“But Mom said …”
Parents know that line, or its variations, well. It’s hard to be the only one sticking to a rule and saying no when others offer a wink, a nudge and a yes. What’s intended as some sort of stand on principle comes across as bizarre, snooty and/or arbitrary, even when the principle involved is admirable.
I’ve been there. It’s no fun. And it’s worse when the folks taking or building shortcuts are praised as innovators when they’re really just cheating.
In a competitive setting, the usual term for that is a race to the bottom. Sticking to principle creates friction, which hampers speed. Those without principles can move more quickly. When first-mover advantage is significant and nobody enforces rules, we can expect those unburdened by conscience to be overrepresented among the winners.
I’ll leave the application of this idea to Silicon Valley as an exercise for the reader.
It was gratifying, in a way, to get confirmation of what I’ve been seeing earlier this week in NACEP’s new report on dual enrollment. It’s an examination of the rules around dual- and concurrent-enrollment programs in the various states, along with recommendations for ensuring the best outcomes. It’s worth the read.
The part that jumped off the page for me, though, was the categorization of states by the degree to which they’ve set up rules and systems to ensure quality. Ten states, including my own state of Pennsylvania, are identified as having no relevant state rules at all.
Can confirm. And it’s both frustrating and dangerous.
In the absence of meaningful rules and in the presence of a great many struggling, enrollment-driven private colleges, I’m seeing some … liberties … being taken that put my college in a tough spot.
For example, we’ve had high schools play colleges off against each other to see who would be the most permissive on instructor credentials. If we stand on the standard that the high school teacher should have the same credentials we’d expect of an on-campus instructor of the same course—which we do—then we’re at a competitive disadvantage when Nameless Private College (hereafter NPC, which seems about right) shrugs and says it’s fine. Some high schools allow students taking a class for college credit to co-sit with students who are only taking it as a high school class and allow the teachers to tell parents that there’s no difference between the two; NPC doesn’t bat an eye. Heck, we’re required by the state to charge double tuition for out-of-county districts, but private colleges can give the classes away for free as loss leaders.
All of these happen. And the cumulative effect is corrosion of academic standards. It’s hard to insist on basic standards when NPC is ready to swoop in on a moment’s notice and say yes to every request, no matter how absurd. It’s doing so because it can and because it needs the enrollments. But in doing so, it’s undermining the credibility of the entire enterprise.
Middle States’ language is sufficiently fuzzy to give colleges wiggle room, and the state ducks the issue entirely. A very highly placed person in the state government here once told me, in front of a roomful of witnesses, that the state’s approach is to see what develops and pass rules later. Or, to put it differently, to reward bad behavior at scale. That taxed my talent for keeping a straight face.
NACEP’s report takes academic rigor as given and proposes enhancements from there. I wish it were given. It could be; a few basic rules would go a long way. For example, the state could declare that only community colleges could partner with high schools and that each college had a defined territorial monopoly. That would end the “But Mom said …” shenanigans. Or it could require a set level of instructor credentials no matter which college assigned credit. Or it could fund dual enrollment at the level of local community college tuition; high schools that wanted to partner with the local NPC could, but would have to pay the difference.
Any or all of those would make a dramatic difference. The key is having someone set and enforce, ground rules. In the absence of those, the academic equivalent of snake oil is being peddled and students think they’re getting something that they aren’t.
Thank you, NACEP, for confirming that it doesn’t have to be this way. It is, but it doesn’t have to be. Failing to make a choice centrally means deferring to lots of choices made locally, many of which are based on convenience rather than quality. The longer that goes on, the harder it will be to dislodge. Someone has to be willing to say no to the kid’s third piece of chocolate cake, no matter what Mom said.
