College this fall--parents' perspective

[marshwiggle]

Again, for the subjects that are truly cumulative and must be followed in a mostly prescribed order to be able to learn, the gap between
the haves (those who could access all the material, have support at home to keep learning, and is otherwise a pretty boring, early summer vacation)

and

the have nots (some combination of limited access to the materials, no academic support at home, real worries about food/rent/medicine/utilities/basic survival)

will widen and possibly not just a little bit.

Even if we just move the one semester, now we have students at key junctions who will be off-schedule by most of a semester for the rest of their time in school.  That's not just getting back to normal by fall 2021 and will cause ripples for which the systems need to plan for several years.  Every big shutdown we have will create a new ripple in that system. Eventually, from a systems viewpoint, one does focus on the majority of the students who could still succeed and sigh heavily as the other students get shafted because it's not a good use of resources to spread them too thin to address literally every individual student's unique needs.

As some anecdata, Kid 2 is doing just fine (projecting straight A's), but has a friend-of-a-friend who has all D's and an F. He's the kind of kid who needs external motivation and structure, but he isn't getting it.

At the risk of riding one of my hobby horses, this is why streaming is important. Pretending that all of the kids in one classroom are at the "same" level only requires some sort of disruption like this to make it glaringly apparent that the illusion of similarity is fragile and shatters easily.

[jimbogumbo]

Again, for the subjects that are truly cumulative and must be followed in a mostly prescribed order to be able to learn, the gap between
the haves (those who could access all the material, have support at home to keep learning, and is otherwise a pretty boring, early summer vacation)

and

the have nots (some combination of limited access to the materials, no academic support at home, real worries about food/rent/medicine/utilities/basic survival)

will widen and possibly not just a little bit.

Even if we just move the one semester, now we have students at key junctions who will be off-schedule by most of a semester for the rest of their time in school.  That's not just getting back to normal by fall 2021 and will cause ripples for which the systems need to plan for several years.  Every big shutdown we have will create a new ripple in that system. Eventually, from a systems viewpoint, one does focus on the majority of the students who could still succeed and sigh heavily as the other students get shafted because it's not a good use of resources to spread them too thin to address literally every individual student's unique needs.

As some anecdata, Kid 2 is doing just fine (projecting straight A's), but has a friend-of-a-friend who has all D's and an F. He's the kind of kid who needs external motivation and structure, but he isn't getting it.

At the risk of riding one of my hobby horses, this is why streaming is important. Pretending that all of the kids in one classroom are at the "same" level only requires some sort of disruption like this to make it glaringly apparent that the illusion of similarity is fragile and shatters easily.

marshwiggle: I can and have argued both sides of the streaming/tracking issue. However, literally no one pretends what you just stated.

And yes,  I know what literally means.

[wellfleet]

I'm really glad that wellkid is a high school sophomore this year, and not closer to college. His school district has just implemented pass/fail grades for all of spring semester, unless students request to opt out and receive letter grades (wellkid will not be opting out). If he had been planning on college in the fall, especially away from home, we would definitely be talking about gap year possibilities instead.

[marshwiggle]

At the risk of riding one of my hobby horses, this is why streaming is important. Pretending that all of the kids in one classroom are at the "same" level only requires some sort of disruption like this to make it glaringly apparent that the illusion of similarity is fragile and shatters easily.

marshwiggle: I can and have argued both sides of the streaming/tracking issue. However, literally no one pretends what you just stated.

And yes,  I know what literally means.

Sometimes here because of enrollment issues, we get "split" classes; such as a "3/4" split where there are some of each grade in the class. If a 3/4 split has all good students, and a "regular" grade 4 class has good students and struggling students, the 3/4 split will probably still be easier to teach than the grade 4 class, because the students all learn at a similar rate. That will be much more helpful in the long run that the *theoretical similarity of the students' incoming knowledge base in the regular grade 4 class.

*(The similarity is "theoretical" because the weak students were probably struggling in earlier grades as well, so they won't actually have the same solid knowledge base as the better students in the same class.)

[namazu]

At the risk of riding one of my hobby horses, this is why streaming is important. Pretending that all of the kids in one classroom are at the "same" level only requires some sort of disruption like this to make it glaringly apparent that the illusion of similarity is fragile and shatters easily.

marshwiggle: I can and have argued both sides of the streaming/tracking issue. However, literally no one pretends what you just stated.

And yes,  I know what literally means.

Sometimes here because of enrollment issues, we get "split" classes; such as a "3/4" split where there are some of each grade in the class. If a 3/4 split has all good students, and a "regular" grade 4 class has good students and struggling students, the 3/4 split will probably still be easier to teach than the grade 4 class, because the students all learn at a similar rate. That will be much more helpful in the long run that the *theoretical similarity of the students' incoming knowledge base in the regular grade 4 class.

*(The similarity is "theoretical" because the weak students were probably struggling in earlier grades as well, so they won't actually have the same solid knowledge base as the better students in the same class.)

Could you maybe take this sidebar to the existing streaming thread instead of hijacking this thread about college this fall?  Thanks.

[Hibush]

Current word from our admin is that they expect to be able to make a decision about bring back student for fall (late August) in six to eight weeks (first half of June). The progression of the first wave of the epidemic won't be clear until then. There will also be some better estimates of infectivity, transmission routes and other factors that will determine whether we can institute effective isolation practices if we do bring students back.

That timeline is going to keep people working with two sets of plans for a while. Whatever parent's plan is for closed campuses in fall, those better be flexible also.

[jimbogumbo]

More on topic. polly mentioned elite institutions not accepting AP credit, and she is absolutely correct.

Many not quite elite but quite good flagships do. IU and Purdue, for example both accept quite a bit. Examples from calculus: a 4 or 5 on AP AB receives credit in the first math/science/engineering calc course, and a 4 or 5 on AP BC receives credit for the first two calc courses. Similar for many other content areas.

If a student is considering taking courses locally look for statewide articulation agreements. The first two calc courses at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana can transfer as the first two calc courses at any state institution. When I evaluate credit from surrounding states I look at the statewide agreement there. For example, if OSU accepts calc from a CC in Ohio I will okay it also. That's a pretty common practice. Info like this is available to parents on state websites.

[jerseyjay]

I am not sure how on topic this is, but it is my understanding that more and more elite colleges do not take AP credit, or do not take all classes, or do not take if for major credit. The justification is that sitting an exam and doing well, while nice, is not the equivalent of learning in their hallowed lecture hall. This may or may not be the case.

But I also think it is useful to look at AP credit like a gold coin. It has a nominal value and a real value. Yes, you can use your gold coin to buy a soda at the local store. But that's really not why people buy it. Similarly, yes, in many cases you can use AP credit to gain advanced standing at university. But for many people, the real reason they take AP courses and exams is to show that they have taken rigorous high school classes. This is especially true as fewer students take SAT Achievement Tests (which in my experience are often actually more difficult than AP exams). In this sense, if you want to go to Harvard, the AP credits help more BEFORE you go there than they do AFTER you get in.

CLEP exams have the same "nominal" value as AP exams, but do not have the same "real" value. Passing several CLEP exams will neither help you get into Harvard nor help you graduate sooner if you do get in.

[kaysixteen]

Sometimes poly makes a great deal of sense, and this is one of those times.  Obviously not every kid will be significantly harmed by this education interregnum, but it is and will increasingly devastate many, most of whom are sub middle class, black and brown, coming from less than Cleaverish family backgrounds, etc.  I heard Harvard Ed Prof Paul Revell, former Mass. Ed secretary, interviewed recently, and he was imo vastly overoptimistic, simply not taking into account the fact that many middle class plus families, who often have a parent or now during the covid era perhaps two parents, at home to help with the impromptu online homeschooling efforts, and in any case have the tech access AND tech competence to meaningfully do such schooling, are nonetheless also augmenting their kids' Ed efforts now with enrolling them in various online tutoring and enrichment programs, all of which factors will more or less ensure that the overwhelming majority of kids in such families will ride out the school opening hiatus well enough--though even in these families there are plenty of kids who will be hurt by the lack of regular ftf access to teachers, special needs services professionals, etc, and who otherwise need more than average amounts of reteaching, reinforcement, and the like-- but for many if not most of kids in the other and much less advantaged cohort, this interregnum will indeed be educationally murderous, and will tremendously exacerbate the already shameful and scandalous inequalities of education and corresponding potential outcomes that sadly is a depressing and all but unique characteristic of the richest bleeping country in the world.

[Hegemony]

You all have a lot more pessimistic view than I do.

Grades 1-12 are basically 8 months each.  I'm not counting what's typically part of June because it's often just tidying up and doing low-stakes funnish stuff. Okay, so say 8 months per school year — 96 months of education. 2 1/2 of those have been disrupted. I'm skeptical that this is going to derail anyone's education.

In addition, some school systems operate on a different calendar. At my place in the rural Midwest, the k-12 schools start at the beginning of August and are done in mid-May. So they're missing maybe 6 weeks. Assuming none of the students in either of these cases works online or learns anything from online teaching.

Online education is not always ideal, but there are thousands of students already enrolled in online-only schools, and they're learning. There are even some plusses. Less time spent commuting to school (in rural areas this alone can be 2-3 hours per day), walking around the school, buying drugs from other students (don't believe that doesn't happen). Easier to avoid bullies. Less classroom chaos. My kid, who has ADD, finds classroom work very distracting because of the noise level and student tumult, and struggles to finish things by the end of the class period. Online he can work at his own pace.

Of course the world is in a worrisome shape now. But I don't think we have to be apocalyptic about the dreadful loss of all the intensive student learning that would have been going on.  In fact, my own college students seem to have gotten all the way through without paying attention even to basic things like the use of commas and how to construct thesis statements, and despite my ominous warnings, they go ahead out into the world and do just fine.

[Caracal]

You all have a lot more pessimistic view than I do.

Agree. Exacerbate existing inequalities? Sure, how could it not. That's a far cry from "devastate" or "murder." We've had this conversation in different contexts, but I think this is part of a tendency to overestimate the effects of education. The model that Poly and Kay seem to have is that education is this fragile bridge that leads kids out of poverty, but one break and they all plunge into the abyss. If just attending school was this efficacious then we would live in a very different, much less unequal country. Again I'm not arguing that more time off from school isn't going to have bad effects on already disadvantaged groups. It will, but if you wanted to try to ameliorate those effects, focusing only on the disruption of a few months of schooling misses the point. Start with providing more financial support for families in trouble, than think about subsidies for childcare, paid leave for hourly workers, housing programs and go down the line.

[wellfleet]

I'll be curious to see the aftermath of this year's AP exams, which will look quite different than those students and colleges are used to. AP Modern World History, for example, will consist of a single document-based essay question. Most students (including wellkid) will take the exam online, at home, in 45 minutes.

[Hegemony]

In addition, I think people may have an overly rosy view of the kind of education disadvantaged students are getting anyway. I'm not saying it's defensible, but it's the truth. I went to one of those high schools myself. It was an inner-city school in a very poverty-stricken area (think downtown Detroit). I have told this tale before, but it literally was the kind of place where not only were drugs sold openly in the classroom, but they were sold to the teacher. (Looking at you, Mr. M.) Many of the students were illiterate, and most of the teachers were not far off. No education was going on. It would have been a relief to have two months out of the hellhole.

I have a friend who recently retired from another school like that, in one of the poorest districts of the Bay Area. He idealistically tried to keep up quality for a while, until he even lost the plot. Many of his students spoke no or little English — they were often refugees from elsewhere, not even Spanish-speaking (where there were American bilingual kids who could help translate) but Cambodian and so on. There was no program to help them adjust. My friend was a math teacher. The math teacher in the room next door just showed movies to his students all day long while he played on the internet. No math taught at all.  My friend tried to keep things going, then got so discouraged that he started taking a couple of days sick every week. I attempted to shame him out of this, whereupon he retired.

My point is that a lot of poor kids go to schools like this, and missing two months of schooling is not going to hinder their education at all, because they are warehoused, not taught.  The problems go way, way beyond missing two months of school.

[kaysixteen]

Caracal and hegemony both have good and true points and the deep inequalities in our k12 Ed system are wretched.  That said, my point remains.   Some public school districts are so awful that the kids aren't really missing anything during this interregnum, but most provide something, and the kids that most need that something, the families that are least equipped to offer any meaningful homeschooling alternative now, well they not getting that something that the school provides, and the longer the hiatus lasts, the more devastingly murderous the situation becomes

[bacardiandlime]

All of this is true (the corona situation is only going to perpetuate structual inequalities: the students from more affluent backgrounds are more likely to have good internet, have parents whose income isn't under threat, who will have access to whatever alternative opportunities emerge).

To get back to the OP's issue though: isn't part of the question what the kid will be doing if they don't enrol in college? Sitting on their parents' couch and watching Netflix? Employment options for 18 year olds aren't likely to be great.