Knox College – A Hotbed of Progressive Thinking

On a visit to Knox College, Mark took a moment to talk about how you might find plenty of  unconventional and progressive thinking happening in places you might not expect.
Check this video out to learn more about this college with a beautiful campus.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant
 
If you prefer, you may read the transcript below.
*****************
I’m here today on the campus of Knox College, which is in Galesburg, Illinois.  It’s a relatively rural area; small town, agricultural town.  Illinois is a very agricultural state.  We always think of Illinois and Chicago, but most of the state is agricultural.  Knox is a liberal arts college, and beautiful campus; and most people would think that Knox would not be a very progressive place to go to school.  Actually, places like Knox, and we also visited Earlham yesterday, Earlham College in Indiana.  In some ways, Knox is a hot bed of progressive thinking.  The Lincoln-Douglas debates were held here, and if you think about it, the Midwest engendered some of the most progressive thinking when this area was first settled, it was anti-slavery.  It was definitely thinking outside the box beyond the status quo.
Certainly in a place like this, you’re going to have people who come from the surrounding states.  Many of the students who come here are within say a 300 mile drive.  However, the kind of thinking that goes on here is not inside the box.  It is not rural agrarian thinking; it is very much connected with the world.  Knox has that tradition, and the students and the faculty here do a lot of individualized research.  This is a very strong, academic environment.  Yes, it’s a little further afield, shall we say, than many other colleges who may be more suburban or urban, but don’t let that fool you that the kind of thinking that goes on, on a campus like this, is relatively status quo.  It’s not; you’re going to be challenged here, you’re going to be focusing on learning and isn’t that what your education is all about?
 

Ode to My Captain and The New GI Bill

I’m glad we have a new GI Bill, one that pledges to pay educational expenses for military personnel.  While I dread April 15th and my tax bill as much as the next person, I’m genuinely happy that our government offers at least some recompense to the men and women who stand in harm’s way on behalf of the rest of us.

But sometimes it can be darned complicated to help returning soldiers find the right academic program.  While things have improved since the passage of the new GI Bill, the process of getting two of the goofiest bureaucracies on the planet (the military and academe) to communicate is no easy feat.

Last spring I received a panicky phone call from a Captain in the US Army.  He wanted to attend graduate school, and his commanding officers had given him only a few weeks to find an appropriate program and get admitted.

As I told him, I was really honored to be able to help him.  I have very little day-to-day contact with military men and women.  I have no family members in the military.  No neighbors whose kids are fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.  No friends who are engaged in combat.  My Captain became my personal window on the conflict in Iraq.  We talked on the phone nearly every day (there was always some crazy problem to discuss regarding his graduate trajectory), and often our conversations lasted longer than either of us really had time for.  But we developed a bond of sorts.  I came to care about the guy.

My Captain had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, where he had been a platoon commander in some dangerous situations.  During the course of our work together, he shared stories and photos of the bomb scenes where he had nearly lost his life.  Twice.  Once he approached a IED to within 8 feet when it exploded, knocking him flat–and unconscious–but miraculously unhurt.  Another time, he and his platoon turned a corner just as a car bomb exploded yards away.

Of course, My Captain is certainly not the only soldier to have experienced scary stuff, and he was one of the lucky ones who came back in one piece.  But the stories were much more personal and more vivid for me, and his first person accounts both fascinated and repulsed me.  Here was a guy who actually volunteered to do really terrifying thing on my behalf.  I learned something new every time we spoke.

Anyway, everything about his admissions process was both complicated and rushed.   My Captain was also working full time, and was unable to use the phone during the day.  So I  had to call dozens of grad schools on his behalf to see if we could get some exemptions and some waivers to get him admitted.  Several universities were unwilling to play ball, in part because until recently the military would pay such a meager portion of the tuition bill. But in the end, My Captain was accepted to a competitive graduate program.  He was thrilled.  He started his studies last September.

But, as I learned last week, it was about that time My Captain’s suffering really began.  No, he’s doing just fine in with his studies.  He’s got that bit under control.  He’s smart.  He’s organized.  He’s diligent.

Like so many of his battle-weary colleagues, however, My Captain is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.  His nightmares have intensified.  His feelings well up in him, and they affect his relationships with others.  He is having a harder time completing his school work, so had to take the summer off.  He may have even have to drop out of school in order to enter a special program to help him put his head and heart back together.

As he told me all this over the phone the other day, I was at a loss for what to say.

So I told My Captain that he is a very strong person.  Certainly he is strong to have withstood the tests of war.  But I told him that he is even stronger in his realization that he needs help.  We both talked about how it’s not really in a soldier’s vocabulary to ask for help.  So his ability to come up with the request for assistance is itself a testament to his strength as a person.

I am honored to have served My Captain.  It gives me great pain to know that he continues to suffer from war-related injuries–injuries that are not physical, but mental and emotional.  I cannot begin to understand what he is going through.

The funny thing is that all during our phone conversation the other day, he kept apologizing to me.  He thought that his inability to focus on his graduate studies was somehow a poor reflection on me!  He feels as though he has let me down.  Tears welled up in my eyes My Captain apologized.  Shouldn’t I be the one apologizing to him?

Yes, I’ve read about our current wars.  I studied untold numbers of wars as a graduate student of diplomatic history and international affairs.  I’ve gotten angry with our political leaders.  I’ve written papers and given lectures on conflict theory.  Intellectually, I know that war is ugly.

But now, through my personal and professional relationship with a client, my heart now feels its ugliness.   It is a vicarious feeling, of course.  I cannot begin to relate to horror and fear My Captain has experienced.  Still, as he apologized to me,  I felt his pain flow into my heart over the phone lines.  And I wept.

So what am I, as an educational consultant to do with this pain?  Of course, I will continue to be a resource to My Captain as he continues the healing process, his military career, and eventually returns to graduate school.

But I can do more.  I can militate for more educational support for our active military personnel, as well as for more psychological preparation and treatment for those who will experience the terrors and ghastliness of modern warfare.  Those who put themselves in harms way–who risk getting blown to bits–deserve a free education if they want one, as well as whatever support they need in order to heal.

Further, I will state my belief that our men and women in uniform deserve to have their tuition paid at whatever public or private institution in the US will accept them.   Currently the government limits tuition payments to the cost of a publicly-funded college or university.  I say that if the student can get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford, or if they’d rather attend Carleton or Chapman or Millsaps, then we owe it to these men and women to pursue an education anywhere they are qualified to attend.  Taxpayers made this sort of opportunity for the Greatest Generation after World War II.  Is not this generation also Great?

I am honored to have been able to assist My Captain in my own small way.  And I look forward to serving others who have served me so well.  It’s the least I can do.


Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

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Did You Know? Deciding on a College Major in 21st Century

A recent guest post by Alex Berger got some people talking about the importance of choosing a college major.  Alex  argued that what matters is training your brain and developing a passion.

This video, which first hit YouTube a few years back after a classroom teacher in Colorado gathered some provocative statistics to show at a faculty meeting.

It’s a must-see for any high school student or parent of one. It ends with a question.

Give it a look: it’s only five minutes long. And once you start watching, you’ll want to view it again and again.


Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant


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Low College Graduation Rates? Blame Low Admissions Standards

‘Tis the season.  High school graduation.

It’s a wonderful time of the year.  But it’s also a time of year when high school seniors–and maybe a few juniors–are waking up to the fact that perhaps they aren’t ready for college.

Part of the problem, it seems, is that high school graduation requirements have been diluted. Let’s be frank: the graduation bar is pretty low.

But that does not mean, however, that the bar for entering college should be low.  Of course, we all want to give people second chances and to provide as much access to higher education as possible.  But something is seriously wrong.  And some states are waking up to the fact that access has its costs.  Financial.  And Educational.

At many of our colleges and  universities have four and six-year graduation rates at public universities is are really, really low. Really low.

Here are some examples (with statistics from the Education Trust and Wintergreen Orchard House):

University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande, Ohio.  90% of the students there are white.  And in 2007, the six year graduation rate was 12.7%. In the fall of 2006, approximately 550 freshmen matriculated.  Thus we can expect that about 70 of those will graduate by spring of 2012.  Tuition, room, and board?  a bit over $25,000.  Would you take out a loan if you knew your chance of graduating was about one in eight?

Concordia College is an HBCU affiliated with the Lutheran Church and is located in Selma, Alabama. Ninety-six percent of students are African-American.  The cost for room and board is about $12,000 per year, which seems pretty reasonable.  But only 9.1% of students graduate from Concordia in 6 years. What is going on?  Would you lay down your hard-earned money for a 1-in-10 shot at a Bachelor’s degree?

Western New Mexico University in Silver City, NM, serves a student population that is 46% Latino and 38% white.  This is a publicly funded university, and just over 2,000 students attending classes on its main campus, with a few hundred more scattered on smaller, further-flung satellites (New Mexico is a big, sparsely populated state).  The graduation rate?  15.3 percent finish in 6 years.  Costs?  Those subsidized by the good taxpayers of the state of New Mexico pay $4700 per year.  And the foolish 13% of Western New Mexico University who come from out of state pay nearly $22,000 in tuition–before room, board, books, fees, travel, and entertainment is included.  Highway robbery.

According to an article today in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, some people are starting to figure out that perhaps if we raised the admission requirements to college, perhaps the graduation rate would go up.

Blinding Flash of the Obvious.

The fact is that admissions standards at many colleges are abysmally low.  The joke in the business is that some colleges will admit any kid with a pulse and a checkbook.  And in today’s tough financial climate, some of these bottom feeder colleges–especially the private ones–should be nervous.  There are still plenty of pulses, but fewer checkbooks.  And perhaps consumers will be more wary about how they spend their money.  I mean, come on:  a 10% graduation rate?  Would you hire a consultant with a 10% success rate?  How about a plumber who fixed 13% of all leaks?  Or how about depositing your savings at a bank at which 11% of customers earned interest?  Looney, you say?  Ab-so-bloomin‘-lutely.   Some private colleges deserve to die.

It’s easy to see that private colleges may crash and burn as easy credit dries up and consumers wise up to the fact they should perhaps shop around a bit before they plop down their cash on the barrel.

But what about publicly-funded colleges?  Western New Mexico has a full-time faculty of 114 highly educated professors, plus another 150 part-time instructors.  Taxpayers foot mostof their salaries.  I’m wondering why the New Mexico state legislature isn’t all over that place, holding hearings, and asking whether the pointy-headed academics are actually doing their jobs?  What are the teaching, anyway?  Why isn’t there at least one legislator threatening to close the place down as taxpayer rip-off?

But the real issue is not the teachers:  there is only so much teachers can do when the individuals sitting in their classrooms is academically underprepared, or perhaps even marginally literate.

I’m all about access.  But when does our emphasis on access obscure our failure to educate?  When does our desire to offer everyone a second chance collide with the fact that college is–and should be–academically rigorous, and not all kids are cut out for academic work? When does our believe in equality of opportunity for all mask the fact that kids are still graduating from high school without even the most basic of academic skills?

When should an admissions officer look at an applicant’s transcript, size up the student, and say, “I’m sorry, I could admit you, but I just don’t think you will graduate”?

Sure, this would be mean.  Such brutal honesty might tromp on some poor young person’s self-esteem.  The kid might become sad.  She might cry. She might be disappointed.

But isn’t it downright immoral–criminal, even–to take that family’s money, to raise false hopes, to put the student in classes in which we can predict she will fail, and then watch her descend into a spiral of debt and despair?

Here’s what the admissions officer should say:   “I’m sorry.  You have not met the required standard.  Go to the community college at a fraction of the cost of this four year institution, do the remedial work necessary to succeed, prove you can handle college work, and come back and see me in a year. I refuse to take your money , because in my professional judgment I cannot, if I were to matriculate, you would be unlikely to graduate.  I’m sorry.”

In other words, folks, raise the bar for admissions. According to the Times Picayune, tougher admissions standards are working at Louisiana State.  More kids are graduating.

Duh.

So the lessons of this lengthy epistle?

1.  Private colleges with minimalist admissions standards may very well be crushed by the current economic crisis.  The College of Santa Fe is already in its final death throes.  Expect others to follow suit.

2.  Taxpayers and legislators–as well as ordinary families seeking educational options for their kids–should be alarmed at low graduation rates, and should militate to rase admission standards–if only to stop wasting government dollars.

 

Thanks for reading to the end.  This was a doozy.

 

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Grades, Your GPA, Education, and Learning: How Do We Compare Apples to Apples?

Today a reader wrote in to ask a question about comparing grading system between two different geometry classes in California.

Picture this. Two geometry teachers in the same school.  Each uses a different grading scale.  In one class, you need an average of 90% to get an A, while another requires a 94%.  My reader’s daughter struggles in her geometry class, and has a 70% average.  In her class with the tough grader, a 70% is a D.  In the class next door, her 70% would be a C-

“Unfair!” cries my reader.  Shouldn’t there be a law against such discrepancies?

My response:  welcome to the American educational system.  50 states.  14,000 school districts.  Chaos.

I haven’t looked up the California laws or the district policies in question.  But with my two decades as a high school teacher, professor, and teacher of teachers while I was at the University of Denver, I can tell that these discrepancies are all too common.

I  made two points in my response to my reader’s question.

First, grading is not a science.  Ever.  Never has been.  Never will be.  So while you’re looking at a difference between a 70% and 73%, my question is—70% of what?  Of course, the answer is, “70% of points possible.”  But what does the “points possible” have to do with the amount of geometry learned?  The dirty little secret is that while all teachers (myself included) try to establish a fair, scientific, transparent grading scale, the fact is we mess with the numbers all the time.  Or, if we don’t, we are just deluding ourselves about the unscientific nature of the grading process.

Second, the standards movement is a step toward standardizing learning expectations across the nation.  No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is very controversial, but for those who want to be able to compare apples to apples, it’s at least an attempt to be able to measure learning across schools–and perhaps eventually from one classroom to the other.  Some schools and districts are trying to implement “standards-based report cards” that clearly define the learning outcomes required, and then measure a student’s performance (with a grade) based on whether they have mastered the concepts and skills.

An awful lot of people oppose these attempts at standardization as an intellectual straight jacket that ignores the fact that all students are different, and that teachers need lots of leeway in how they teach these diverse students.

Maybe.  Maybe not.

No matter whether you’re for or against the standards movement, a full implementation of a standards-based education would cause a revolution in America’s high schools.

Think about that 70% that my reader’s daughter is getting in chemistry.  Chances are she does her homework.  Perhaps homework counts as 50% of her overall course grade.  Let’s assume that she also gets a “participation grade” linked to attendance:  she gets points for just showing up.  But if she fails the tests, she can still pass the course–even if she hasn’t learned one darned thing in chemistry.

If students were suddenly graded solely on whether they learned something–and whether they could demonstrate those new skills and new bits of knowledge on a standards-based performance assessment, more kids would fail out of high school than is the case right now.   However, kids would understand that school is not just about showing up–it’s about learning.  And teachers would be held more accountable to  how well they were able to ensure their students learned  what was required on the assessments.  What a different world it would be.  But at least that 70% my reader’s daughter received in chemistry would really mean something.

[Also it’s interesting to remember that in college, students generally get no points for homework or for just showing up.  They have to perform on tests and on term papers and in labs.  It’s quite common–more common than we’d like to admit–for college students to never attend a single lecture and still pass the exam.  Even I did this:  when pursuing my teaching degree in French, I told the professor straight up that I would not be coming to class–that I would be taking the final only.  The teacher was fine with that:  I got an A in every one of the three classes I took from her–and I never spent a minute in her classroom.  All she (or I) cared about was whether I could speak and write the language.]

The fact is, we cannot compare apples to apples in our high schools.  Offices of admission at colleges and universities try their best to make sense of this, and they are actually  pretty good at making decent comparisons, in part because most of them try to get to know the schools and districts from which their applicants come.  They know that a 70% in chemistry from Philips Andover does not mean the same thing as a 70% from an inner city high school in Baltimore.  And while they try their best, the admissions business is more art than science.

But if you’re looking for “fairness” in American education, or if you believe that we can somehow compare apples to apples across classrooms, across schools, across districts, across states…well, dream on. Fifty states and 14,000 school districts?  We have apples…and kumquats…and endive…and radishes…and tater tots.

In the meantime, all we can say the 70% our chemistry student has received is an impressionistic measure of how well she stacks up against her peers in the same geometry class.  No  matter what numbers the different teachers in this young woman’s school are using, if they use different tests, assign different homework, and teach differently, there is absolutely no way to ascertain whether she would be getting a C or a D under a different numerical grading system.

All this said, I did tell my reader that I thought she might be better of to focus more on her daughter’s learning and less on the perceived iniquities of grading systems.   Whether a 70% counts as a C or a D, this chemistry student seems to be learning a lot less than the students with a 95%.    How could she be learning more?

And in fairness, my reader wrote in again to say that she agrees with this focus on learning.  It’s just that she finds the system is so frustrating.  And she’s right.  It is frustrating.

I wish more parents would take their frustrations to their elected school boards and demand greater standardization of grading, harmonization of curriculum, and teacher accountability.  I’m glad that people are writing to me to ask questions.  But perhaps we could channel that collective frustration and bring about some much needed change?

GAP Year Abroad–A Great Way to Prepare for College and Learn About the World

I recently attended a GAP year fair to learn more about the growing number of excellent programs for students who want to take a year out between high school and college to pursue something different. Some students engage in community service, some travel the world, and some opt for another sort of educational experience.

At the fair, I met Chris Stakich, the co-founder and executive director of “Thinking Beyond Borders.”  This is an eight month GAP year program structured to expose participants to several key global issues.  I was so struck by the content of this program that I took Chris aside to ask him a few questions about his program.

This interview appears in the video below.


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Study in the USA from Guangzhou, China

During a recent trip to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China, I met with hundreds of students and their parents to explain the American higher education system.  I participated in college fairs, presented at education expos, and gave lectures.

As this short video explains, there is a dearth of good information about how to study in the USA, and many misconceptions about what it means to study in the United States.

Have a look!


Click here to read more about how I explain how to study in the USA in Chinese.


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Audition Tape for College Admissions

As an amateur actor and singer myself, I enjoy working with students who seek a college where they can further their interests in the performing arts.

I have a client this year who is a very talented hip hop dancer, singer, and actor. He is also a very nice kid who has been more than willing to think outside the box as he has searched for the colleges that best match his interests, abilities, and aspirations. He had decided not to apply to dance, drama, or theater programs, preferring instead to find a liberal arts college with strong performing arts programs.

Many clients write in and want examples of a strong audition tape for a performing arts audition. I recommend this example to you as a good model.

Have a look and let me know what you think!  Would you want him on stage at your college or university?



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Facebook and College Admissions–"FacebookGate" and Evolution of Social Media

FacebookGate.
That’s what blogger social media in education guru Brad J. Ward has called the College Prowler scandal, in which the purveyor of college guides was caught impersonating both students and colleges on Facebook in order to mine data and drive traffic to its website.
The story has been widely reported, including in InsideHigherEd.  My guess is that there will also be an article in the New York Times, if Brad’s tweets do not mislead (and they never do).
Brad uncovered this scandal, and we all commend him for it. And the story continues to unfold.  But make no mistake:  this is a wake up call for colleges to pay more attention to social marketing.
Mark Montgomery
College Admissions Expert