Dive Brief:
- Wall Street Journal columnist Juan Williams says failures in secondary education are causing long-term negative effects for minorities in college outcomes.
- 20% of African-Americans and 15% of Hispanics held college degrees in 2013, and the number of minorities enrolled at top research institutions has flat lined in the last 20 years.
- Overall, more minority students are graduating high school and attending community college, but a large percentage of those students do not earn a degree.
Dive Insight:
There is a certain academic arrogance colleges and universities hold in conducting their business; many institutions operate on the premise that if students can make it to their doors, unprepared or otherwise, they can do enough with technology, analytics and environment to undo in four to six years the unattended learning capacity all but broken in K-12.
With the increasing numbers of students living in poverty, and growing picture of students entering college unprepared, this approach is running short on merit.
If colleges and universities want to see a better caliber of student walking through their doors, it will require significant investment from them to build the secondary pipeline. With increased focus on teacher training programs, offering credit or stipends to students who mentor secondary students in surrounding communities and producing research on secondary education best practices in their region, colleges can be the catalysts for true education reform.