College Access is Not Enough. College and Career Success is Our Goal.
by YourSFPublicSchools Team ~ January 14th, 2010
Author: Brian Fox
Director of Strategic Partnerships, San Francisco Education Fund
Achieving postsecondary success needs to be a viable goal for all our students. From incarceration rates to life choices, college degrees are an increasingly critical indicator for students’ long-term success. On a national level, students who receive an associate degree earn 25 percent more than high school graduates, and those who earn a bachelor’s degree earn 40 percent more.
In many ways, San Francisco has the key components for promoting college access: community organizations provide wrap-around support for students whose life circumstances hinder their college dreams; schools are helping students and families complete financial aid forms; local colleges and universities are offering visits and fairs and dual enrollment programs; local companies are providing students with internships and partnering with schools.
Our challenge as a city is to better integrate those efforts so that all students not only have access to higher education opportunities, but are prepared to thrive during and after college. Through two initiatives, the Post-Secondary Success Program and Communities Learning in Partnership, the San Francisco Education Fund is engaged with city leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors in an ambitious system reform effort to improve students’ preparedness for college and career. Our goal is to use information (data) to align our collective resources to meet the unique needs of our students. For example, the City of San Francisco is aligning workforce development dollars with the Career Pathway programs in our schools so that students can get jobs in areas they are studying in high school. City College is investing its resources so that those same students can complete college courses within their field of interest and graduate with a head start in college. SFUSD is developing easy access to information so that, for example, students know how far along they are in completing A-G requirements, counselors know who has been on a college campus or completed the necessary financial aid forms, principals know which of their graduates are persisting at San Francisco State, and parents and community organizations know how well their students are doing in core subject areas.
San Francisco is poised to be a leader in response to our nation’s challenge to graduate more students from college. We have the political will and the resources as a city to accomplish this goal, but we need collaboration from everyone to ensure that college access turns into college and career success for all of our students.
There are lots of ways to be involved in this effort:
- Be a mentor.
- Volunteer in a school.
- Be a corporate partner.
Together we can ensure that every child has the opportunity to graduate ready for college.
Communities Learning in Partnership is funded with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Post Secondary Success Program is funded with support from the Citi Foundation.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
January 15th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
It's impressive to see all the City's college-access resources listed, and exciting to hear the work you're doing to align them.
I would add that, on an individual level, mentoring a student is one of the best ways to get involved. Serving as a student's mentor greatly improves their academic performance and chances at succeeding in college.
To learn more about mentoring and how to become one, visit http://www.sfedfund.org/programs/volunteers_individuals_ways_mentor.php
January 17th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Mr. Fox,
Of course we want more students college bound, but current efforts at SFUSD with enforcement of the AG requirements does not take into consideration two essential caveats to that expectation. First and foremost, too many students from impoverished backgrounds are functionally illiterate and do not achieve at the level required for college readiness. The second point speaks to the individual's needs and not society's – many students are not interested in college careers for any number of reasons. To the extent that students need to develop more interest I wholeheartedly support efforts to mentor them in this quest and, therefore, I applaud the work you are doing. But let's not do so at the risk of losing even more students who will never achieve at a college level unless they know how to read appropriately. Counseling is important, but adopting curricula and instructional methodologies that have proven results for reading acquisition are more important. In the case of many students, the most needy ones, we are putting the cart before the horse.
I believe that SFUSD's A-G college readiness policy is a wide-eyed outgrowth of the social equity agenda, which, well-meaning as it may be, indulges in the optimistic notion of universal college-readiness at the expense of reality. The parent trigger component of recent Race to the Top legislation, a reaction to chronic academic failure, underscores the abysmal performance of many schools and their students and the problems associated with illiteracy.
The work you do in navigating students towards a successful college career is essential. At the same time, not every child will be ready, willing, or able to start college out of high school. A program called Multiple Pathways is gaining traction because it provides alternatives for many students who are not on the college track. It is designed specifically to diversify the programmatic content of school curriculum so that learning can take placed geared with relevance to daily life. The idea of learning has in any number of differing contexts. Funneling everyone through a college preparatory education may be defining success in too limited a fashion and could be a recipe for failure at its worst. The adoption of the AG requirements speak to the needs of only those students that perceive themselves as college bound. What about the rest?
January 19th, 2010 at 2:41 am
You make great points and we should be encouraging all kids to get a college degree. However, teachers don't believe in the competitive nature of our society. The fact is, society is incredibly competitive and kids must learn that if they develop the ability to work hard even when they don't want to, they'll make way more money and have a much better life, and in the long run have a more interesting job. Too many kids are told to just do what they enjoy and relax. Teachers often teach Lowell is no better than other schools in the district, but it's 20 x better, it's #28 in the U.S. They don't believe in working hard to get all As. They don't believe in even telling kids that grades determine their future. Many kids don't realize how much they're hurting themselves by not putting themselves in a position to get a degree.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
If my 5th grader reads better than an 11th grader , he's still not ready to go to college. If an 11th grader reads like a 5th grader, likewise he, too, is not ready for college. Expectations and goals are important, but dreams are no replacement for hard work and genuine achievement.
May 19th, 2010 at 5:54 am
Mr. Fox,
Of course we want more students college bound, but current efforts at SFUSD with enforcement of the AG requirements does not take into consideration two essential caveats to that expectation. First and foremost, too many students from impoverished backgrounds are functionally illiterate and do not achieve at the level required for college readiness. The second point speaks to the individual's needs and not society's – many students are not interested in college careers for any number of reasons. To the extent that students need to develop more interest I wholeheartedly support efforts to mentor them in this quest and, therefore, I applaud the work you are doing. But let's not do so at the risk of losing even more students who will never achieve at a college level unless they know how to read appropriately. Counseling is important, but adopting curricula and instructional methodologies that have proven results for reading acquisition are more important. In the case of many students, the most needy ones, we are putting the cart before the horse.
I believe that SFUSD's A-G college readiness policy is a wide-eyed outgrowth of the social equity agenda, which, well-meaning as it may be, indulges in the optimistic notion of universal college-readiness at the expense of reality. The parent trigger component of recent Race to the Top legislation, a reaction to chronic academic failure, underscores the abysmal performance of many schools and their students and the problems associated with illiteracy.
The work you do in navigating students towards a successful college career is essential. At the same time, not every child will be ready, willing, or able to start college out of high school. A program called Multiple Pathways is gaining traction because it provides alternatives for many students who are not on the college track. It is designed specifically to diversify the programmatic content of school curriculum so that learning can take placed geared with relevance to daily life. The idea of learning has in any number of differing contexts. Funneling everyone through a college preparatory education may be defining success in too limited a fashion and could be a recipe for failure at its worst. The adoption of the AG requirements speak to the needs of only those students that perceive themselves as college bound. What about the rest?