sincere desire to pursue a college education should be given a hand up— and Pima will be doing that with its Pathways to Pima program, offering remedial education (without college credit) to those who want and need it. It’s in the best interest of those students and of the students who arrived at Pima capable of performing at a college level.
Three cheers for Pima Community College and its newly adopted higher standards. There’s nothing wrong with having people earn that which they desire.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2011.
The Community College system should take a lesson from the University System Board of Regents. At first, they asked us to “give ’em a chance.” That’s fine – who could be against giving a chance. But then they asked, “Why aren’t they graduating?” Good question (though the answer is obvious). The percentage of failing grades at the universities is less than 6%. Missing the final exam isn’t enough to fail. Many finish all the requirements, but don’t bother to submit the graduation forms.
You can get a diploma on the web for a lot cheaper.
“There’s nothing wrong with having people earn that which they desire.” – If people really believed that, the Democrat party would collapse. I’m saving a seat for you in the Libertarian party my brother.
There is no doubt that public/private/charter/home schooled students should stay in the institution(s) they are at present until they get qualified. I suspect, however, that the difficulty of finding schools or classes for persons who left their schools years ago and now want to get literate, or persons from foreign countries who didn’t get past that magical ‘7th grade’ that Tom refers to, just might be given some leeway in community college admission. There are appropriate arguments abouth what constitutes any given grade level of reading skill.
Certainly a second look at adult literacy education in some other venue would make sense for society.
“an astronomically improbable unbroken series of bad teachers”
Christ, Danehy. Go spend 2 hours in an inner city high school in Gary, Indiana or Detroit or Chicago and tell me how astronomically improbable you think it is to come out with no education whatsoever.
“But there are also the kids who chose to go to the charter school in the shopping mall because it allows them to smoke between classes. Or the guy who can read and understand every word in an instruction manual for the latest blood-and-guts video game, yet has never in his life picked up a book without having been forced to do so. Or the girl who can text 140 characters in under 10 seconds, but doesn’t know that “Ur” was an important Sumerian city-state, and instead believes that it’s a correct way of conveying the meaning of “you are.””
You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. Not a single word of this is based on reality. Your argument boils down to “In a country with as many resources as America, anyone who can’t translate Chaucer from Middle English is a lazy dunce.” And you say that because you’re a privileged oblivious Trader Joe Liberal who hasn’t bothered to walk a mile in anyone else’s shoes. (If I’m making assumptions about your privilege it’s only because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume that you wrote this entire piece while suffering from heatstroke in the back of a meth lab). This editorial makes you seem like the kind of person who votes Democrat because you like to Honk If You Hate Bush, but you can’t be bothered to spend a few minutes interrogating your own (incredibly flawed) assumptions about class in America.
The reason that appeals to “personal responsibility” are usually the purview of Republicans is because it’s a pretty convenient and effective way of disguising the fact that you have no tenable argument whatsoever. Your argument is that community college should only be for people who are doing well but want to do better. Anyone who is shitty and wants to do well can piss up a rope right?
Forget people who, for whatever reason, have a math or reading deficit preventing them from earning more than 7 bucks an hour while trying to raise a family. If their kids really wanted to eat home-cooked meals and wear clothes without holes in them then they should have thought twice before being born to such an illiterate dimwitted slob. “If you really wanna help your mommy, drop out of school in grade 10 and pick up a minimum wage job. Just don’t expect me or mine to give a wet shit about you in ten years when you decide you’d like to see what life is like outside the cycle of poverty.”
And forget felons who want to re-integrate. Your debt to society isn’t paid until I get to spit into your face while you beg in the rain. The reason we have no responsibility to protect the people on the lowest rung of the ladder is because I’ve never been on that rung. America is doing just fine, I’m living proof!
This is a smug, cruel, presumptuous pile of horseshit and I hope you’ll one day feel deeply ashamed that you bothered to show it to anybody.
I teach Writing 100 at Pima Community College and have often used your column to illustrate rhetorical strategies or satire. I strongly support your points about personal responsibility and the general lack thereof among what seems to be an enormous underclass of needy citizens who feel entitled to that which most of us have worked hard to obtain. Lest we forget, a majority of PCC students are attending school on the taxpayer dime. Either go to jail, get a job, or go to school says the probation officer, and they are in. I often have to sign off on their dole vouchers each week, except for the students who so blatantly plagiarize that I force them to drop my class. Most of those in the direst straits are already teen parents, and until the entitlements stop they will continue to use their reproductive parts as an ATM. Kudos to Pima for enforcing a minimal standard of achievement to force this group to re-consider early breeding, gaming addiction, and gang banging as viable life strategies.
sabasabas…. I can see why you don’t use your own name posting that kind of hateful, right wing bilge. Your absolute contempt for the young people you are charged to educate is sickening, your vicious stereotyping aside.
Speaking of “living off the government dole” ….. you’d be fired in a minute from your government job, if I had my way. There is no way that a person with your attitudes should be allowed the privilege of teaching in public schools, at any level.
Danehy the self proclaimed expert on everything..
I find it interesting that Danehy objects to people attending PCC that are not up to his standards.
Typical liberal , knows whats best for you and me..
Danehy on the other hand, thinks its fine for illegal Aliens to attend PCC that cannot speak or write or even understand english worth a damn.
Danehy thinks its OK for the TAX payer to flip the bill for the poor helpless illegal mexican, south american and chinese illegal aliens that cannot speak english, get free tax payer supported med care , housing and education..
Danehy and those like him, use double and triple standards to “try ” and
force their values and way of life on others…
Why is it a BAD thing for a white or hispanic citizen, that is less than what Danehy thinks they should be, attending PCC??
Maybe Danehy thinks letting dumb people attend PCC will make Tucson more of a joke than it is now..
On the other hand, president Obama is a perfect example of what higher education can produce.
A over educated product created by affirmative action and all with out ten minutes of common sense education ..
One might also note, that the most over educated and most under educated voted Obama into office in great numbers.
Seems that both groups, the super smart and super dumb are not all that far apart.
Good LORD, ringgear.
At least take a Pima College writing course before assailing us with another of your incoherent, xenophobic diatribes. You are all over the place, man. Get a GRIP!. Perhaps “sabasabas” (above) would help you mold your raw hate speech into a more presentable form. Meanwhile, you are just parading your illiteracy while commenting on an essay about minimal standards.
Thank you, Daheny. You have hit the nail on the head. For the students who are able to read at the required entry level, it is beyond annoying to have classes dumbed down to accommodate those who cannot read, write, or form complete sentences. It becomes a waste of their hard earned money (yes, they pay for their classes quite often rather than having the taxpayer fund their time in class). We need to reinstitute trade schools for those whose interest in trying to earn a living for their families without cracking a book or writing coherent essays.
As a writer, particularly in a weekly newspaper, you HAVE TO BE AWARE that the average person that read the articles are reading at an eighth-grade level. So you writers, if you want a widespread readership have to dumb down the articles so that section of the populace will read it. So Tom, GET REAL. If a person WANTS to take courses at community colleges, should have the right to so. Most of the classes at community colleges are remedial anyway.
When I took my Pima CC placement tests, I received a 90% on the reading test, a 94% on the writing test, and a 28% on the math test. My first schedule at Pima (Since I graduated HS in 1988)was WRT 101, no reading because of the 90%, MAT 082 and 2 electives. I worked at a job that had me pulling 48 to 55 hours a week on the grave yard shift. So, if I took the placements today, would I not be accepted into Pima because of my math grade? Oh by the way, I wound up transferring 57 credit to ASU and left Pima with a 3.2 GPA. Not bad for a guy who had the same GPA as John “Bluto” Blutarsky when he was in high school. 🙂