Real education from diversity, not theology

Recently, I had the opportunity to help teach a class of high school kids. I was with a group of fellow would-be educators, and we traveled to Parkway West High School. It was almost identical to the schools portrayed in most inner-city-high-school-movies--you know, the one where a hard-minded teacher comes into a school, determined to turn things around.

The class I was observing consisted of nine kids. I asked the teacher if this was a normal class-size for an inner-city school, and she explained to me that there should be twenty of them. I stared blankly at her, confused as to why there were only nine of them. She explained to me that usually, only about half of the class comes to school at all. The other half usually just decides not to come.

She began the class by explaining that there would be a college fair coming to the school that coming Thursday. As soon as she finished the statement, a kid in the back of the class defiantly blurted out, “I’m not going to college.” It was a small statement that didn’t mean much to the teacher, but to me it was eye-opening. I looked around at the students’ reactions and saw nods and smiles. In my high school, most of the students were expected to go to college, and a college fair was a huge factor in helping them find the place they felt would fit them best after high school. Instead, these students expected to not go to college.

So, is it fair to look at another school’s mission plan, and think to myself that what they are doing isn’t good enough? I believe it is. Students should only be thinking about an education after high school, whether it’s big universities, small colleges, or vocational colleges. There should be a constant emphasis on reconnecting the youth to the value of a higher education. Three years ago, the city of Philadelphia had a graduating-rate of about 55 percent—meaning only 55 people out of every 100 people graduate with a high school degree. That’s an alarming amount of kids giving up on their education after high school. When kids in schools such as Parkway West or other schools in poor, minority communities don’t want to go pursue a college degree, many problems occur.

Our own Saint Joseph’s University has an African American population of 3 percent, and only 10 percent are of races other than White/Caucasian. That’s a disgustingly small amount of people for a school so focused on providing comprehensively, well-rounded graduates. A person will never be as well-rounded as they can be if they don’t experience other cultures, identities, and ethnicities. Is St. Joe’s lying to us? Are we becoming well-rounded people because of the Western Civilization and Theology classes we’re required to take, or should we become worldly through the people we meet and the emphasis on pluralism that St. Joe’s doesn’t seem to be providing? I vote the latter.

It’s a crisis that comes about on our campus every year, and nothing changes. There are hundreds of schools just like St. Joe’s around the United States. The ugliness of it all is that there are things we can do to make changes.

According to a study conducted at Princeton University, if more schools made the SAT and ACT optional, the result would be a direct increase in diversity. The study indicated that at private colleges the percentage of applicants who are black would increase from 8.3 percent to 11.3 percent if standardized entrance exams were optional. For a test biased against lower-class students, students with poor test-taking skills, students who can't afford to take SAT/ACT prep classes, and kids with English as their second language, I think it’s fair to say that making standardized tests optional is a logical way of making a campus more diverse.

Another solution could be lowering the cost of tuition. Most families and students from inner-city schools, such as Parkway West, can’t dish out $45,000 a year. Should St. Joe’s absurd costs be the difference between a college graduate and a high school graduate? I hope not. Scholarships help, but they should be both more generous and more publicized in poorer communities.

These are only a few solutions to a problem that rips apart our country from coast to coast. It’s a problem that has solutions, but nobody trying to carry them out. That’s why when I heard a student in  class begin to sing “Revolution” by The Beatles, I thought to myself, “that’s a metaphor, or a good omen, or something”. I pray that it is, because both our school and their school need nothing but a revolution.