Everybody to college! Now!

Perhaps you noticed this article in last Saturday's Bangor Daily News. In short, there's a piece of legislation in the hopper that would require high school seniors to apply to college.

Or maybe the previous day, in an article about the Bangor schools, you read these remarks by Bangor Superintendent Sandy Ervin:

The SAT test just gives you a number. There are better alternatives to the SAT that could have been created that would have both certified achievement and informed instruction.

(Both articles are also linked from Articles of Interest.)

The background on this one, if you need it, is that high school juniors are required to take the SAT, a test that is typically used to give colleges an idea of the college-worthiness of their applicants.

"As many of you are aware, over 70% of Maine high schools have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress. Predictably and cynically our "Commish" of Education Susan Gendron has seized the opportunity to point out that this "failure" is more evidence of the need for high school reform," according to Paul Murphy, chairman of the Mount Desert CSD.

He continued ,"The Federal Department of Education found, after the move ...that the SAT failed (to) align with the Maine Learning Results (11th grade assessment is supposed to measure how well Maine Juniors have achieved relative to the Learning Results) in more than 40 areas (yes that's right...more than 40)."

Requiring college applications for all students is clearly only a feel good movement which will serve no other practical service unless students are truly prepared for post secondary education, educationally and financially.

But, things are looking pretty darn college-y around here.

Makes one wonder who, if everyone goes to college, is going to do the real, necessary practical work -- like plumbing, and wood-cutting, and mechanical work of all sorts. I regard these people as worthy of our respect.

But it's not at all clear that the education professionals in Augusta hold trades people in the same regard that you and I do. In their universe, everyone should go to college!

Maybe in the future we'll need to import some illegal immigrants to do these fundamental and necessary jobs!

Or at least after the consolidation effort, there will be opportunities for unemployed superintendents!