Once a gain an influential organization that is responsible for shaping U.S. education policy shows that its research acuity hinders its common sense. From its publication, The Forgotten Middle, the ACT points out the following:
Today, college readiness also means career readiness. While not every high school graduate plans to attend college, the majority of the fastest-growing jobs that require a high school diploma, pay a salary above the poverty line for a family of four, and provide opportunities for career advancement require knowledge and skills comparable to those expected of the first-year college student (ACT, 2006b). We must therefore educate all high school students according to a common academic expectation, one that prepares them for both postsecondary education and the workforce.
The above paragraph perpetuates an erroneous premise that all students can be educated to meet the goal of college readiness because their future is in jeopardy without it. This is an assault on common sense. It also perpetuates bad education policy that spends countless billions of dollars trying to achieve an idealistic goal that hurts the students it is supposed to help. By adhering to the premise that everyone is trainable to reach college readiness, at-risk students will continue to fall through the cracks because this model will not work for them. The college readiness plan fulfills two large government goals: A bigger education establishment, and the egalitarian rhetoric that college readiness is attainable by the masses. This is nothing more than a diversion from the fact that the government doesn’t know what to do with non-college ready students because jobs that they are qualified for have been shipped overseas or taken by immigrants from third world countries. If you don’t go to college, what do you do nowadays? The government doesn’t have the answer, the ACT doesn’t have the answer, but they both promote a fantasy that everyone likes to hear.
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