The “other America” — poor, isolated and jobless — desperately needs college opportunities that connect education to work, writes UCLA Education Professor Mike Rose in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Rose has been spending time at an inner-city community college. Most students enroll for job training, but more than 90 percent need basic skills classes.
Many had chaotic childhoods, went to underperforming schools, and never finished high school. With low-level skills, they have had an awful time in the labor market. Short-term jobs, long stretches of unemployment, no health care. Many, the young ones included, have health problems that are inadequately treated if treated at all. I remember during my first few days on the campus noticing the number of people who walked with a limp or irregular gait.
What really strikes me, though, is students’ level of engagement, particularly in the occupational programs. There are a few people who seem to be marking time, but most listen intently as an instructor explains the air-supply system in a diesel engine or the way to sew supports into an evening dress. And they do and redo an assignment until they get it right. Hope and desire are brimming. Many of the students say this is the first time school has meant anything to them. More than a few talk about turning their lives around.
Yet budget cuts have forced the college to cut classes and turn away people eager to improve themselves.
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[...] “other half” of Americans — poor, jobless and isolated — desperately need ac… at community colleges, a professor [...]