Dive Brief:
- Superintendent Yolanda Valdez has worked to increase expectations in the high-poverty Cutler-Orosi school district in California, where most students are the children of migrant farmworkers and few might otherwise consider college.
- District Administration reports Valdez has overseen an increase in the graduation rate from 76% six years ago to 92% now, and the improvement can be attributed to community partnerships, additional social-emotional supports in school, and the rise of a college-going culture.
- All students learn about different colleges each Thursday, first graders spend nine weeks exploring different careers leading up to a Career Day, and middle schoolers take inventories of their own strengths and what jobs might be most applicable to them before learning about postsecondary options like community colleges, vocational schools and universities.
Dive Insight:
Students who grow up in multi-generational poverty do not get a college-going culture at home. Students from wealthy families whose grandparents went to college grow up without college being a question. It is simply what comes after high school. Educators have had to actively develop college-going cultures in their districts to expand the number of students who think like this. As in the Cutler-Orosi district, schools have seen graduation rates rise along with college-going rates because of it.
Tying career exploration to college-going is important. Clear career pathways can help students recognize their many options as well as the educational requirements they’ll need to meet to qualify for each of them. Sometimes that means a vocational program, a two-year degree, a four-year degree or graduate school. While advocating for vocational programs over four-year degrees has become controversial, there has been a pushback against the idea that vocational programs inherently mean having lower expectations for students.