Some Thoughts on Ivy League Admissions-And Affirmative Action- for Donald Trump

Some Thoughts on Ivy League Admissions- and Affirmative Action-- for Donald Trump
Professor Mark Naison
Fordham University

Donald Trump’s comments that Barack Obama didn’t have the grades to get into Ivy League
Schools shows a profound ignorance of the admissions policies of those institutions. According to Bowen, Shapiro et all who thoroughly researched the admissions policies of elite universities in the US ( and whose conclusions can be found in their 2002 book The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values) the greatest admissions advantage at those schools goes not to children of alumni, or underrepresented minorities, but to recruited athletes! Not only are their twice as many recruited athletes as underrepresented minorities at these schools, but the admissions advantage accruing to an athlete, whether male or female, is twice as powerful as those given to a minority or a “legacy”.

We are not talking about a small number of students here. At most Ivy League schools, close to 20 percent of the undergraduates are recruited athletes, and at Williams College, they
constitute 40 percent of the student population. Given the variety of the sports encompassed, which go from lacrosse, to golf, to tennis to sailing, to soccer, to hockey along with softball, baseball, basketball and football, it turns out that the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries of
“sports affirmative action” are white. Not only are these athletes admitted with significantly lower grades and SAT’s than the university mean, but their grades in college tend to be lower than those of their fellow students. Nevertheless, their incomes after college are no lower than those of their fellow students because a large proportion of them go into careers in the financial sector, which go out of their way to recruit “Ivy league athletes” as key components of their work force.

The populist resentment of allegedly “undeserving” minorities who push hardworking white students out of top college- which Trump is exploiting with his rhetoric- turns out to be misplaced. To put the matter bluntly, there are a lot more white hockey and football players who get into Ivy League schools with SAT’s below the school norm than there are Black and Latino students from the inner city. As someone who spent more than 15 years coaching athletes from diverse racial and class backgrounds in Brooklyn in the 1980’s and 1990’s, I know this from personal experience as well as research. One young woman I worked with, a nationally ranked tennis player who was highly recruited by every Ivy League college, actually got a letter from Harvard telling her that her target SAT score for admission was 1100! Another young man from our community, a highly recruited left handed pitcher, was told that his admission target for Princeton was 1200, with an expected verbal score of 600 because “Princeton has a lot of reading.” Needless to say, both of those young people were white!

So much for “undeserving minorities” pushing white kids out of top colleges! To put this in perspective, I have taught African American Studies at Fordham for more than 40 years and talked to hundreds of Black and Latino students about their college recruitment experiences. Not one of them has mentioned being given SAT targets that low for admission to Harvard, Yale or Princeton!

Donald Trump needs to find a new subject for his demagoguery. If Barack Obama got into Columbia with lower grades and SAT’s scores than the college mean, he was only one of many students- the vast majority of whom were white- who fell into that category. And his success, along with so many others so admitted, should be a warning that traits measurable on standardized tests are not the only indicators of talent and potential that should be considered for university admission. When Ivy League schools admit students, irrespective of the scores they register on standardized tests, they almost never drop out, and usually achieve professional success after graduation. Whether these schools should have as much power as they do in American society is another question, but none of the students they bring in are programmed to “fail.”

Columbia College chose wisely in admitting Barack Obama. His admission was only one small part of a broad policy for creating a student body diverse in talent as well as cultural background from which far more whites than ethnic and racial minorities were beneficiaries

Mark Naison
Aprl 27, 2011

Teaching Is Relationshp Building

Teaching is Relationship Building-Something School Reformers Often Forget Dr Mark Naison Fordham University One of the most pernicious examples of the tunnel vision of school reformers is the “school turnaround” concept incorporated in the Obama Administration’s “Race To the Top” legislation and currently being implemented in school districts throughout the nation. “Turnaround” strategy proposes that a school designated as “failing”-invariably on test scores- be closed and either replaced with a charter school or reopened as a new school, in the same facility, with a different principal and no more than fifty percent of the current teaching staff. Not only does this concept presume that “bad teachers” are the primary cause of a school’s alleged failures, but it places no value on relationships that teachers build with students and their families, relationships that often last far beyond the time they were in class and are integral to student success and help sustain teacher morale even in the most daunting conditions Anyone who has been a teacher knows that building up the confidence of students and giving them the courage to realize their potential and find their voice involves more than classroom learning. It often requires individualized instruction and mentoring, joint participation in extracurricular activities and trips, and a commitment to maintain communication long after the student leaves your class. When this happens, students come to see relationships with their teachers as sources of strength throughout their lives, a form of “cultural capital” that allows them to surmount obstacles and realize their dreams. In working class and poor communities, where families are under constant stress, lifetime communication with teachers can be the critical factor enabling students to stay in school in the face of crises that would crush most people. Janet Mayer’s wonderful new book, As Bad As They Say: Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx, provides example of example of how this longtime Bronx teacher supported her students through personal challenges that included evictions, murders, rapes, heatless homes, unemployed parents and responsibilities for raising younger siblings. This influence didn’t just take place when students were in Mayer’s classes. It often went on for fifteen or twenty years after they left her school. And it led to students who could have easily fallen through the cracks becoming productive, successful citizens, some of them teachers themselves. The power of relationship building- something that cannot be measured by student performance on standardized tests- is something I have experienced over and over again in my own teaching at the college level. The most transformative moments in my teaching have not taken place during class sessions, or on midterm or final examinations, but it individual encounters with students where they confront obstacles and with my help, confronted strategies to overcome them An example of this, from the late 90’s remain etched in my memory. M was a Fordham basketball star from an Irish working class family in New Jersey, who along with some of her teammates, had enrolled in several of my Black history classes at Fordham . She was incredibly shy, never saying a word in class, but one day, she showed up in my office and started crying. “Dr Naison,” she said, “I don’t belong at this school. I only got 800 on my SAT’s and I feel like everyone here is so much smarter than me. What am I going to do?” I took a deep breath, prayed I wouldn’t screw this up, and started developing a strategy. “M, they aren’t smarter than you, they just have more educated parents and went to better high schools. But we are going to overcome that. Every time you write a paper, hand me a rough draft a week before and I will edit if for you. Before every test, come with your friends to my office and I will give you a strategy for studying as a group. And in return, you and your friends can work with me on my crossover and spin moves!” The last comment drew a reluctant smile from M and she went to work. Little by little, she went from being a C student, to a B student, to getting B+’s and A-‘s in the last class she took with me during the second semester of her senior year. But the best part of this transformation was watching M find her voice. By the time she graduated, she was not only participating regularly In class discussions, she was being perceived as a leader by her fellow students, including those who came in to the school with much higher SAT’s and grades. After she graduated from Fordham M’s confidence only grew. After playing pro basketball in Europe for several years, she returned to New Jersey and became a teacher and coach, using her own hard won confidence to build the confidence of others. In my forty years at Fordham, I have built many relationships with individual students I have taught, some of whom have gone on to become mayors of cities, leaders of government agencies, world renowned scholars and journalists, but no teaching or mentoring experience has been more satisfying than the one I had with M. Why? Because M represents the majority of students attending schools in America’s poor and working class communities. They not only lack the skills that upper middle class students acquire in their families and the high performing schools they attend, they often suffer from a crippling lack of self-confidence in approaching the tasks that schools present. That confidence deficit, I am convinced, is at least as important as the skills deficit and it cannot be overcome through test prep drills and group instruction. It requires individual attention from teachers, and not just in a classroom setting. It requires extra work and encouragement after school, on weekends, and sometimes long after the student leaves the teachers direct care. If you rotate teachers in and out of schools at a dizzying rate and create pressures that drive them out of the profession after a few years, you will destroy the relationship building component that is at the heart of great teaching. Ironically, under the pressure of federal mandates, this is being done in the very communities that have the greatest need for inspired teaching and mentoring.

COLLEGE READY

We have a new goal. The chancellor of the NYC DOE, Cathie Black, has miraculously discovered that high school graduates should be college ready upon graduation. I wonder what Ms. Black defines as being college ready. All of her references to being college ready refer to the same old clichés about test scores, "teacher effectiveness, teacher evaluations, [and] having the best teachers in every single class."

This is typical of the new regime. Joel Klein. Cathie Black. Michelle Rhee. Arne Duncan.

Does she (or they) tackle the question of what students need to be able to do to be college ready? Does she discuss critical thinking? What about problem solving? Time management? Independence? Of course they need to increase their reading and writing abilities. But does that make them college ready, or simply high school graduates?

When told students were doing a 5 page research paper, Ms. Black was also quoted as saying, "'Hmmm. Didn’t seem to me — now length doesn’t necessarily mean rigor — but it didn’t seem to me as though that was something that would be thought of as a significant research paper."

Is she talking about product or process when she refers to rigor? The most difficult and challenging writing assignment I ever had was in graduate school. We had to discuss how five authors agreed or disagreed about three themes.... all in 5 pages. That was rigorous; not because of its length, but in how it forced us to use precise language. She should know that. She was an English major.

There are many schools in and out of the city that make kids college ready. The private schools and the best public schools do because they don't spend excessive time on test prep. (Exception. Private tutors for SAT, ACT, and AP exams.)

"Black said she knows when that leadership works by looking around a school and seeing whether the principal knows his or her students, and if the teachers appear engaged." To me the most important criterion is whether the students are engaged in rigorous, challenging, and engaging work.

One program that engages high school seniors in over 60 schools across the city and in 4 NYC high schools is WISE. "WISE serves as a bridge for seniors from high school to college, work and lifelong learning. A WISE program enables high school seniors of all ability levels to design an individualized, passion-driven project. Projects can include, but are not limited to, internships, independent research, self-improvement, community service or cultural, artistic and performance-based activities. The topics students can explore in school-based, experiential learning programs are limitless. As a result, students discover in themselves and in one another skills, strengths and talents they had not realized were present.

As part of the process of developing and completing their WISE projects, students select a staff mentor, maintain a reflective and research-supported journal and make a public presentation. During the school day, as well as in the evenings and on weekends, students devote significant time to work on their projects—they research their topics, maintain written daily journals, meet with their mentors to explore and reflect upon project issues, and discuss their topics with one another. Upon completion of the project, each student gives a public presentation assessed by a panel of students, teachers and community members.

Students need to be independent learners and problem solvers to succeed in college and at work. They have to manage time, develop good interpersonal skills, set realistic goals and become self-reliant. WISE students gain these abilities and more in executing their individualized senior experiences, which not only eases their transition to college and work, but also enhances their chances for success.

The WISE experience takes students from the confines of a traditional classroom and invites them into a world full of opportunities to learn from others in stimulating settings. It also fosters students’ independence, as they learn to manage their own time and interact with new people in adult environments.

In order to develop a project, students must be able to reach out and convince a mentor and an outside sponsor to work with them. They need to be mature, responsible individuals.

WISE students have to adapt to a variety of people. They have to learn to navigate new and different environments. Through the rigorous WISE process, students learn how to enter the new world outside of the classroom and the school. They become young adults.

Planning and executing a WISE project can become a subject for a unique and winning college application essay. And for those colleges that demand one, the interview becomes a wonderful opportunity for students to shine by discussing their WISE project. In addition, college admission officers are charged with deciding which of many similar applicants possess the background to enhance the community of a particular institution. A WISE experience gives students a “leg up” in this process. Indeed, when WISE students arrive at college, they are better prepared to be successful students and active campus citizens.

Following a passion allows a student the freedom to explore a major field of study, service opportunities or a career. Thus, a WISE project also gives a student direction for the future and an entry to the benefits of lifelong learning." (www.wiseservices.org)

I invite Ms. Black and so called education leaders to talk to WISE students, graduates, and staff to see what true engagement means and how college ready WISE students become.

IT'S THE TRAINING, STUPID!

With all the noise about TFA , school budgets, hiring, firing, tenure, Rhee and thee, we seem to forget that teacher training a big variable in the education equation.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/03/bilby_greene.html

School Reform- A New Notorious Phd Jam

School Reform

A New Notorious Phd Jam

Inequality’s

America’s shame

Bankers screw up

And teachers get blamed

Billionaires

Love school reform

It keeps prisons full

and profits warm

Chorus

School reform,

School reform

It keeps prisons full

And profits warm

You can’t lift students up

When you knock teachers down

It’s a trick to help the rich

Rule your town

But reformers keep shouting

Test, Test, Test

Driving out great teachers

Beating down the rest

Making students hate school

And take to the streets

Where their choice is prison

Or rocking dope beats

Chorus

School reform,

School reform

It keeps prisons full

And profits warm

You can’t lift students up

When you knock teachers down

It’s a trick to help the rich

Rule your town

Union Busting

Is the Reformers game

Whether Walker, Christie

Or Bloomberg’s their name

They want to run teachers in

Then run them out quick

Before they learn

What makes students tick

Chorus

School reform,

School reform

It keeps prisons full

And profits warm

You can’t lift students up

When you knock teachers down

It’s a trick to help the rich

Rule your town

So teachers and students

Need to take schools back

Tell reformers that testing

Sets learning back

Bring back art and music

Science, lab and gym

And march down town

So the banks don’t win

Chorus

School reform,

School reform

It keeps prisons full

And profits warm

You can’t lift students up

When you knock teachers down

It’s a trick to help the rich

Rule your town

WHAT'S IN A NAME? MAYBE DA MAYOR KNOWS

Those of you unfamiliar with the state of secondary education in NYC should know what has been going on here. Over the past several years the NYC Department of Education, (under mayoral control) has determinedly and steadfastly worked to close all the large neighborhood high schools in the city and replace them with several smaller schools within each of those buildings. Led by former Chancellor Joel Klein and now present Mayor Bloomberg appointee, Cathie Black, the city has jumped on the Bill Gates bandwagon. Those buildings once had a Principal, perhaps two administrative Assistant Principals and several department chairpersons (also dubbed assistant principals) whose primary job was to train, mentor, and supervise teachers. Now these buildings are called campuses with anywhere from 3-8 schools between those walls. Each smaller school has a Principal and one or two Assistant Principals and no department chairs to train and mentor new teachers. The result has been more and more business management, more test prep, and less and less education.

Once upon a time, almost all of the 100 public high schools in New York City were named for famous people or, like Bayside High School, their particular neighborhood. Some were named after activities, but that was easy to grasp because students in schools like Music and Art or Automotive high schools were studying to become experts in their fields. Now each new school seems to be given a multisyllabic subject based name with variations on a theme.

As a result of this Gates inspired movement year now comes the annual announcement. Which schools are to be closed by the DOE? Which are to be saved? Which have been proclaimed by the all-powerful database to be the best? Then it dawned on me. Maybe, it's the names. Was there a correlation? The key to quality education must be in the schools’ names. After all, wasn't my alma mater, The Bronx High School of Science (6 words) one of the best high schools in the country from its inception in 1938? For years it had the longest name of any high school in the city. Of course it was better than Brooklyn Technical High School, (4 words) and Stuyvesant High School, (3 words) the other specialized high schools in New York for which students have to take an academic admission exam. Ah hah! That must be it. The Bloomberg/Klein/Black administration finally figured it out. Every school’s name must sound like The Bronx High School of Science to give it a better chance at success. I decided to go to the lists and see for myself. I went to the DOE school performance database, found the 23 schools the DOE announced would close and compared them with the top 23 schools on the list.

Here are the lists. On the left, are the 23 High Schools to be closed. On the right, ladies and gentlemen the new champions–the top 23 according to the NYC DOE.

23 NYC HIGH SCHOOLS TO BE CLOSED

TOP 23 NYC DOE HIGH SCHOOLS

August Martin High School Beach Channel High School Boys and Girls High School Christopher Columbus High School Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology Grace Dodge Career and Technical Education High School Grover Cleveland High School High School of Graphic Communication Arts Jamaica High School Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers John Adams High School John Dewey High School John F. Kennedy High School Metropolitan Corporate Academy Monroe Academy for Business/Law Newtown High School Norman Thomas High School Paul Robeson High School Mother Hale Academy Richmond Hill High School Sheepshead Bay High School Washington Irving High School W.H. Maxwell CTE High School

Theater Arts Production Company School Brooklyn International High School at Water's Edge Williamsburg Preparatory School Marble Hill High School for International Studies Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design Manhattan Village Academy High School for Violin and Dance Manhattan Bridges High School Bronx Aerospace High School Bronx Health Sciences High School El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports The High School of Fashion Industries Academy of Finance and Enterprise The Metropolitan High School Discovery High School Pace High School High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies Bedford Academy High School South Bronx Preparatory: A College Board School Unity Center for Urban Technologies Mott Hall Bronx High School The High School for Enterprise, Business and Technology High School for International Business and Finance

As I looked down the 2011 list I found a pattern. Of the failing schools, 19 of 23 are named after a person or place, 17 of 23 have names containing 4 or fewer words, and 4 of 23 have names containing 6 or more words. On the other hand, the vast majority of the DOE’s better performing schools had longer multisyllabic names. Only 10 of 23 are named after a person or place, 8 of 23 have names containing 4 or fewer words, and 9 of 23 have names containing 6 or more words. EUREKA. I was right.

I was intrigued. I continued to examine NYC high school names. Some new names tacked subject matter on to names of real people, such as The Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School. Ten words. What an e-mail address that makes. That one confused me. I though he was a governor of New York, not a techie. Then there is the peculiar case of Bronx Leadership Academies I and II. Is the latter school only for second tier leaders or middle management? What makes the High School for Innovative Advertising and Media so innovative? I looked at its website. Although situated deep in Canarsie Brooklyn, the site’s banner photo convinces the reader that it is right on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan. Now that is an innovative use of media.

The Rockaway Park High School For Environmental Sustainability (nineteen syllables) may have had the longest name. It couldn't fit in the spreadsheet column. After a while my eyes became so tired, I thought I began to see schools with titles like the Manhattan Duke Ellington Academy for Antidisestablishmentarianistic Song Writing and the Astoria School for Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparao (Take a deep breath here.) melitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryon (Another breath.) optekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon Seafood Cooking. That, by the way is a real word. Those must be two very successful schools. Their admissions tests not only require the students to show their talents as song writers and chefs, but also the ability to say the names five times fast, without glancing at the test. Obviously the students at these schools must acquire a greater vocabulary and therefore achieve higher reading levels.

The longer the name, the better the school. Wow, these new school reformers must really be on to something. I began to dream about starting a new New York City high school. What would I call it? Hmmm, The Metropolitan Academy for the Study of Moronic Educational Practices? MASMEP! Then, startled by an image of the Duke humming a song about the Anglican Church while eating a fish fricassee, I woke up with Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” lying across my chest.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Some Advice for Would-be History-Makers at Teach For America - Living in Dialogue - Ed
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/