One of my students is exploring ways to stop wildfires from destroying millions of acres of forests in California. He was evacuated from his home and felt helpless because he couldn’t do anything to defend his neighborhood from the oncoming lightning-strike fires. He says that we need to recruit volunteers to create fire breaks in distant areas to stop future wildfires.
Then we learned that the fire department recruits and trains inmates to do the clearing, limbing, and other crucial preventative work both before the fire season and during actual mitigation of wildfires. That seems like a great way to utilize inmates by giving them valuable skills and using their manpower to do the heavy lifting that official firefighters often don’t have enough staff to do. To become part of an inmate crew, they must have non-violent behavior and conformance to rules while they are in prison and their original crimes must not include sex offenses, arson, or history of escape. These inmates earn around $2.50 an hour while they worked on inmate crews. It seems like a win-win situation for everyone.
One would think that after an inmate (who was trained to do firefighter tasks) does his time in prison, he would be able to apply for a job as a firefighter when he is released. That would make sense and it would be the best form of rehabilitation. But inmates can’t become firefighters after they’ve done their time because they don’t qualify to get their Emergency Medical Technician certificate – a requirement to become a California firefighter. Bureaucracy!
Governor Newsom has until Sept 30th to sign AB2147 that will expunge criminal records from formerly incarcerated people who have been trained at state fire camps while they were in prison. I hope he signs this so we can increase the quantity of firefighters here in California and to give these people a second chance at life.
California high school students may be required to take a one-semester ethnic studies course as part of their high school graduation requirements. This comes on the heels of the Black Lives Matter upheaval that has caused our nation to rethink systemic racism. By offering a class that explores the cultural and historical history of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, all students will learn about the people who make up the America population and not just the Eurocentric history that is laid out in their history books.
I remember wondering why the internment of the 120,000 Japanese Americans (US citizens!) during WWII was never mentioned in my US History class. Or why textbooks described how the Atlantic Slave Trade brought millions of “workers” from Africa, and didn’t address the inhumanity of enslaving Africans and selling them like livestock when they arrived between 1500-1800.
Critics of the high school curriculum say that the course leaves out Armenians and Muslims. I’m sure other groups will come forward with other complaints of omissions but this is a good step in the right direction. Maybe this course could include “Lies my Teacher Told Me; Everything Your American History Textbook got Wrong” by James Loewen. Let’s include ethnic studies in all US high school curriculum – I believe it will help us appreciate our differences. Another avenue to consider is interracial marriages – that forces the conversation and creates a “melting pot” of beautiful children.
The “Early College” programs offered in public high schools offer the best solutions to equity gap problems. These programs allow high school students to take career-oriented college classes at a local community college for free and to earn college credit while they are still in high school. The best part: over 75% of these students enroll in college and complete the FAFSA (financial aid app) upon high school graduation.
In states like Massachusetts, the majority of the students who enrolled in the Early College program were Black, Latinx or from other underrepresented ethnic groups. By giving these and all students the opportunity to take a few college classes while in high school, they’re getting a taste for college and getting credits for free. Ambitious students can take several college classes, which can save them thousands of dollars.
These Early College programs are also pandemic proof. High school students can take online community college classes that satisfy high school graduation requirements and start chipping away at college graduation requirements.
It’s a win-win!
When college kids get COVID-19 and they’re hundreds or thousands of miles from home, they’re going to want to be with their families. Being sick and homesick at the same time is just awful. They’ll want Mom’s chicken soup and other comfort foods that only a mother can give.
But Dr. Fauci says that colleges should NOT send students sick with COVID-19 back home. Instead colleges are now required to take care of the sick students by quarantining them and giving them medical attention. And they should! Imagine what would happen if thousands of students with COVID-19 travelled across city, state, or even continental lines? The college students alone could create the 2nd wave.
Many of the colleges that opened up their campuses to students this fall made these decisions based on the financial health of the institution. Some colleges share the responsibility of managing dorms and food services with third parties or partners. With pressure from business partners to fill the dorms, many colleges invited students back for classes this fall. Losing room and board from students while paying for high costs of dorm remodels to protect students when they return to campus could be a financial nightmare.
There are still so many unknowns about the spread, treatment, and prevention. Until we fully understand the wrath and potential of this virus, I wish everyone would stay home. The more cases that pop and surge on college campuses, surrounding neighborhoods, and back in students’ home towns, the longer it will take to contain this pandemic.
I wish the experts didn’t warn us that the coronavirus only affects old and sick people because young and healthy people still believe that they’re somehow immune. Over the past 2 weeks, college campuses are facing high infection rates among the 18-22 year old students who just arrived on campus. But the most alarming news is that a third of the college athletes (Big Ten Conference) who tested positive for COVID-19 have potentially dangerous inflammation of their heart muscle.
MRI scans showed that these athletes have myocarditis, an inflammation that can be deadly if not treated. 30-35 percent of these athletes have inflamed hearts. Some football teams have pushed back and postponed the season, while others are forging forward with modified seasons.
Why is this not headline news? These athletic institutions are BIG MONEY MAKERS and nearly a third of them wouldn’t report the number of student athletes who tested positive for COVID-19. Many also wouldn’t divulge their coronavirus protocols for athletes. Student athletes shouldn’t be required to put themselves in vulnerable positions by playing sports amid a pandemic. This is just wrong on so many levels.
The University of California has opposed the SAT and ACT for decades, and they were on track with a 5-year plan to phase out standardized tests. The first 2 years would be test optional and then the next 3 years would be test blind (by 2025). But they just announced that because testing students with disabilities both during the pandemic (with online options) and even after the pandemic (for moral reasons) is intrinsically unfair, they are banning UC admissions officers from considering SAT or ACT scores for admission and financial aid decisions this year.
This ban was just announced on Monday so we’ll need to wait to see what the UC system decides to do for the 2021 application cycle. UC Berkeley had already established a test blind policy, while UCLA and a few other UCs had offered a test-optional policy. If a student chooses NOT to submit scores, this decision will not hurt their applications. However, the students who wish to submit scores (students with high scores) will have their scores considered in the overall review of their applications.
Hmm. Students who are naturally gifted at taking standardized tests or those with families who can afford private tutoring will definitely be at an advantage in test-optional reviews. Evaluating applications this year will require a keen eye from the admissions point of view. They will need to understand how the student’s school offered courses and grades last semester, how the student’s family situation affected their studies, why their AP or SAT/ACT scores were not submitted, and the general qualifications of each student without standardized test scores and many without grades for spring 2020.
Many colleges across the US are making SAT/ACT scores optional this year. Some will probably continue this the policy after the pandemic passes, but others will go back to requiring them because of contracts established between the colleges and the College Board or ACT. Seems like standardized testing is on its way out when reviewing students’ aptitude.
This virus is alive and spreading. Thinking that it’s just going to go away in different regions while the rest of the states and countries continue to see new outbreaks is naïve. It surprises me that intelligent people think that they can gather in groups smaller than 10 and that they’re safe. Seriously? Just meeting with ONE PERSON is not safe today. You don’t know who that person has been with during the last 2 weeks (girlfriends, coworkers, teachers), what surfaces they have touched (grocery stores, gas stations, door knobs), if they are asymptomatic, or if they may have a false-negative coronavirus test result. Take-away message: YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY’VE BEEN!
The University of Arizona just analyzed student dorm sewage on campus and found one dorm tested positive. They tested the 311 students who lived and worked in the dorm, and found 2 asymptomatic students. These students were quarantined. Had the university not stepped up their proactive analysis of student sewage, the students could have spread the virus all over campus.
Colleges are opening up across the United States with great intentions of keeping students safe. They expect students to follow an honor code with rules about the numbers of people they party with and the 6-foot distance to keep between themselves. I wrote a blog about why college students’ prefrontal cortexes aren’t fully developed until age 25 so they don’t have the reasoning skills they need to make smart decisions. When college students engage with roommates, classmates, professors, and staff on campus, and then they visit friends in the local community, travel home to see family for holidays, and zigzag their way through public transportation and on airlines, they may become the reason that we see a huge rise in COVID cases and death this fall and winter.
The “rules” that everyone loosely considers when they’re out in public are just general rules. The 6-foot rule is for people who are not breathing hard. In other words, they’re not walking or running, they’re not exercising, and they’re not laughing or talking loudly. My daughter Nicole (an ER doc) says that the safe distance is really 10 feet, not 6 feet.
I find it ridiculous that it’s okay to gather with less than 50, 25, or even 10 people. Say one of those people is asymptomatic or has been tested but had a false negative reading, that person could most certainly infect the other 49, 24, or 9 people in that “safe group.” As long as we are circulating with anybody outside of our households, we are part of the problem. We are all spreading the coronavirus if we have contact with other people. Period.
Hindsight is 20/20, and if I would have known what I know today and had the influence to do this, I would have shut down the entire world for 2-4 weeks. If everyone would have stayed home and only hospitals, law enforcement/first responders, and absolutely essential businesses stayed open (with daily testing and quarantining), we could have stopped the coronavirus from spreading. We would all be back to work and school today, and we would have bounced back economically – we now know we can survive a 2-4 week shut down.
This has been an enlightening year for me. As the eternal optimist, I thought that we would have the coronavirus under control in a few weeks, or months. But what I’ve learned is that when we don’t understand a threat like a pandemic, we get scared. This fear drives our next steps that make us think we’re invisible; we won’t get the coronavirus so we’ll forge forward! – or – we think we’re going to die; we need to protect ourselves by staying away from everyone. Then, we look for leaders or information that support our beliefs. By hearing what we want to hear, we’re not making sound decisions about how to stop the spread of COVID-19. So today, decisions are being made for political and financial reasons, not for humanitarian reasons.
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Young people used to have the choice between college degrees and vocational training (certificates), but over the past 30+ years, the pressure has been on students to get their bachelor’s degrees. This created a void in vocational training. Research proved that college graduates fared better economically – earning $30,000 more than non-college graduates annually. But during the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a shift back towards skills-based online credentials.
As we face the worst recession in a century and a call for social justice, there is a surge in online certificates, industry certifications, apprenticeships, micro-credentials, boot camps, and lower-cost online master’s degrees. People are looking at online and non-degree programs to build necessary skills that align with what corporate America needs today.
Google just announced new online career-certificate programs similar to their popular IT-support specialist online certificates. These certificates will be considered the equivalent of a four-year degree in those subject areas. IBM, Facebook, Salesforce, and Microsoft are also creating their own short-term, skills-based credentials. Other tech companies are dropping degree requirements for some of their jobs.
In order to make these certificate programs transfer to dependable employment in the future, these credentials need to be stackable (able to add more certificates in related fields) and portable (skills can be used in other industries). The verdict is out on whether or not certificate programs will compete with real college degrees when the pandemic passes and the economy bounces back. I think employers will want college graduates who have a stronger overall academic foundation, who have built a network of college buddies, and who have cultural literacy that is aligned with corporate mucky mucks.
College students who work part time (15 or fewer hours per week) are more likely to graduate within 6 years (67%) than students who didn’t work at all (40%), students who worked 16-34 hours a week (35%), and those who worked more than 35 hours per week (16%). Hmm. Those who worked on campus were twice as likely to earn a degree within 6 years (66%) than those who worked off campus (28%).
According to a federal study, when students work on campus less than 15 hours a week, they have the highest graduation rate. So parents, if you think that paying tuition, room and board, and entertainment costs will give your child more time to study and increase their chance of graduating, think again. Instead, give them a little real-life responsibility earning their spending money and having a real job. That mindset seems to play an important part in their overall college experience.
I remember working with parents who insisted on making their child’s job simply studying and passing classes. In theory that might make sense, but I found that not having to prepare food (meal plan), clean house (janitors in dorms), earn money for entertainment (beer pong), or manage their expenses (Daddy please add money to my account!), creates an unrealistic world for the student.
On the other hand, students who work 16 hours a week and up to full time, are so immersed in the real world that they often succumb to employment-related pressures like covering other employee’s shifts, working overtime, and being so exhausted from work that their studies slip. These students often have the additional stress of paying tuition and living expenses. They often become seduced by the lure of seemingly large paychecks and then take a break from classes or drop out.
So parents, encourage your children to get very part time work on campus. They’ll become more responsible, they’ll appreciate the cost of their education, and they’ll earn that coveted degree!