Mansfield: Answering The President’s Call, and more…

Answering the President’s Call

President Obama’s clarion call for our nation’s community colleges to produce an additional 5 million graduates by 2020 should be heeded due to the critical importance of higher education in keeping America competitive on the world economic stage.

As our national economy was tanking a few years ago enrollment levels at community colleges soared… however, dropout rates soared right along with increased enrollment figures. Nationally, almost half of all students who enroll in community colleges fail to stay the course and graduate. This is a critical component of the national educational problem that must be addressed forthrightly.

Additionally, the vast majority of those drop-out students obtained federally-backed educational loans … which will never be repaid. Would-be students are left with ruined credit, and taxpayers — as usual — are left holding the bag.

The reasons for this dismal state of affairs are myriad: A large percentage of community college students are the first generation from their family to attempt higher education so they often lack an experienced support system; many arrive on campus woefully unprepared for the more stringent educational demands, and therefore are in need of remedial courses; and, lastly, the colleges themselves are, in many instances, ill-prepared to deal with what administrators view as “non-traditional” students.

Raising retention rates at these institutions nationwide will be critical to accomplishing the goal the president has set forth, but, unless community college administrators get a firmer hold on why the dropout rate is so high, and are truly inspired to do something about it, the lofty goal of 5 million additional grads by 2020 will remain simply that: another unmet educational goal.

While proprietary schools are currently being blasted for what critics say is a bottom-line business mentality that supersedes the educational mission, some community colleges administrators have fallen into similar thinking. The fact is, institutions of higher learning are paid after students are in class for a set period of time … no matter if said student finishes the semester or not, or ultimately graduates or not. The prime object at some institutions, it appears, has shifted to getting paid by the feds, not graduating students. This mindset has to be corrected if the president’s educational ambitions are to be met.

Additionally, race and class plays into the equation … as they do in almost every other aspect of American life and culture. It’s far too easy to dismiss alarmingly high dropout rates as being a function of the unpreparedness of marginal students … especially those from the so-called “lower classes.” But the situation, in actuality, is far more complicated.

A little over a year ago I was contracted to consult on a community college’s program entitled “Pathways to Green Jobs.” The goal was to train individuals — the overwhelming majority of them first-time college students from the inner-city — in the growing fields of home weatherization, wind and solar energy, deconstruction, and other manual labor areas that will positively impact sustainability. The program was loosely based on the efforts and successes of Van Jones, the environmental activist who briefly served as President Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs.

However, my tenure at the community college level was as short-lived as Jones’ was at the national level … in spite of the fact John Torres (the lead guy I worked for) and I were as successful as Jones could have been in getting the mission accomplished. At our insistence, students with less than pristine criminal backgrounds were allowed into the program, and to everyone’s surprise but ours, they exceeded their counterparts (those without felony backgrounds) in the program. Our retention rate was close to 90 percent. The non-traditional, negatively credentialed students all had something to prove, and we offered the kind of encouragement and guidance they needed to prove it.

It was simply a matter of us being able to relate to this demographic. Torres and I laughingly called our methods “winning ugly” — but they worked. However, in the end, the college was not comfortable having such students (who sometimes can be challenging, to say the least) on campus … and the administration, in many subtle ways, let them know they weren’t welcome. And no one stays where they are not welcome; thus the 50 percent national drop out rate.

Marginal students from the so-called underclass need “peer” mentoring in addition to academic advisors who might or might not do their jobs very well. The individuals assigned by community colleges to keep these students in school and on track can’t be someone who is afraid to go into the housing projects, trailer parks, inner-city streets and backwoods hollers where these folks live. In some cases initially you have to go bang on their doors to keep them in school. Peer mentors have to possess the street creds and country smarts to talk to these folks in a language these new students understand, be able to empathize with them, and, just as importantly, assure them someone will be there when the hierarchical elitism that is so much a part of all institutions of higher learning anywhere in the world threatens to shame them into quitting by making them feel as if they don’t belong in the hallowed halls in the first place.

No one likes the feeling of someone looking down their nose at them.

Bullying takes on many guises in America, and the 50 percent community college dropout rate is, in part, proof of one manifestation of such behavior. New, marginal community college students may be receiving the remedial courses they need, but what they are not receiving is peer mentoring (initial hand-holding if you will) from someone who not only looks — but who actually can talk and act like them too. And they can spot a fake a mile away.

It’s only human nature that when college administrators select individuals to do student outreach they hire folks who look, act and talk like themselves … persons from similar backgrounds, folks they are comfortable with, those who can fit into staff meetings with ease or belong to the same social circles — but that’s a large part of the problem. It’s going to take non-traditional peer mentors to keep non-traditional students from dropping out of school. This small change can make a significant difference in retention rates, and can help to turn the president’s dream of 5 million more community college graduates by 2020 into a reality.

A Trip to Mecca

Time was, when a person wanted to convey the fact they have been to the center or wellspring of an idea, thought or movement, they would say they’ve been to the “Mecca” of so and so. However, in this hate-filled climate saying anything remotely associated with Islam is verboten. Nonetheless, while in Milwaukee recently I visited Will Allen’s enterprise, Growing Power. Allen is the guru of urban farming and people are coming from far and wide to see how he does it.

Tours are given twice daily, and the group I was in consisted of 30 folks, some from as far away as Senegal. However, not all of those touring the facility were thrilled with what they saw.

I think some of the college women were prepared to visit something akin to a college laboratory, not a working urban farm. The word I overheard used to describe the facility was “ramshackle.”

Indeed, the original group of greenhouses date from the 1920s, and have been added to and expanded as needed. Also, the smells of the farm (which, in addition to growing all types of vegetables, raising goats, chickens and turkeys) seemed to assault the obviously delicate nostrils of these city born and bred young women.

But some of us were in Valhalla. What Allen is accomplishing on a very small plot of inner-city land (augmented by some acreage in more rural areas) is truly amazing and inspiring. I’m going to attempt to use his methods of cultivating shiitake mushrooms sometime in the near future. If you want to take a peek of what that urban future can look like, go to our website http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com and view the dozens of photos I took. The future is already here.

Death is Costly

There’s an old saying: “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Similarly, some of our fellow citizens want the death penalty, but no one wants to bear the cost of it. Death penalty cases are enormously expensive, as well they should be. Millions of dollars to execute someone versus hundreds of thousands of dollars to incarcerate them for life.

While the costs of bringing Anthony Sowell to trial are already exceptionally high, they are nothing compared to what taxpayers will spend before he is ultimately, in all probability, put to death … somewhere 10 or 20 years down the road. In a punitive society such as ours, perhaps the only way to do away with the death penalty (yes, even for someone accused of such heinous crimes as Sowell) is to make it too costly. I’m glad there is a high cost associated with barbaric behavior.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.frombehindthewall.com.

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