Good News and Bad for Jersey Schools

by: Thurman Hart

Wed Jun 21, 2006 at 08:31:40 AM EDT

Approximately 85 percent of students who begin high school in New Jersey end up with diplomas four years later, a figure that places the state atop the nation, according to a pair of reports issued yesterday.

The reports -- from the nonprofit Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week, and the National Center for Education Statistics in the Department of Education -- showed New Jersey's graduation rate well above the national average of approximately 70 percent.

While this doesn't address the two most vital components of why we send children to school (knowledge level and critical thinking skills) it is a rough measure of our commitment to keep kids in schools and give them the first step towards being successful in the world.  It's something that educators and parents should take pride in accomplishing.

Now if we could show that same commitment to higher education.

Rutgers, on the other hand, managed to graduate 39.3% of its students in four years and 69.2% in six years. 

Albright is right to not blame the school for everything.  A big problem with getting an education is the price tag that comes with it.  A year in college in New Jersey now averages over $7,200 - and that isn't even counting the pricey private schools that abound in the state.  $30,000 for four years of school is an unrealistic burden for most families.

Of course, due to the budget crunch, funding for higher education be trimmed.  NJCU will see about $3 million worth of state aid cut.  How much of that will trickle down into higher tuition and lower grants to students hasn't been worked out yet.  Get ready for both, though.

But there's another nagging reason for NJCU's failure to thrive.  Albright writes:

An official at the Higher Education Commission suggested graduation rates at NJCU were lower because the students were not as well prepared academically as students at other colleges.

NJCU pulls mostly from its immediate vicinity - Hudson County, and specifically, Jersey City.  What good is it doing for us to boost our graduation rates at the high school level if it ends up hurting us at the collegiate level? 

One of my frustrations as an educator is having to teach basic information that student's should have as a pre-requisite rather than dealing with the subject they are supposed to be studying.  I can't tell you how many hours I spend working with students on basic writing skills just so they can turn in a three to five page paper that deals with a subject intelligently.  I've also noticed that large numbers of students who are ill-prepared actually come from the same high schools.

The good news, of course, is that we do have some level of commitment and we at least recognize that education is important.  The bad news is that we haven't yet understood that it is the "education" part of getting an education that should be our first concern.  Economic hardships will always be with us, and good students will always be unable to complete their education because of financial and life-related problems.  But it is unnecessary and cruel to pass students along who perform at substandard levels simply to inflate our statistics or to promote a "feel good about you" attitude.

What does it do to a person's self-esteem to graduate high school and then immediately flunk out of college because you are functionally illiterate?

We have some good news, as I pointed out.  Let's celebrate it and build on it as our starting point for a world-class education system.  But to do that, we have to be honest about the bad news - and then we have to implement a plan to address our weaknesses.