Well-Served

The recent college admissions scandal has touched many nerves.  Those of us who have spent a good deal of our lives working with high school students have smelled rats for a very long time.  What's so troubling, aside from the ability of those in powerful positions to offer and accept bribes, is that the mythology of attending an "elite" school persists.  We know better.  We have always known better.  So why validate the notion that some schools offer a better education than others?
Excellent teachers are everywhere.  This is a claim that is easy to prove.  Evidence abounds.  In fact, many have known for years that the so-called elite faculty at many top universities never even teach undergraduates.
I was dismayed to see UCLA mentioned as one of the schools involved in the scandal.  Stands to reason, though, the faculty, campus location, and overall reputation of the school make it one of the more desirable choices.  Still, I hate the fact that my alma mater is involved in this kind of unethical behavior.  Even if  these questionable students get into a top college, straying there is another matter.  Unless they are buying grades or tampering with transcripts I shudder to think how some of these privileged students fare doing college coursework.  Make no mistake, doing well in college takes hard work, perseverance, and setting academic priorities.

So what do we do now?  Easy.  Change the system and get the word out about community colleges.  Because of a financial crisis in the state of California, I was forced to begin my college education at my local community college.  I don't know which was worse, having to wait 6 months to attend a state university (after having been accepted) or actually starting college on time at the community college.  In those days, they called the community college a "high school with ashtrays."  Truth be told, it was far more interesting and complex than I expected.  I found not only older students with varied experience but also professors who had taught everywhere from Ivy League schools to international universities.
Case in point: Mr. Prismon.  His reputation preceded him.  Some liked the fact that he didn't use a standard textbook.  No multiple choice tests, essay questions and term papers based on index cards.  Prismon's text was a volume called The People Shall Judge.  It was an anthology of primary source documents like the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution.  The course was what we now call a document based curriculum.
I chose his class because I wanted to see what studying history was like without selecting A. B. C. D. or all/none of the above.  I wasn't disappointed.  Prismon was a gifted lecturer who knew what he was doing.  The foundation I got from that course served me well as I pursued my degree a few years later at the big University.