Intellectual elitism fails our students

By James A. "Shanbrom" High School Coordinator

The intellectual elites have for years now promoted this idea that all high school students must go to college and get a bachelors degree. If they do not get the BA or BS then they are somehow less than others. People are made to feel guilty and less intelligent. This snobbery has to stop.

First of all, I want to make something perfectly clear. I believe in college and I know that post-secondary education is important. If you want to be a teacher, doctor, psychologist, nurse, lawyer, etc, you need a college degree and beyond. I want my son to go to college or the like so he can get the education he needs to be a productive and successful citizen. This being said, there is a dark side to this relentless drive to put everybody on the planet in college. We have created a type of snobbery and ultimately a discriminatory practice in our society. You are made to feel bad if you do not want to go to a four-year college that somehow they are not good enough if you do not possess a BA or BS. What if you want to stay home and raise your family? My mother was the smartest person I knew and she only graduated high school. She always seemed to know the answers on Jeopardy.

Today in corporate America, the lack of a four-year degree is used against you as an excuse to keep your salary low. It is this type of Intellectual Elitism that has proven a failure to our students and our society at large.

How did I come to these conclusions? I have been a college representative and now a high school coordinator for more than four years. I have given more 2,500 lectured to and interacted with over 60,000 high school students in 83 different high schools in five school districts. I have personally met with and interviewed more than 300 teachers. I served on the post-secondary commitment program in the LAUSD with the District C superintendent Bob Collins. I was selected and presently serve on a committee with LAUSD District A Superintendent Dr. Debbie Leidner that's purpose is to build the first "all academy public high school" in Woodland Hills, CA. This school will open September 2004. When no one is looking and the door is closed, the teachers tell me how they really feel. I have a very unique insight to what is happening in our schools. Basically I am an education outsider who is on the inside of our public school system for the last four years.

High school counselors have been mandated by the state that they have to tell students to go to college even if they do not want to or are not meant to go. This in my opinion is counter-productive. What about little Johnny who wants to be a plumber like his dad? Johnny wants to take vocational courses to learn his trade. One day little Johnny will run his dad's business. Johnny needs to learn his trade and the basics on how to run a business. His school curriculum should be designed to prepare him for his chosen trade. The present federal public relations line regarding education is "No student left behind". Although the intentions are good, it has not worked and never will. My approach is "All students get ahead." America's students are more than a clever cliché.

The governors association based on their mandate requires that the school counselor tell Johnny that it doesn't matter what he wants and that he must get a bachelors degree. It is this intellectual elitism that has caused in my opinion a lower success rate in our school. The message little Johnny gets is that being a plumber is not good enough. Johnny feels bad about himself and then is given the impression that his dad is somehow a second class citizen for being a plumber. If a student has no desire to go to school and learn, we cannot force them. The old cliché that you can take a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink it really applies here. We must inspire our students to learn. A student isn't a statistic. A student is a person with feelings and dreams. We must remove the dream stealers from our schools. We must set policies that allow for individual students to express their unique talents and become successful.

If I am elected to the high school board, I will make sure that all policies will create an environment in which students can and will succeed.

James Shanbrom High School Board Candidate, High school Coordinator, and Parent.