Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Connecting Current Education and Future Plans
Many students have absorbed the message that it is important to attend college
and to plan for a profession, but they have little sense of how to make that hap-
pen—what courses they need to take and what caliber of academic record is nec-
essary. Alternative scenarios for future employment and success that are culturally
acceptable seem nonexistent.
Asked about her future plans, a 10th-grade student said that she was thinking of
going to college. Her comments illustrated the gulf between aspirations and
achievement that typified many such conversations:
I want to be a doctor, a pediatrician. I always told my mom I wanted to be
a doctor or a beautician, because I like nails and hair. My mom tells me to
be a doctor, because they make more money and help people, but she tells
me it’s up to me. It will take a lot of hard work to be a doctor. I know that
you have to go to college a long time—I don’t know how long. Right now
I’m not doing that good in biology. I was talking with my friends all the time
and not doing my work . . . . We get our report cards tomorrow and she
already told me that I got an F. I asked her to give me a D so my mom won’t
kill me . . . . I am going to try to do better next grading period. I could
bring it up high, because biology is easy. I would just have to study for the
tests. The homework and class work is easy.

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A female student at South Central, the vocational school described by its principal
as a ‘‘school of last resort,’’ said that she wanted to be a lawyer. Asked what that
might take, she replied:
I know I got to finish high school. And then I’m going to a junior college,
and then I go to a 4-year college to take my main courses that I need to be
a lawyer.
A graduating senior at the same school, interviewed in the spring, said that he
thought he would ‘‘set up my own business or be a doctor or lawyer or some-
thing like that . . . . Something that is going to make me money, like a laun-
dromat, something like that, you know.’’ Asked if he had taken any business
courses, he said, ‘‘No, I didn’t even know they had one, but when I go to college,
I can take business courses there.’’ The vague nature of preparatory career steps
was exemplified by a middle school student with aspirations of becoming a law-
yer. Asked what this might require in high school, she replied ‘‘Decent grades,
no D’s or F’s.’’ As mentioned earlier, many in the inner city aspire to the role
of professional athlete and most seem relatively unaware of their very low odds
in succeeding at this dream or remain undaunted by them. One student said that
in basketball ‘‘only 1 out of every 179 makes it,’’ so he thought he should have
an education to ‘‘fall back on.’’
We also interviewed also included students from humble circumstances who
dreamed big and were on a realistic path to success. A Mexican junior in West
City, whose mother was a janitor and whose father worked on an assembly line,
was enrolled in two college courses already; was applying to Stanford and MIT,
and was planning a career in computer or electrical engineering. The recent Rus-
sian immigrant who had excelled at Uptown in both academic and extracurricular
activities had been accepted at several colleges and was planning a major in biol-
ogy and premed and a career as a surgeon. A Vietnamese American student en-
rolled in honors courses, whose mother worked in a factory and whose father was
a mechanic, described her plans for pediatric medicine or dentistry with clear
confidence that emanated, in part, from an outstanding academic record.