Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism
CT VIEWPOINTS -- opinions from around Connecticut

Community colleges should help students keep hope alive

  • CT Viewpoints
  • by Bob Brown
  • June 3, 2011
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

The Connecticut Mirror last week reported Higher Education Commissioner Michael Meotti’s belief, seconded by Gov. Dannel Malloy, that Connecticut’s community colleges might need to turn away people who, as Meotti put it, “have no ability to be successful in a college classroom.”  Our campuses are crowded, Commissioner Meotti said, and there is little funding expansion. So we should weed out the predestined failures to make space for those who can succeed.

This prescription calls to mind the adage attributed to journalist H.L. Mencken: “For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.”

As a professor at a Connecticut community college, I know that my colleagues understand, perhaps even better than Gov. Malloy and Commissioner Meotti, the dimensions of the problem that they presume to address. We see it at the start of every academic year-students who come to college unprepared to do college work. And we’ve come, reluctantly in my case, to accept that community colleges can’t quickly solve problems that accumulated during the first 13 years of education.

I also know that someone has to try, and that “someone” historically has been us. No effort in higher education is more important.

After I read the commissioner’s remarks, though, I came up with a bold plan to deal with the problem that he perceives: Simply post a sign over the entrance to every urban high school in the state that reads, “ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.”

I’m assuming that, since Dante Alighieri has been dead for more than six centuries now, his inscription over the Gates to Hell is part of the public domain. It also captures perfectly the logic of failure as destiny. We know, after all, that 75 percent of our students arrive unable to do college-level work in math, English, or both. We also know that deficiency rates are highest in the state’s cities. Why permit these young people to build hope for four years, receive high-school diplomas, and then have the doors shut in their faces? ‘Tis kinder, surely, to discourage them from wasting time on an effort that was doomed from the start. Plus, we would drive down enrollments, saving money on teacher salaries and building maintenance.

We could even close our urban high schools altogether. No schools would mean no teachers, no maintenance, and even more savings. Why, especially in a time of mandatory austerity, spend anything at all on those who probably will fail anyway?

Because none of us is born to fail.

We who work at community colleges have seen students who may have seemed likely to fail by available measures, and yet who have succeeded-whether the measure of success is graduation, a transfer to a four-year institution, a promotion made possible by success in a specific course, or simply the satisfaction that comes with learning something new. We have seen, by the hundreds, students succeed in ways that crude budget analysis can’t capture. I refer to the students who needed six or seven years to get their associate’s degrees because they had to complete multiple levels of developmental English and math to get to college-level work, because they also had to work full-time, and because they therefore had neither the time nor the money to take more than one or two courses in a semester.

These are success stories of students who, in hard times and by the numbers, might never have gotten a chance.

Community colleges face tough choices. Enrollment at my college must remain substantially flat until we can afford to hire more full-time faculty, which seems unlikely at least into the mid-range future. “Ability to benefit” is no longer an abstract phrase to kick around in our idle time.

We need to craft plans that allow us to achieve our mission within available resources. As we make hard decisions, however, we must interpret that mission as generously and broadly as possible. And we must focus on maintaining a success rate that, if properly defined, is quite admirable. Above all, we must view our students as likely successes, by their own definitions, and not as the predestined failures of arid analysis and crude quantification.

Let’s refrain from talk of destiny and failure, educators and politicians alike. Then all of us can turn our attention to keeping hope alive, which is an effort that enriches everyone who undertakes it.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
College students in Connecticut should be vaccinated now
by Dayna Vadala

If the state of Connecticut wants its institutions of higher learning to return to normal in the fall, it’s going to have to get shots into the arms of the students.

Connecticut, be a International leader against hair discrimination among children
by Faith D. Crittenden, Jade A. Anderson, MD, and Whitney L. Stuard

On March 1, 2020, Connecticut became the eighth state to pass the Crown Act, a national legislative movement that recognizes natural hair and cultural headwear discrimination as a form of racial discrimination in the workplace. While we are  in strong support and advocate for this law, it is important to recognize the limitations of the Crown Act and how it can be improved upon in future policy.

Three lessons for schools across America from Secretary Cardona’s hometown
by Mark Benigni

Over the past decade, Meriden Public Schools -- where U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona served as assistant superintendent -- has become a unique laboratory for new ideas that push the boundaries of what is possible in public education. And many of those ideas have paid off.

A healthcare system too broken to fix
by Sosena Kedebe MD

On March 25, the White house announced that it was going to invest over $6 billion in health centers that are funded through the Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in order to expand COVID-19 vaccinations and other health services provided to vulnerable populations. As a chief medical officer for a health center that is strained to reach some of the most disenfranchised patient population in Hartford, this was great news. Yet there was a part of me that took the news with a deep concern. Why you might ask?

The Connecticut Juvenile Training School and the lie that built it
by Colleen Shaddox 

Sitting in the paddy wagon, I was afraid – maybe apprehensive was a better word, since I rightly suspected that white privilege would guarantee me good treatment.  Still, I said a prayer of thanksgiving. After years of advocating for people in our carceral system, I was given a chance to develop more empathy.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion College students in Connecticut should be vaccinated now
by Dayna Vadala

If the state of Connecticut wants its institutions of higher learning to return to normal in the fall, it’s going to have to get shots into the arms of the students.

Opinion Connecticut, be a International leader against hair discrimination among children
by Faith D. Crittenden, Jade A. Anderson, MD, and Whitney L. Stuard

On March 1, 2020, Connecticut became the eighth state to pass the Crown Act, a national legislative movement that recognizes natural hair and cultural headwear discrimination as a form of racial discrimination in the workplace. While we are  in strong support and advocate for this law, it is important to recognize the limitations of the Crown Act and how it can be improved upon in future policy.

Opinion Three lessons for schools across America from Secretary Cardona’s hometown
by Mark Benigni

Over the past decade, Meriden Public Schools -- where U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona served as assistant superintendent -- has become a unique laboratory for new ideas that push the boundaries of what is possible in public education. And many of those ideas have paid off.

Opinion A healthcare system too broken to fix
by Sosena Kedebe MD

On March 25, the White house announced that it was going to invest over $6 billion in health centers that are funded through the Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in order to expand COVID-19 vaccinations and other health services provided to vulnerable populations. As a chief medical officer for a health center that is strained to reach some of the most disenfranchised patient population in Hartford, this was great news. Yet there was a part of me that took the news with a deep concern. Why you might ask?

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO