CNN analysis: Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders

CNN ^ | 1/7/2014 | Sara Ganim

[PLMerite]

“I’ve never heard that. Got any examples? “

I remember Dexter Manley saying he had gone to Oklahoma State University for four years but was functionally illiterate. He didn’t get a degree though.

[Beagle8U]

“If that level of reading was enough, we could let sixth graders teach the fifth graders and dispense with the teachers.”

I can’t see why a 12th grader couldn’t be teaching 5th grade.

Overpaid babysitters working a part-time job.

[Dexter Morgan]

I thought the same thing the first time I heard Jameis Winston give an interview. I probably shouldn’t admit it publicly, but the thought I had was, “Is this guy speaking English?” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one (Alabama quarterback’s mom).

My fears were confirmed after I heard his interview following the national championship game. It is shameful we put so much importance on athletics while ignoring these men wouldn’t be able to support themselves in anything but menial jobs.

I love sports and played them through H.S., but I also got good grades...maybe that’s why I wasn’t college/pro material.

[Heart of Georgia]

The influence that the jackson types have is a HUGE part of the problem.

The education system is in ruins, but it’s been going downhill for a long time.

I remember classes where the so-called teacher didn’t teach, and as a result, no one knew what the class was all about. These teachers handed out very easy multiple-choice tests and then graded on a curve.

Then along came the culturally-biased schtick, and on and on.

[Born to Conserve]

“Several still pick from the top 5%”

Those schools used to pick from the top 1%.

[kosciusko51]

I think you are missing the point, which is that not all of higher education is watered down by an increase in the percentage of the populace that is going to college, nor are the academic standards of these schools being watered down by grade inflation.

Also, I seriously doubt you can back your assertion with a link stating that these schools only took the top 1% in the '40s. Besides, the number of college students going to college in the early part of the '40s was a bit lower than usual, due to a small issue called WW2.

[Constitution Day]

This seems like a good place to post the audio of that noted orator and UNC graduate, Tyler Hansbrough, reading Chicken Little.

"One day he was doing nothing, his usual pastime, when a corn fell from the sky."

LOL!!

[diogenes ghost]

"But Fry made it clear the lad could either play Big Ten football or go after an engineering degree, not both.."

Same thing happened this year with the top national recruit, Da'Shawn Hand. He was expected to pick Michigan, primarily due to it's combination of football and engineering. But Michigan made it clear that both were not an option, so he ended up going to Alabama.

As a Michigan fan, it hurts to lose such an obviously great recruit, but on the other hand it's nice to see integrity in the athletic programs.

[Mears]

My kids made more sense at age 3.

Unbelievable.

.

[KGeorge]

:-) I don’t believe I said or implied that they were. Certainly, being in a position to make judgements in that situation, they wouldn’t last long if they were.

[wintertime]

The problem is that colleges and universities are the minor leagues for the NFL and NBA. That’s the problem. And....Our nation’s K-12 government monopoly schools are the minor leagues to the minors.

The system is a corrupt “Scratch my university or K-12 back, and I’ll get government taxpayers to pay for your minor leagues”.

There is a solution:
Remove privatize all sports from the government K-12 schools through government university levels.

[wintertime]

they use colleges as their farm system.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yep! And....Government K-12 schools are the pre-farm teams supported by slaves ( oops! “taxpayers”).

[old and tired]

Maybe you’re referring to “reading ar an eighth grade level” of the 60’s. Besides, the article is actually referencing athelets that “read”at a FIRST grade level, ,

The article mentions the illiterates but then goes on to provide supporting data with athletes who are reading at the fifth through eighth grade level.

I don't know who all these FReepers are who apparently spend their weekends reading Dostoevsky, but I don't do too much that requires more than a fifth grade level of reading. In fact, I can't think of a single thing. The last time I read something written at the level of Dostoevsky or Ulysses was high school and not so coincidentally, that's when I was actually reading Dostoevsky and Ulysses.

Here are the middle 50% of SAT scores at Clarion College, a third tier Pennsylvania State School:
•SAT Critical Reading: 400 / 510
•SAT Math: 400 / 520
•SAT Writing: 380 / 500

That means 25% of the kids who attend Clarion don't even get 400 on any one section of the SATs. Is it ridiculous that these kids are going to college? Maybe, but that's the system we have now in our country. These kids - who may end up x-ray technicians, and yes gym teachers and elementary ed teachers - aren't reading much above a fourth grade level either. But guess what? Most of them will go on to own homes and be otherwise productive members of society. Even if they spend their spare time reading Dondi and the Family Circus.

In short, this article is long on scare examples and short on actual scary data. In fact, I would say a well supported Division 1 athlete - who can read on the fifth through eighth grade level - will likely be much better off than a run of the mill Clarion grad.

[old and tired]

....Our nation’s K-12 government monopoly schools are the minor leagues to the minors.

Maybe, but the sports is merely a symptom. The real problem is that many public schools, urban ones especially, are warehouses, not institutions of learning. I would bet most of those kids who can't even read at a third grade level are surrounded in their home neighborhoods by non-athletes who can't read either. The advantage these trained athletes have is that many of them have learned the value of hard work and discipline while many of their peers in the hood have not.

[Ole Okie]

How can it be enough to teach fifth grade?

Back in our illustrious past, one-room schools contained several grades and usually one teacher.

My mother and father attended such a one-room school, and mother taught a one room school for several years during the '20's. Many fifth graders helped their fourth, and third grade etc roommates.

In some semi-frontier schools attended primarily by farm kids, a lot of the kids were related, brothers, sisters, and cousins and they were expected by their parents to help teach the younger ones, quietly at school and intensely at home.

The learning of the students reached some pretty high goals.

[Organic Panic]

Obviously we need to vote for democrats so there is more democrat control of education.

[Born to Conserve]

“I think you are missing the point...”

I hope I’m missing your point because it going nowhere.

And as to your assertion that schools like MIT never took the top 1%, duh. If only 5% were going to college, and MIT only took those in the upper 20% of college students, that would be 1%. During the war, I am sure that MIT got somewhere above the first percentile — you know, developing radar and all.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I’m beginning to think you are not 1%er, or 5%er, but perhaps 35%er?

[kosciusko51]

You can't support your facts, so you resort to ad hominem attacks.

However, if you want some facts, take a look at Table 24 of this reference. I'll summarize the key numbers for you:

Year	College enrollment as % of 18 to 24 year olds
1939-1940	9.1
1941-1942	8.4
1943-1944	6.8
1945-1946	10.0
Fall 1946	12.5
Fall 1947	14.2
Fall 1948	14.7
Fall 1949	15.2
...	...
Fall 1991	53.7

So the average for the '40s is roughly 10% of the college-age population (about double your 5% number). However, this is not the top 10% of the all of the students, as "College education was reserved for an elite, socially homogeneous group of students (Bloomgarden, 1961). The students in college in the early 1940s were predominantly male, overwhelmingly white, and from middle- and upper-class families (Rudolph, 1990). Because higher education was primarily funded through student tuition and with only minimal aid available to students in the form of scholarships, fellowships and state government funds, college was primarily affordable only to the middle and upper class".

While I would surmise that most of the middle-class students would be in the top 10%, my guess is that there were a fair number of upper-class students who were not in the top 10%, even at the most prestigious universities.

As for the current state of affairs, I cannot say how many students at MIT or Caltech are in the top 1%, but test scores of the current MIT class can be found here, and 94% of Caltech's students were in the top 10% of their classes. Also, from personal experience, the students I know from these institutions for the most part were in the top 1 or 2% of their classes, at least that was the case 30 years ago.

[Boogieman]

Might have worked in the old days, but nowadays, we’d just get idiots teaching slightly younger idiots.

[Busko]

All about the money.