Six Things More Important than that Desperate Housewife Cheating to Get Her Kid into a Prestigious College | Teacher in a strange land

Six Things More Important than that Desperate Housewife Cheating to Get Her Kid into a Prestigious College | Teacher in a strange land

Six Things More Important than that Desperate Housewife Cheating to Get Her Kid into a Prestigious College

I was mildly shocked by the network news leading off with the ‘cheating to get into college scandal’ last night. Were they just sick of starting each broadcast with the latest on Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Tim Apple?

The story is pretty juicy, involving real-life arrests and Famous Actresses Shamed and photoshopping rich kids’ heads onto actual athletes’ bodies posed in rowing sculls—and, oh yeah, an ex-basketball coach taking in hundreds of millions to ‘help’ them cheat.

But really—who’s surprised by this? In my last blog, I mentioned David Labaree’s superb white paper on how social mobility—not democratic equality, job preparation or something as mundane as the joy of learning—had become the predominant reason and purpose for schooling in America.

To Labaree, it’s all about credentialing. And to wealthy, influential parents, evidently, the right kind of credentialing matters more than setting a good example, or, you know, personal integrity.

In the end, I think it’s a kind of dumb and not very important story, for six reasons I’ll list in a bit.  A national episode of schadenfreude isn’t going to change people’s minds about the actual value of a college degree, unfortunately.

But first, I’d like to re-share one of the more interesting stories that got buried when it first surfaced, in the days after the 2016 election: The Story Behind Jared Kushner’s Curious Acceptance into Harvard.
ProPublica editor Daniel Golden wrote a book a decade ago about how the rich buy their CONTINUE READING: Six Things More Important than that Desperate Housewife Cheating to Get Her Kid into a Prestigious College | Teacher in a strange land