more on black students and college sports
A few days I ago, I discussed the depressing relationship between sports and black enrollment statistics: many colleges proudly display black enrollments as signs of diversity, but these students are often academically deficient athletes. Loyal reader Thomas J. Hanson, has a neat blog called Open Education: Free education for All, where he discusses this issue in detail:
Each year Derrick Z. Jackson Boston Globe, a columnist for the reviews the college graduation rates for the 64 football teams that are invited to a bowl game. This year was Jackson’s 12th edition of what he calls his “Graduation Gap Bowl.”
For someone who believes that sports has a great many benefits for students, the annual review is a sobering experience. The summary always demonstrates how far big time college sports can stray from the original intent of the game. This year was Jackson’s 12th edition of what he calls his “Graduation Gap Bowl.”
There’s also a nice discussion of schools that actually have athletes who graduate:
There are some sterling performances. The Naval Academy produced a bowl team this year, a sign of success on the field. More importantly, according to the 2007 National Collegiate Athletic Association Graduation Rates Report covering scholarship athletes, the graduation success rate at the school is 95 percent. In other words, Navy truly has student-athletes playing football.
Number two in the land is Boston College with a graduation success rate of 93 percent. BC also produces virtually identical rates for white and black athletes, 94% and 90% respectively.
Jackson notes just how unique these schools are. Of course, with coaches making $2 million and more the pressure to win would of course render the student piece less important at many institutions.
Open Education has a lot of interesting education related posts like this one on comic books in the classroom or this one on video games as teaching tools. Anderson was a superintendent, teacher and coach for 31 years, so he has an interesting “on the ground” take. Check it out. Recommended!
