The important thing is not who's on the
list of the most excellent 120 community colleges. The CRITERIA for being on that list, and winning recognition, is given at the top. What should give everyone with good sense a reason to pause is the set of criteria, especially the last one. Here they are
"In a comprehensive review of publicly available data, these 120 two-year institutions—from 32 states—have demonstrated strong outcomes considering three areas of student success:
- student success in persistence and completion,
- consistent improvement in outcomes over time, and
- equity in outcomes for students of all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds."
The troubling part is the "equity in outcomes" mess. There has never been, in any society documented by history, equity in outcomes. This country is unique in the history of mankind in the way it grants equity in opportunity, but equity in outcomes is impossible to achieve.
Equity in outcomes presumes that we all have the same abilities and preferences, and that we're all motivated the same way. Last I checked that isn't the case. We all have talents and other things that we aren't talented with - hard work is the great equalizer. We all have our personal goals and motivations that drive us.
Can we all expect to achieve the same results in our lives? Clearly not. Look at how many people fall into the "wasted potential" category - we all know folks like this I'm sure. They can't keep a job for whatever reason, or pick a career or major, or they've squandered their opportunities in life. Hard work pays off, and free riding doesn't, whether we talking about social systems or elementary school.
Think about public schools, for example. Does everyone finish at the top of their high school class? No? Then there isn't equity of outcomes.
From the standpoint of financial economics, promising an "equality of outcomes" tends to 1) be a lie, and 2) stifle incentives to achievement. If you know that you'll at least get a C in the class, in the name of outcome equity, then why bother studying?
I'll propose an experiment in "equity of outcomes" for my undergrad students. The next time we have an exam, I'll set the median at 80, and then take points from those folks ABOVE 80 and redistribute them to the folks BELOW 80 to get everyone closer to the median. That's equity, right? I bet that won't go over too well with all those A and B students - surprising, since I bet a few of them buy into the idea that the rich are getting richer. Isn't that what getting an A means? You're a "richer" student, right? Isn't it greedy to keep all those points for yourself?
What America has demonstrated, at least until the last few years, is that it's possible to provide people with the opportunities they need to survive. How many times have we seen immigrants come here with nothing (legally) and leave a successful business empire to their children? If we look at the makeup of the top 25% of income earners in this country, it changes constantly. We have no "classes" here like other cultures have, traditionally; but it may be in the interest of politicians to change that, or at least to make us feel that we're in some downtrodden "class" group or another. Beware elected officials promoting "outcomes" - that sounds like "a chicken in every pot."
