The Degree Seeking Process in Higher Education

"In the State of Florida, Should Four Benchmark Certificates Equal A Full-Fledged Degree?" by v. johns

I would like to revisit a previous post by enhancing and reposting recommendations I have made that I believe would improve the degree-seeking process in higher education. They are as follows:

First and foremost…

(1) GORDON-RULE-CORE CERTIFICATE: This stage of degree  development would consist of 30 hours of Gordon Rule classes, general electives, academic development classes and a “built-in” opportunity for those who are behind to catch up with remedial or “college prep” classes.

(2) LIBERAL-ARTS-CORE CERTIFICATE: This stage of degree development would consist of 30 hours of general electives, career exploration, preparatory electives for future major(s), and an opportunity to apply for a traditional A.A. transfer degree upon completion.

(3) MAJOR-CORE CERTIFICATE: This stage of degree development would consist of 30 hours of any core classes pertaining to one’s chosen major. (Double majors would acquire two major core certificates.)

(4) PRE-GRADUATE CERTIFICATE: This stage of degree development would consist of upper division classes needed to complete a degree, as well as any professional development classes, seminars, capstone classes and internships. The actual degree, as always, would need to be applied for, evaluated and either mailed, picked up by the student or presented to them upon graduation. (Double majors would acquire two pre-graduate certificates.)

Additionally…

(5) POST-GRADUATE CERTIFICATE: These certificates already exist in a number of interesting fields of study. Some, however, are reserved not for people who want to start anew, but for those who are already working in their chosen field of endeavor.

(6) TECHNICAL CERTIFICATE: These certificates already exist in a number of interesting fields of study. They range from web design, to nursing, to firefighting, to systems administration, to real estate, and vary in scope from entry-level employment certification to continuing education for those already working in their filed of choice.

Lastly…

(7) NON-ACADEMIC GENERAL-EDUCATION CERTIFICATE: This type of certificate does not exist and would serve as a way for those who simply love to learn (say… via art classes at the Armory in West Palm, or history classes at FAU’s Lifelong Learning Society in Jupiter, or Beginning Photoshop classes through Palm Beach State College’s Center for Corporate and Continuing Education in Lake Worth - or any other non-credit study) to showcase their desire to learn, on paper. This certificate would be useful to those with no formal education or those with gaps in their education, should they find themselves having to 1. change jobs, 2. re-enter the workforce, 3. would like to distinguish themselves in some way to move up in their company, without having to reinvent the wheel, or 4. as credit for those who are attending college late in life.  

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Since my original post on this matter, I have heard several analysts on two cable news channels (MSNBC, CNN) refer to “vocational training” or “career training” either as a way to beat the bad economy we have now or as a way to return America to the competitiveness it has clearly lost. A full-fledged degree, while useful, fails to account for the constant change in one’s industry or career that a certificate can immediately address and change course on. Furthermore, many colleges appear to be ill-equipped to process students who have no clue as to what to do with their lives.  

I believe that my recommendations would address several fundamental issues at hand: The first being, my last sentence in the paragraph above. The Gordon-Rule and Liberal-Arts phases of “degree development” would allow for significant exploratory learning and evaluation for students unsure of their futures. Don’t think this is a big problem? Consider Florida’s problems with graduating students “on time.” Whatever THAT means. Other than typical personal problems, what do you think this is attributed to? Career counseling needs to be mandatory, not optional.

Second, I believe better pricing models can be achieved, somehow, with those advancing further and further in their pre-graduate studies acquiring breaks in tuition and fees (excluding graduate-level study for now). Higher education’s exorbitant price tag (personal, financial or otherwise) essentially underlines how it has become more of a sellable product or commodity than an entitlement that all Americans owe themselves and their country. While academic talent and skill should be thoroughly rewarded, in a country of 300 million and counting, “survival of the fittest” (i.e., the richest and, sorry, the whitest), and any other free-market nonsense, has no business polluting education’s collaborative nature with its value-destroying venom.  

Third, I believe that knowledge-based study (academic) and hands-on study (vocational) should interact and intersect, equally, with the advantage of a four-year degree being its foundation in humanities-based knowledge, found in the Gordon-rule and Liberal-Arts phases of degree development, which prepares students for roles in management and other decision-making roles, should they choose to tread further in their careers. In the real world we often find those who are educated vocationally having to “go back to school” to acquire softer liberal arts people skills to advance in their industries’ management structures. Conversely, we also find people who have achieved significant academic success having to “go back to school” (at vocational level) to change careers for manual jobs in more stable or promising industries that can’t easily be off-shored. The upcoming green sector, for example. Thus, though these two approaches often intersect dynamically in the real world, higher education seems to be either unequipped or unwilling to cross these paths into one more meaningful, flexible, interchangeable infrastructure that reflects how our society actually works.  

I’ve come to thoroughly resent the “white collar vs. blue collar” nonsense that, even now, on some level or another, permeates our national character. Part of the reason it exist is the way these two skill sets are valued. People exceedingly good with their minds are damn-near kidnapped and invited to develop their minds at our nation’s alleged “finest institutions,” while those better with their hands are either left to fend for themselves or attempt to play sports, but luckily, most are savvy enough to further their knowledge in severely overlooked and highly-stigmatized vocational training schools. In the meantime, while many four-year college students end up in my domain, the “Great Grey-Collar Corridor” of thankless services jobs where accepting low pay is essential to surviving, many vocational students, with their more locally-focused, immediately in demand, hard to out-source skill sets, manage to land themselves jobs that put them light years ahead of their knowledge-based peers financially, even if only in the short term.

The essential idea of anything labeling itself  “an education” should be to enhance knowledge and skills of all kinds (report-writing, welding, accounting, etc.), not to pit one industry or skill set type against another in a sickening game of mental intelligence versus manual intelligence.  Really, the only thing separating a four-year college degree from a two-year vocational degree should be the emphasis on humanities-based management skills in a four-year degree (found in the Gordon Rule and Liberal Arts phases of development) vs. the more immediately marketable express skill-set development of a vocational degree. Furthermore, not only should those in four-year programs be encouraged to view their choice as a “deluxe vocational option” (training) with more emphasis on “industry skills,” those pursuing a “strictly vocational option” should be encouraged to further and enhance their specialized manual knowledge with the humanities and “liberal arts skills” that will enable them to lead in their industries, should they desire or be called upon to do so…

Before I conclude my remarks… a warning to educators, employers and parents… It’s no longer enough for parents, and other agents of counsel, to tell their children to “get an education” as we are so freely and un-thoughtfully told when we are young. Parents, these days, should be encouraging their children to acquire and develop highly-specialized knowledge and skills (via hobbies and extra-curricular activities, etc.) with the ultimate idea that an education will allow them to take their talents further with the development additional sets of skills (academic), learned in school.

When I am asked why I continue to seemingly waste time taking community college classes with no apparent end in sight, I often tell people that I am merely “renting space” to maintain and develop the few talents and skills I have (design, visual composition). My own personal academic failures have more to do with my past stubbornness in getting help with various emotional distractions and cognition problems than with education’s current state of abomination. I believe that had I realized early on that it’s about “skills” and not about “knowledge” and “the knowledge based economy” and other mindless nonsense we are told to encourage us to feed the corporate-consumer complex, I believe that my potential financial success would have been achieved by now. Why? Because, academic or manual, knowledge is a function of skill. It takes information and skill to create knowledge. This blog  exemplifies that point on a minuscule level. Still, there are others that the education system, here in our state and throughout our nation, have clearly let down with its weak infrastructure and almost meaningless imprint in our lives.

Once the jobs come back, if ever, the need for a stronger educational-industrial framework TO BACK THEM UP should be a no-brainer. Without education, and all its various forms, THERE IS NO AMERICA. And with education front and center in the current international competitiveness discussion, one would think that the state of Florida would try to further its growing “bellwether” status by showing the rest of the nation and the world how an education should be developed… Once this state decides to stop demonizing its own army of instructors, perhaps we can finally begin moving in that direction…

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Thank you for reading The Lost Paradise Journal of Florida. To view my recommendations in their original context, please click here.

Common Core, Palm Beach Post

"Is Common Core a Waste of Money? " by v. johns

I just finished writing an post on education explaining my views on “education and training” and how higher education, I believe, seems to focus more on ATTRACTING the so-called “best and brightest” than on BUILDING the best and the brightest. To read this article, please scroll down….

In the meantime, I’d like to get back to doing what I do best, which is analyzing old news and attempting to persuade readers of the overall importance of this “old news” in shaping our region and state. So, for today, I’ like to discuss an article by Palm Beach Post staff writer Kevin D. Thompson entitled: “National standards for K-12 learning: Common sense, or a waste of money?” (Sunday, July 18, p.1A).

Mr. Thompson begins the article by mentioning how education standards have always been “an uneven patchwork of guidelines, varying from state to state and often confusing teachers, students and parents.” He goes on to ask the question (Please pay close attention here!): “Why isn’t geometry in Florida taught the same way it is in California?” (Thompson, Palm Beach Post).

Indeed. Therefore…

Let’s start with the who and the what. As I mentioned before I’ve noticed some things happening on the educational scene that has left me feeling a sense that great promise may lie ahead for our education systems. One of them is the adoption of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officer’s Common Core State Standards plan. As for the when, where and why, according to Thompson, the Florida department of Education was expected to adopt the standards as of July 27 along with 22 other states, for the purpose of helping students “think more critically” and to “prepare them for the workforce” as well as to “make the U.S. education system more competitive with such countries as China, South Korea and Finland, which have long had national education standards.”  Mr. Thompson goes on to say that “The U.S. is on of the few developed countries that doesn’t have national standards for its public schools.” (Thompson, Palm Beach Post).  

Really? You know, I think it’s a shame that the U.S. always has to be compared to countries that are nowhere near as diverse as ours, but seem to function with the type of catalytic resolve in its talent and governing bodies that an allegedly fisrt-rate country such as ours SHOULD! Do you mean to tell me that as Americans, we’ve lost our resolve to maintain what has previously been deemed the best educational system in the world? If that’s the case, then it’s no wonder that the United States has not only lost ground educationally, but in every other vital statistic as well…

Perhaps the real sadness in all this is what I call the post-Johnny Carson Effect in which things that are universally familiar to most become dated, or die off, and are replaced or succeeded, over time, by a plethora of things that appeal more acutely to people’s unique personal interests and tastes. As fractured and niche-minded as our nation has become, you’d think that our educational experiences would be such that it’s the one thing we’d all have in common. Instead, we get generations of children learning an essentially hodgepodge assortment things based on often misguided state standards and tests that have nothing to do critical thinking and college preparedness.

The popularity of such blockbuster books as "Harry Potter” and the record crowds that followed the King Tut exhibit exemplifies the pent up demand for common educational knowledge, experiences and discussion that seems to have been looming over our nation for years on end in our recent, misguided “states rights” environment under flawed and corrupt Republican rule and weak Democratic party enablement of this rule. In particular, Florida’s own anti-intellectual environment is something that, while in the process of slowly reversing, has taken shape under Republican governance and must be eradicated either by threat (pressuring current leaders to actually do their job) or by force (replacing them and/or their party in upcoming elections).

Getting back to Mr. Thompson’s article, the Common Core plan was drafted in March after 14 months of responding to more than 10,000 public comments. Officials from 48 states, and the District of Columbia, “proposed changes that will require new textbooks, changes to the FCAT and additional expenses…”  As one might expect, Texas and Alaska wanted nothing to do with it. Furthermore, Minnesota and Virginia opted not to adopt. (Thompson, Palm Beach Post).

At least Minnesota and Virginia participated in the crafting of the plan. Such stand-offish states as Texas and Alaska, though excellent in their own ways, seem to have no interest in the overall standing of the Union in which they woefully reside. Their rugged-individualist culture and reliance on so-called “conservative values” put them at odds with the encroaching diversity of peoples and cultures forming the makeup of our nation. Thus, even though Florida is sometimes discussed in the same breath as these other states, as I mentioned before, we are truly in a world of our own down here. So, it is with much honor and pride that I am delighted to see our state, even if only for the money (Race to the Top), putting ideological differences with the Obama administration aside to begin correcting some of the states problems with its systems.

The article goes on to give the other side of the story. I won’t touch on them here. Just click on the link to this article and read them for yourself. Instead of addressing what I deem to be the same old tired arguments against anything new (costs, government intrusion, etc.), I will give you my overall opinion, a layman’s analysis, on how this development will help Florida get one more step closer in becoming the premiere place in the world to live, work, study, play, relax and do business… 

THE GOOD that will come of this adoption of the Common Core plan is that it will connect Florida, educationally, with the rest of the nation. With children all over the nation developing common knowledge in reading selections, writing methods and common mathematical problem-solving technologies, our children will be on par with the rest of the nation. No more comparisons with New York or anywhere else for that matter.

THE BAD? None that I can see. Although I will agree with teaching veteran Mike Dowling, quoted in the article as supporting a national curriculum, “so long as there is flexibility built into the system.” Thus, I’ll have to qualify lack of flexibility in standards a being a potentially bad thing.

THE UGLY, also provided by Mr. Dowling, is that “The recent curriculum debacle in Palm Beach County should make us very wary.” I agree. But even uglier than that is the consequences of not changing for the better will render our state as forever, though sometimes unfairly, unwitting owners of the dreaded “Flori-DUH!” label.

IN CONCLUSION…

I see the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for math and English as a step in the right direction for or state. Not only will flawed FCAT standards finally be put in check, potentially, but perhaps at the college and university-level, the need for post-high school college-preparation should diminish. (When I was in college, the overwhelming need for these kinds of classes was a pretty big deal and I’m pretty sure it still is.)

Furthermore, the adoption of a common national curriculum, I believe, will not only be immensely good for the state of Florida, but for the country as a whole, so long as foolish ideological debates on reading materials are left out of it (See Texas). A “silver bullet” for all that has gone awry in our education system, it certainly is not. But by giving our children common things to discuss and relate to, outside pop culture, not only will Core Standards serve as the basis for ultimate U.S. dominance in education and workforce development, it might actually help to heal some of the nasty divisions in our country that have fractured our national identity. At some point in the future, Ione would hope that we could address the challenges of the future, not as so-called “liberals and moderates and conservatives,” but as well-educated Americans, with the most unique most educated kinds of Americans being… Floridians!        

State of Education in Florida

"Educational Suicide at the Hands of Florida's Bloody Budget Axe" by v. johns

In my July 4 post, I rhetoricalcally scolded the citizens of Florida for allowing politics to rule over progress. But Florida's seeming overall lack of commitment to the economic and social betterment of its own society and its failure to execute such a commitment with education placed front and center in its ethos, has played heavily into this scheme. While it is true that the citizens of this state bare much responsibility for their floundering quality of life -- by failing to demand better standards of excellence and accountability for themselves and their children, and by allowing an overall environment of anti-intellectualism to flourish and prevail -- the state, itself, has added to this misery by failing to secure a consistently progressive and properly funded primary and secondary school system... One with more logical and apparent attachments to a wider variety of industrial choices.

This state, along with its national and global co-conspirators, has not only nearly evaporated and destroyed its own middle class through its enabling of pricing and taxing people out of options, but has acquired a new dynamic of rich and poor that has rendered the traditionally education-centric values of the middle class nearly laughable as its citizens settle for service, labor and even professional job choices that lag tremendously behind the cost of living in this area. Jobs that should be skilled and professionalized have been reduced to mere grunt labor with menial tasks and unsafe working environments. Industries and infrastructure that should be prime in their support of artisans and craftsmen alike have floundered in their development. Prompting many to go elsewhere to chase their dreams.

While Florida loves to tout its blue skies and bountiful beaches, the sun we soak ourselves in, down here, masks a great deal of misery for those of us who see beyond all the glitter and shine. Generation after generation, our children grow up not understanding the full value and strength of a well-educated populace in an ever-changing world. Here in South Florida, we find ourselves, in what should be an intellectual wonderland with full industrial support, surrounded by the cold reality that the state's intellectual core, its school systems, lack the independence, power and prestige needed to produce a more nationally and globally competitive educational-industrial complex. One that embraces full affirmative access to education, training, re-training and placement in all leadership, service, trade and professional roles. As a result, a certain anti-intellectualism has set in across the state in recent years. A certain anti-intellectualism that will cost us all in the coming years if we are not careful.

Florida's weak educational-industrial complex has suffered tremendously under the cold axe of political games and schemes. Lacking the full throttle needed to produce a stable of home-grown talent, the state's education system outsources it's brainpower, not in the name of rich diversity of thought, but in the name of intellectual laziness on the part of its legislative parent. Our municipal and private sector entities follow the same pattern. As a result, many of Florida and South Florida's rewards, perks and opportunities have been enjoyed to a much fuller degree by wealthy and well-educated transplants from more progressive areas to the north than has been enjoyed by our own native residents.

In the meantime, as an indirect result of education not being front and center and commanding the reverence and respect that it should in the state of Florida, sometimes our talent leaves the area and often our cities and towns are not taken as seriously as other national metros, such as Atlanta -- which is seen as a very business-friendly business mecca with an airport (Hartsfield - Jackson) that rivals O'Hare in Chicago. Florida, with its cheap antics, either nets the people other states don't want or sends to them the talent that they do want. While other places attract business, medical, artistic and scientific talent, Florida, just to make a quick buck off tourism so we appear to have the nation's smoothest economy, pushes harder for sunbathers and golfers. Not that there's anything wrong with sunbathers and golfers, but why not push for permanent catalystic talent to reside here who just happen to like to sunbathe and golf? Why not say: "Look at our powerful schools and industries... Oh, by the way, we've got the best beaches and golf in the world, too."

Even though our state is in dire need of an educational revolution, there are indeed many bright spots in Florida. The further north you go in the state, the more likely you are to find them. I haven't looked at the stats yet, but generally, Tallahassee and Gainesville fare much better in that department than we do, here in South Florida. Give Orlando, home of the famed I-4 tech corridor, much credit, as well. Coincidentally, these are also areas that "look like the rest of the country." Places that don't don't have, or at least don't overdo it, on the "tropical environment" theme. And while these areas are generally college towns with room to grow, overbuilt South Florida, apparently all out of ideas, bills itself as the leisure capital of the world. Still, on a city by city, county by county basis, however, there are some bright spots in the region. But, once again, the further north you go, namely on the Treasure Coast, the better the educational scene gets for children with generally safer and less crowded schools. Martin County shines in this area. For higher education, its hard to beat Indian River State College with its ties to the University of Florida and Florida Atlantic University. But the overall feeling that education, not leisure, is our future and our forte, is lacking. I find this not only unsatisfactory but very troubling as well.

With everything going on in the world in an in the nation - the high fuel costs, the foreclosures, the credit crunch, the layoffs, the wars, the mortgage crisis, the stock market plunge, the rapid decaying of the world's greatest economy - you would think that the State of Florida would finally let go of its fixation of perfecting the lowly art of mediocrity. Instead, Florida chooses to be even more sub par than it already is. Its not enough to be one of the most poorly-rated states in the country on any given category. The state's partisan government, with its jerry-rigging, last-minute patch-up mentality has decided to further embarrass our state by throwing our education system to the dogs under the guise of fiscal responsibility.

So it seems, these days, our people -- and the leaders who allegedly lead us -- are apparently lacking in the type of character and resolve needed to form a region of excellence and distinction. And as we continue to digress downward, educationally, from where we were under former governor Bob Graham's leadership, decades ago, we not only find ourselves at the bottom of the barrel in school funding and high-school graduation rates, we also must witness the academic suicide of this state in the form of a 200 million dollar slashing of the budgets of its public universities, colleges and schools. Our state's unflinching willingness to cut so deeply into the futures of our children, our youth and our families underscores a lack critical thinking among the leaders we depend on to keep us up and running as a state.