Is Education Reserved for the Wealthy?

Special to Role Reversal
Lael De Boer

Far before your student ever receives their high school diplomas, they are dreaming of getting in to the perfect college with its academic reputation, beautiful campus facilities, and amazing athletic teams. The acceptance letter used to be the only worry clouding that dream, but now the piggybank is beginning to

overshadow this concern with an even greater one: How will you afford college?

Photo credit: Phase3Profit.net

College tuition and expenses have risen drastically over the past thirty years. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average yearly tuition has risen from $9000 to the current price tag of $21,657.  While tuition has risen greatly, the average amount of financial aid remains below $8000. This gap between the expensive bills and the available aid is creating a generation of college graduates with enormous college debt and high school students without much hope.

Those with mutual funds and mansions may be able to afford the rising costs, but as we have watched the cost of a college education rise more than more than ten times what it was 35 years ago (Bloomberg), the rest of us are beginning to wonder if education is becoming unreachable for the average citizen. 

Preserving Your Chance at Higher Education

For those of you who have been depending on student loans to pay for college, the latest events in Congress should be of great concern to you. Until July 1^st, interest rates on student loans remained at 3.4%, but due to the inaction of Congress, loan rates just doubled to 6.8%. This additional burden is placing higher education further out of reach for many.

Education Week reports that student advocacy groups are looking for a one-year extension of the lower rate, but this is only a short-term fix. For those of us who want to see long-term change, it is time to get involved in the political scene, even if it is simply sending a letter to your representative urging them to take action on this issue. Politicians need to start moving towards a comprehensive solution.

Still, college and exorbitant bills are approaching quickly for many, and parents and students are desperately searching for ways to make it more affordable. With the new interest rate in mind, the best way to pay for college involves avoiding loans. Chelsea Watkins outlined some of the best steps for funding a college education without creating debt in a recent interview. The most important points boil down to being prepared, being educated on what is available, and putting your best foot forward.

1. Start Accruing Money Now – No matter where you go to college, having money saved up will help when those bills arrive. However, instead of simply saving for college, start accruing money by placing your college savings in accounts that will grow that money. Similar to how a college loan would cost you more in the long-run through interest payments, placing money in accounts like 529s, Roth IRAs, and Dividend Paying Whole Life Insurance will make you more money overtime by gathering interest, meaning you’ll end with more money than what you started with. 

2. Understand Financial Aid – The amount of aid that colleges and the government will provide depends greatly on your EFC and the college’s % of Need Met. Your EFC (Expected Family Contribution) is the amount of money that the family is expected to pay for their student’s education. This number is calculated by examining the students and parents’ income and assets. Your “need” is than determined by taking the Cost of Attendance for an education institution and subtracting your EFC. Colleges vary in the amount of need they meet. Attending an institution with a higher % of Need Met means that you will receive more financial aid and will pay less out of your own pocket.

3. Put Your Best Foot Forward—Colleges determine their financial aid packages around a variety of factors besides need. Students already know that grades and their entrance exam scores affect their acceptance into college, but should remember that these factors also affect their financial aid awarding. Colleges also examine the strength of students’ applications. Doing what you can to ensure a stellar application and entrance essay will make colleges want you, thereby making them offer more aid in order to secure your

Lael De Boer writes for Launch Education, studies English Language Arts and writes everything from research papers and literary analyses to creative fiction. She is an avid proponent of proper English grammar usage and has become a keen editor from years of academic proofreading.

Don't miss Mark's book ROLE Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom, now available in the ASCD store, Barnes & Noble and at Amazon.com

Results-only learning can appease the reformers

In a brilliant post at The Answer Sheet, edited by Valerie Strauss, New York city school principal, Brett Rosenthal, writes about everything that is wrong with school reform.

Among other things, Rosenthal suggests that the current reform movement attempts to solve education woes by eliminating teachers unions, promoting more teaching to test and, perhaps worst of all, creating a teacher rating system that will potentially undermine the effectiveness of teachers and damage impoverished students' chances at receiving a good education.

Although I agree with Rosenthal on all points, I also believe the best way to placate the reformers may be to stop fighting them. Reformers want more testing and more teacher accountability. Teachers hate testing and don't want to be rated based on test results. In a Results Only Learning Environment, students develop a thirst for learning. They become avid readers, curious researchers and effective problem-solvers.

Because of this, students in a ROLE perform well on standardized tests, as they look at it as one more easy hurdle to conquer. So, if we convert to results-only learning, teachers can have their cake and eat it too.

We can be outstanding educators and we can appease the reformers.

President Obama: you just lost my vote

Photo credit: Care2 Make a Difference

"You lost a lot more than me," Mr. President. "You just lost my vote."

Annette Bening's perfectly-delivered line during a climactic moment in the movie, The American President, is one that should resonate with President Obama, as tens of thousands of angry teachers in New York are likely saying the same thing today.

One day after New York teacher rankings were published, those educators and hundreds of thousands more nationwide are outraged, and we're not just mad at the idiots in New York who allowed this useless data to go public.

I'm certain that I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that the blame for this must fall squarely at the feet of President Barack Obama. After all, a monstrous $5 billion of Obama's education budget is intended to "tie teacher pay to performance." Don't assume for a second that "performance" means how well teachers actually teach. This is all about standardized testing -- something Obama suggested he'd fix, while campaigning four years ago.

Being kind, I'd say Obama has fallen short of his goal of fixing No Child Left Behind. Being accusatory, I'd say that Obama has flat-out lied.

If anything, during Obama's presidency, American education has gotten much worse than it was when he arrived. Not only are we still stuck with the monster that is high stakes testing, now teachers are being judged by this insidious data, which even most people outside of the profession realize is nothing short of illogical.

I proudly supported Barack Obama four years ago. I even campaigned form him. When things were going poorly his first couple of years in office, I defended him. Enough is finally enough. I can no longer support a president who has turned his back on education. I can't defend a purportedly-intelligent man, who wasn't smart enough to hire an educator to run his education department. I can't stand by a leader who values numbers over people.

President Obama has lost me as a supporter. He's lost more than me, though. He's just lost my vote.

Did Hawaii start the war against RTTT, NCLB?

Teachers in Hawaii served a crushing blow to President Obama's Race to the Top initiative, when 67% of the state's teachers voted against a new contract that would require merit pay, if the state was to earn RTTT money.

Courtesy: Hawaii Tribune-Herald

If a large majority of 9,000 teachers in a state are willing to say no to $75 million in government dollars, because they are so staunchly opposed to being judged on test scores, one must wonder when other states will follow Hawaii's lead.

An even more significant question might be, is this the beginning of the war between educators and politicians that will ultimately strike down No Child Left Behind, putting an end to standardized testing once and for all?

Since NCLB's inception, teachers and researchers nationwide have complained in books, articles and at national conferences that high stakes tests are ineffective in evaluating student performance and, in fact, detract from learning. However, there has not been the solidarity necessary to make a large enough statement to get the attention of education lawmakers and of the Obama administration.

The courageous teachers in Hawaii have made a resounding statement. Perhaps their vote was the first shot fired in a war that has been a long time coming.

Maybe, in addition to saying no to Race to the Top, the teachers in Hawaii were saying good-bye to No Child Left Behind. Maybe they were saying they will no longer stand for high stakes testing. Maybe they were telling President Obama and Arne Duncan that they will not stand for a failing education system. Maybe they were saying that the testing has to stop.

Maybe they were starting a war that every teacher in America needs to join.

Why compete with education in other countries?

I've never understood America's preoccupation with competing globally in education. Why is it so important for our students to outscore students in China or Taiwan on a standardized test? Will it raise my quality of life, if little Johnny's math grade is higher than his Japanese counterpart in the fourth grade?

Education Week's examination of how American education stacks up with education in other countries sums up the issue this way:

"Much of the debate centers on whether the U.S. education system has slipped from a position of dominance, or is holding steady, in areas deemed crucial to economic security, particularly the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and so-called 21st-century learning and communications skills."

Let's see if I have this right. If our students' scores on an arbitrary test are substandard, according to some bureaucratic bean counter, the economic security of the entire nation may be in jeopardy. I can't imagine anything more absurd.

I wonder if we were to focus our energies on creating opportunities to collaborate with other countries on best practices just how much better off all of the world's students might be.

Big Brother is destroying American education

George Orwell's 1984 is a cautionary tale about a government that polices everything citizens do, including how they think. The term "Big Brother is watching" was popularized by this classic dystopian novel. Big Brother is the party leader, who does everything possible to eliminate individuality.

Recent comments here at ROLE Reversal, on Twitter, Google+ and other articles and blogs got me to thinking that Orwell's Big Brother and our current government may not be so different. One might argue that the notion that we're being controlled by thought police is absurd, but consider the government's role in education and its impact on educators.

The comment below, left on a blog post about the negative effects of homework, is a perfect example of the thought control that our government is creating with standardized testing:

"Sounds good, but my state says we Must finish x amount of concepts in the year, and be prepared for an end of course exam that determines if they graduate. I need every second of class time and the students need practice to get the ideas into long-term memory."

I hear similar complaints daily in my own school, from colleagues scared senseless that their students won't pass the test, subjecting the teachers to all sorts of state-mandated wrath. Don't standardized tests force teachers to behave like thoughtless automatons, handing out practice test worksheets and homework day after day, as they spout "You must pass, you must pass," mantras at their students? Or do they?

Most readers of Orwell thought his novel was, in fact, cautionary and that his plot was far too outlandish to ever come to fruition.

As we gaze into today's classrooms and see one mind-controlled teacher after another, we must wonder if Big Brother isn't alive and well today, controlling the thoughts and actions of teachers and destroying American education and the futures of our children along with it.

How would you spend 71 billion dollars?

Congress recently approved more than $71 billion for education for the fiscal year ending September of 2012. Of course, hundreds of millions are set aside for Race to the Top and other useless organizations like Teach for America.

I did some quick math and learned that if the government simply divided the money equally by the number of public school students, it would mean schools would have roughly $1,400 per student. Granted, this isn't a huge amount, but if we knew there would be at least this much yearly, imagine what schools could do to improve education.

Just spitballing, my first thought was to put an iPad, loaded with powerful applications, in the hands of every student. These would last a long time, so in subsequent years, the $1,400 per student could go for other useful education materials.

Keep in mind, this is in addition to the millions districts get each year from tax dollars and existing government funds.

The way this gigantic pile of cash is currently dispersed, though, most of the nearly 50 million K-12 public school students are left penniless.

So, how would you spend 71 billions dollars?

Are we losing the fight?

An education blogger I read often, Joanne Jacobs, recently posted a link to a traditional teaching program, called DI (Direct Instruction), created by someone from the private sector.

Although I had heard of this, I only knew that it embraces everything I'm against in education: scripted lessons, rules, worksheets and tests, so I had previously dismissed it without further research. The eBook Jacobs linked to on her blog about DI confirmed my suspicions -- that DI is one more in a long line of traditional systems that provide crutches for bad teachers and turn students into mindless automatons.

I decided to share my opinion about DI in the comment section on the post; I was the first. A few days later, I returned to Jacobs' blog to find dozens of comments. I was not surprised by the opinions, most of which were directly opposite of mine. Some outraged fans of Direct Instruction thought I was crazy and defended DI and other oft-used weak practices, like lions fighting for their young.

I was not angered by the comments; after all, these people were only defending what they believe in.

Rather, I began considering how difficult it is going to be to overcome these outdated teaching methods, so we can reform American education. If programs like DI and other scripted, basal-type systems can so easily influence parents and educators, how will modern, more progressive teaching methods, like results-only learning, compete?

I wonder, are we losing the fight with traditional teaching?

Does this remind you of anything?

New York state education department representatives, training principals on a new teacher evaluation system, explained that they don't understand the new evaluation method themselves.

To make the point, they showed the video below. Not surprisingly, according to the New York Times, not many people in attendance thought it was funny.

What do you think?

When administration sucks the life out of teachers

The new school year started yesterday with our usual district-wide convocation. This is when all teachers and staff meet in our high school's auditorium to hear the superintendent talk about the coming year.

Sadly, in recent years, this has become a time to discuss our failings on the state-mandated standardized test.

Courtesy: Penn Political Review

Year after year, it's the same thing: we're labeled as "average," "below average" "above average," or "excellent." The "good" schools are praised, and the "below average" ones are vilified in front of the entire districts and local politicians. Then, we're informed that this year will be different, because we have some tremendous new program that will magically get students to pass the test.

All this manages to do is suck the life out of teachers. Instead of looking forward to the energy and fresh ideas that most teachers return with, teachers head back to their respective buildings, with their heads held low and their vigor crushed.

When administration sucks the life out of teachers, it makes for a horrible way to start a new school year.

Why high stakes testing is all about money

Today, I received correspondence in my school e-mail inbox from a company, promising to increase student achievement on our state-mandated standardized test.

For the small price of $1,495, Coach Publishing declares, I can plop my students on computers and have them take practice test after practice test. Oh, but there's more: for my slightly-less-than-$1,500 investment, the company will also give me real-time test results and customized skills practice.

Courtesy eHow.com

If one wonders why it's so difficult to get bureaucrats -- the same ones who blame teachers for the problems in education -- to understand what's wrong with high stakes testing, there is no better evidence than this. Politics is about lobbyists, and education has no bigger lobby than the opportunists who keep producing these useless test-taking programs at exorbitant prices.

Let's see, for $1,500, I could purchase 400-700 paperback novels. If I do nothing more than put the books in my students hands and tell them to read all year, they will still outperform their peers, who use software systems, like the one referenced above.

It doesn't matter, though, because high stakes testing is a big money business. So, while the testing lobby makes billions, our students suffer.