Giving Compass' Take:

• Eillie Anzilotti reports that research reveals that students are experiencing the opportunity myth: receiving good grades that do not accurately reflect their academic ability, giving them false hope.

• How can the gap between grades and ability be closed? What do schools need to do to increase the number of students who are prepared for college?

• Learn how schools can better communicate students' progress to families. 

Work hard in school, and you’ll be successful. That is something every kid in America hears, and believes. This mandate, though, leaves out an important side of the equation: Is school working for kids?
For many students, the answer is no, but this can be hard to see–especially when the American dream ideal of self-determination exists to place the blame for why so many people struggle after finishing high school squarely on the shoulders of students themselves. If a person has a hard time in college, or can’t hold down a job, this logic goes, they mustn’t have tried hard enough.

A new study from The New Teacher Project, a national nonprofit focused on teacher development and educational programming, aims to dispel this idea. Called The Opportunity Myth, it delves into a phenomenon that’s taken hold across the U.S.: As students finish high school and either enroll in college or head straight to the workforce, they’re finding themselves poorly prepared for whatever path they choose. “They’re planning their futures on the belief that doing well in school creates opportunities–that showing up, doing the work, and meeting their teachers’ expectations will prepare them for what’s next,” the study notes, but something, along the way, is not working.

According to TNTP, that something is school itself. Across the U.S., 40% of students who enroll in college (including 66% of black students and 53% of Latinx students) end up having to take a remedial course, where they re-learn skills they were supposed to have mastered in high school. This places them behind in their degrees and adds costs onto already steep tuition; students who have to take a remedial course are 74% more likely to drop out than their peers. Employers are also reporting that new hires out of high school often lack basic skills on the job.

This is not because students are not trying hard enough in high school, says TNTP CEO Dan Weisberg. In the course of compiling the three-year study, which looked at five diverse school systems across the U.S., TNTP found that more than half of the students consistently brought home As and Bs–they were obviously satisfying the demands of their schools and their teachers.

The issue, Weisberg says, is that those demands don’t match up with students’ capabilities, or the level at which they need to be performing to stay on track for a successful college degree or career.

Read the full article about the opportunity myth by Eillie Anzilotti at FastCompany.