“The fact that this state allows students to drop out of high school at the age of 16 is criminal, what we need is [more money for higher education]”
Yep, that’s pretty much what he said. This shows how out-of-touch Michael Crow is with the world.
Where has Crow been during the past many years’ worth of debate about funding for public schools? Why has he stood by silently while the AZ State Legislature robs funding from public schools, and diverts it to privately owned charter schools?
He’s been looking after the feathering of his own nest. Students be damned.
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Sound bites count for ASU, but what should we really worry about?
“Sixty percent of students that come to community college are not prepared for college-level courses,” Harper-Marinick said.
While that is a drain on resources, she said those students shouldn’t be blamed for their unpreparedness.
“The high schools didn’t do their jobs,” Harper-Marinick said. “We can’t send them back; they’ve graduated.”
That is what should be setting the alarm bells ringing. Kids dropping out at 16 is not new. The poor performance of the kids that we as tax payers pay for, that needs to change.
Think about it this way, the current model is K-12 and then college or career. If you listen to ASU and others what is their model? K-20. Hey, when did ‘college’ sneak in there?
The world changed, K-12 was modeled after K-8 that was set up in the world of manufacturing. Who does manufacturing anymore? So we have inflation of the required educational minimum.
Do businesses necessarily need that college degree for that job? NO. As Mike Rowe points out, our country is suffering a shortage of people who have hard skills. That means electricians, plumbers, welders, etc. Yet we don’t see ASU partnering with EVIT to push that, why?
Education is at a crossroads. Right now you can get your child to sit and learn just about anything on Youtube. Colleges across the globe put up the same courses for free. You just spend the time and see if you can learn outside the classroom.
Times have changed, ASU is now a rather odd duck. Technology has made learning portable and it has all these campuses. It is great for research, but really how many people do that?
A basic real life or practical education is needed by all. By 16 if a child can do the basics and have a skill, why not put them to work. We need journeymen and apprentices. It is time for education to stop dictating and see the world as it is now.
Crowe will always ask for more students and funding. What is biting his bottom end financially and practically are the students who are not prepared for college and he and his college have to remediate.
John,
You still have never adequately been able to explain to me your reasoning for how diverting funds from one school to another based on where parents decide to send the kids hinders the education of those children.
Leaving aside for a moment the topic at-hand (inadequate funding for ALL primary and secondary public education)…
Diverting funds to the gaining school probably doesn’t hinder the education of the children entering that school. It may in fact improve the education of the children entering that school. But it’s a zero sum game. The gaining schools get better (in-part because they don’t cater to students who have educational challenges, and are thus more expensive to educate), and the schools that lose students get worse with loss of funding. And if you don’t believe that, it’s true if for no other reason than the sunk cost of the real estate the public schools already own is distributed over a smaller population of students, with a shrinking budget.
IMHO (and I’m no education expert), I’d like to see the public schools fully funded in order to make them a more attractive option.