Indiana, Louisiana high schools helping low-income students earn associate, bachelor's degrees

A handful of high schools in some of the country's toughest neighborhoods created a curriculum to help low-income students earn college credits while attending high school.

Kevin Teasley, founder of the nonprofit Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation, told Fox News his schools empower students to do more than what traditional schools allow them to do.

Its flagship location, 21st Century Charter School in Gary, Indiana, was founded in 2005. The GEO Next Generation High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was developed three years ago, and the GEO Next Generation High School in Indianapolis was launched during the pandemic.

When Teasley opened his first school in Gary, he had a mission to combat the high school dropout rate in the area, which was about 50%. He wanted to inspire kids to not only go to college but graduate college.

For several years, he implemented various college prep courses to help students ready themselves for the transition to college. They worked on college applications and toured college campuses.

However, Teasley realized it wasn't working.

He came to the conclusion that the students he was trying to help already had the mindset that they weren't going to college because no one in their families had gone before them. About 90% of the households in the area didn't have a college graduate, Teasley said.

In 2010, one of Teasley's brightest students, Vincent, said he was dropping out of school. He was 16 years old and just finishing up his sophomore year.

"He looked at me, and he said, 'Look, nobody in my family went to college. I'm not going to college. And my family needs me to bring money home to help pay the bills,'" Teasley recalled.

To convince him to stay, Teasley told his star student that if he passed the college entrance exam, he would pay for him to take college courses while in high school.

"It's not that he didn't want to go to college … he didn't think he could afford it," Teasley said. "He didn't think he was college material, and he didn't think anybody supported him."

That's when Teasley realized he needed to replace the old way of doing things. Rather than focusing on the process, Teasley said he started focusing on each individual student.

It all started with Vincent.

"We supported him the whole way. And two years later, he not only graduated from our high school on time, he graduated as the first student in northwest Indiana history to actually earn a full associate degree," he said. "Two years of college while in high school."

To celebrate, Teasley brought all students from kindergarten through 12th grade into the gym to celebrate Vincent's success.

Now, every high school student who walks through the halls of one of Teasley's schools has that same opportunity, and it's free of charge. Teasley's program covers the cost of tuition, books, transportation, counseling and academic support.

When the students are not taking their regular high school classes, they're sitting in class on a college campus. Students in Gary can take courses at Indiana University Northwest, Purdue University Northwest or Ivy Tech Community College.

Students in Louisiana take courses at Baton Rouge Community College, and students in Indianapolis take classes at Ivy Tech, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and Marian University.

"Instead of taking English 11 in 11th grade, they take English 101 at the college level," which counts for a high school and college credit, Teasley said.

Over the last 10 years, 50 students at the flagship school in Gary have earned an associate degree while in high school, and one student earned a bachelor's degree.

Today, the graduation rate at the school in Gary is 95%. The school's college readiness rate is also 90%, compared to the local high school rate of 37%.

"Remember, we're coming out of an environment where most people are dropping out of high school," Teasley said. "They're not accustomed to graduating from high school, and they're certainly not accustomed to going to college."

The schools in Louisiana and Indianapolis are only a few years old. However, students at both schools are already on track to earn associate degrees next year, according to Teasley.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/indiana-louisiana-high-schools-helping-low-income-students-associate-bachelor-degrees

********************************************************

Student Loan Forgiveness Hurts Most Americans

You may have seen over the past two weeks dozens of articles emerging detailing the Biden Administration’s plans to address the student loan debt crisis in the United States via executive fiat. While plans to cancel student loans may ostensibly sound noble, they actually penalize the majority of Americans who do not have a college degree. Instead of promoting personal responsibility, the Biden Administration is championing a plan that will increase taxes on the lowest earners in our nation to subsidize educational decisions made by the highest earners. This plan to cancel student loan debt amounts to nothing more than political prodigality designed to secure young people’s vote in the elections to come.

When I was 18 years old I decided to attend Saint Anselm College in my home state of New Hampshire. It made the most sense for me given that I was awarded an athletic scholarship alongside some additional scholarship money based on academic merit. While the scholarship funds did help lower the cost of college, I too graduated college with some student loan debt. After graduating, I got a job and began paying off my remaining student loans. This experience is becoming less common as my generation has unfortunately experienced rising costs in higher education and coupled that with poor decisions on their choice of college.

However, attending college at the end of the day is a personal choice and that consequences the follow should not be thrust upon those who did not decide to go to college. Accordingly, it should not be a surprise to hear that the majority of student loan debt is owned by higher income households. For example, according to the Brookings Institution, the highest income households—defined as those who make nearly $75,000 per year—owe almost 60% of the outstanding education debt and comprise of over three quarters of those payments. Comparatively, lower income households only make up 20% of the outstanding student debt in the United States and fill the remaining quarter of payments. However, those who do go to college, on average, make more than those who do not and therefore the decision to go to college is one that can pay off in the long run.

Yet, many Americans make the equally judicious decision for themselves not to attend college and therefore are not subject to the over-encumbering financial burdens that often follow higher education. Why should they be forced to subsidize the decisions made by others?

Furthermore, American colleges and universities have increasingly become centers of indoctrination for progressive and woke policies. No longer are colleges sources of rigorous debate and intellectual discourse. This trend has also turned many hardworking Americans who love and support our country away from these institutions as they have grown increasingly hostile to the bedrocks of American society. Additionally, there are plenty of alternatives for those looking to secure a good life for themselves and their families.

Instead of cancelling student loan debt, the Biden Administration should support things like trade schools as did its predecessor. In 2020, the Department of Education proposed a doubling of federal commitment to provide states with funds for career and technical education, boosting funding from roughly $1.2 billion to over $2 billion. This investment would have been the first major federal investment in vocational education in over two decades. Yet, the Biden Administration has seemingly ignored such plans and continues its quest to cancel student loan debt. Outside of promoting vocational schools, joining the military is a great career path for many young men and women looking to give back to their country and enjoy great life-starting benefits in return for their service to the nation.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration refuses to promote such alternatives and instead is asking millions of Americans without college degrees to foot the trillion-dollar bill for those who made their own decision to go to college.

As a member of Gen-Z, I understand the reality we face when deciding to go to college, yet ultimately personal responsibility must be at the forefront. When deciding if and where to go to college, it is a risk that we take and must deal with the consequences—such as thousands of dollars of debt. We cannot force others to subsidize the decisions that we made because of the costs that follow. Furthermore, the cancelling of student loan debt will hurt the millions of Americans who decided to forge their own paths in a different way, while crushing lower income households in the face of record-breaking inflation.

The Biden Administration must end this woke charade for votes and actually begin enacting policies that work for all of the American people, no matter their level of education.

https://townhall.com/campaign-voices/karolineleavitt/2022/05/16/student-loan-forgiveness-hurts-most-americans-n2607233

*****************************************************

Critical Race Theory and Small-Town America

Like so many other small hamlets across the U.S., critical race theorists have dragged Pickens’ K-12 school system into the spotlight.

Pickens County, S.C., is home to the college football powerhouse Clemson University. Any headlines about this county, all 512-square miles of it, usually involve the Tigers. But like so many other small hamlets across the U.S., critical race theorists have dragged Pickens’ K-12 school system into the spotlight.

In April, Pickens Middle School officials sent a letter to school parents saying that children would be segregated by race for lunch on April 15th. The racial segregation would be part of a program to help students “cope with being a student in a predominantly white school,” according to the message school leaders sent to parents.

Critical race theorists are making their message that everything in public and private life represents a racial power struggle ubiquitous in K-12 institutions. As I explain in my book, Splintered: Critical Race Theory and the Progressive War on Truth, parents around the country are reporting similar racially-focused lessons and school programs in their schools.

For example, Scarlett Johnson describes her town in Wisconsin’s Mequon-Thiensville School District as “quiet, friendly, nice.” But then she began noticing lesson plans and other activities that did not focus on skills and facts but on personal “identity” and claims that America is systemically oppressive. Much of the material was “focused on making kids social justice warriors,” Scarlett says.

Scarlett launched a campaign to recall her district’s school board members. Shortly after the campaign launched, she found herself the object of a New York Times’ feature claiming “Republicans are using fears of critical race theory to drive school board recalls.”

Really? In a survey of the literature describing the ways in which critical race theory is used in K-12 schools, two University of Utah professors who promote the theory wrote in 2015:

Within the span of the last two decades, critical race theory (CRT) has become an increasingly permanent fixture in the toolkit of education researchers seeking to critically examine educational opportunities, school climate, representation, and pedagogy, to name a few.

The professors then added, “CRT has evolved into a type of revolutionary project.... [W]e owe it to ourselves, and others, to help safeguard CRT.”

By the theorists’ own admission, then, parents are not just imagining that critical race theory haunts school lessons. In response, parents such as Scarlett are leading school board recall efforts to protect children from discrimination. Advocacy groups such as Parents Defending Education are reporting activities such as those at Pickens Middle School to the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and filing lawsuits arguing that districts such as Pickens are violating the Civil Rights Act.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers are introducing proposals that say no teacher or student should be compelled to affirm or believe any idea, but especially not ideas that violate federal or state civil rights laws.

Before dismissing such proposals as attempts to prevent white students from feeling “discomfort,” parents, taxpayers and members of the media should look closer at what critical race theorists are claiming—and what the theory inevitably causes: Discrimination. Those who claim parents are simply creating things to be afraid of should be ashamed that any child would face bias and prejudice, in school or out of school.

https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/critical-race-theory-and-small-town-america ?

***********************************

My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

*******************************