I'm back!

I really have no excuse for being gone this long. In August, I took a job teaching GED classes to adults and it's incredibly rewarding and far better (for me, at least) than teaching high school students. I guess maybe I was using that change in my life to justify not writing about K-12 education, but that's a stupid reason, especially since if K12 ed were better, there would be no need for GED classes.

And then after a couple more months, I figured "well, I've stopped for this long. Might as well stop entirely," but that's an even dumber reason because that's essentially quitting for no good reason. So I have wised up, and here I am again.

I'm sure you're not asking what the catalyst for my return is, but I'll tell you anyway. I read this feel-good article in WaPo today about a student from Anacostia High (probably the worst school in the District) getting a full ride to Georgetown and my initial reaction was, "Awesome! Good for her!" But then I stumbled upon this article and thought, "Oh yeah, good point. High schools (especially those in urban areas) really need to ramp it up."

Finally, I read this article from The New York Times, and the TL;DR version of it is is that students from lower-income families have a lower chance of graduating from college which often has more to do with the culture shock and motivation required in college, not finances. A professor at UT-Austin is trying to figure out ways to help them graduate.

It's no secret that schools in "poor" areas are not as good as schools from wealthy areas, but I thought all three of these articles did a great job of pointing out the psychological endeavors students must go through when they transition to college, which lower-income students struggle more with. These are things you cannot measure. But these are things that are critically important to be aware of, and then attempt to fix.

As Rashema points out in the first article, "[E]ducation is the only way out [of poverty]." If an 18 year old understands this, why don't the people who make the decisions?