The Case for Dreaming Big

Abstract

The American educational system is no fairy tale. Students who think that it takes nothing more than a wish upon a star to make their educational dreams come true are sure to be disappointed. We agree with Professor Rosenbaum: In order to realize their educational dreams, students must invest considerable effort. Indeed, we believe so strongly in the central role of effort in the status attainment process that we made it—not test scores or cognitive ability or any other familiar educational construct—the central dependent vari able in our analyses. Rather than encouraging fairy-tale dreaming, our article asks, Does the college-for-all ethos harm American school students by encouraging them to engage in fairy tale dreaming? Rosenbaum argues that it does; our analyses suggest that it does not. Figures 1 and 2 provide a simple summary of Rosenbaum's argument regarding the consequen ces of the college-for-all ethos for the school effort of school students in the forgotten half. Rosenbaum argues that college for all has boosted students' college expectations without improving their access to quality about what it takes to succeed in college. In other words, Rosenbaum argues that college for all moves students in the forgotten half' from the expectations; low information cell in Figure 1 to the high expectations; low informa tion cell. Furthermore, Rosenbaum contends that the college-for-all ethos reduces school students' interest in and awareness of the sub-bac