education

Should We Expect All College Graduates to Write Well?

/ The Old Crank

From a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article on the importance of writing skills at nonprofits:

…bosses shouldn’t assume that even college graduates can write at a professional level because so few institutions teach grammar or the critical thinking processes that go into good writing.

This adds some additional perspective to all the stories about rapidly increasing college costs, doesn’t it? I realize that the assumption used to be that high school graduates would enter college with decent writing skills to begin with, but since we know that this isn’t true anymore (if it ever was), it’s odd that we make this huge, ever-increasing  investment in higher education but can’t figure out how to ensure that those students who enter with poor writing skills learn to write at a professional level before graduating.

I’m been thinking lately about whether to ask for a writing sample from every potential employee. I’ve employed people with just GEDs, as well as people with college degrees, and the one place in my experience where the skill gap really narrows between people with different levels of formal education is with writing.

Most Poor People Graduated From High School

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

My guess is that a lot of people may assume that the majority of those who live in poverty are high-school dropouts—and certainly not college graduates. The fact that a vast majority of poor people finished high school, and quite a few went to college, might mean that economic policies slightly more sophisticated than “educating our way to prosperity” may be required to help people work their way out of poverty in the U.S.

EDP Success Story Is a Good Reminder That the GED Is Not the Only Option for Adults Without a High School Diploma

/ The Old Crank

This article from The Madison County Courier serves as a useful reminder that there are other ways for out-of-school adults to attain a high school-equivalent credential other than obtaining a GED. With all the controversy surrounding the new GED and/or whether states can or should develop something new to replace it, EDP programs quietly continue chugging along as an alternative. When D.C. LEARNs’ hotline was running at full strength back in the 2004-09 period, we often suggested to callers that they meet with EDP programs, especially those callers who were working full-time in skilled jobs and who had a history of poor test-taking.

The Common Core’s Influence on Adult Literacy Goes Beyond the GED

/ The Old Crank

Aside from it’s influence on the redesign of the GED, the debate over the Common Core for K-12 can also serve as a window into the views of K-12 teachers on what constitutes adequate adult literacy in the 21st century. This recent Education Week piece by Paul Barnwell is a good example:

Adult literacy in 2012 means being able to synthesize information from multiple online sources to write a blog post or substantive email. It means analyzing which online tools will best serve your communications purpose. It means making smart decisions about what information is useful online, and how to curate and filter the endless stream of data coming in. It means reviewing your digital footprint and learning how to take some control over what information you broadcast to the world, from your tweets, profile pictures, and recommended links.

Barnwell adds “This is not to say that traditional reading and writing skills don’t have their place,” (specifically, he thinks that “[w]e still need to continue to teach students to sustain their attention and thought on longer texts), but he calls for a “greater balance between traditional literacy skills and interactive competencies.”