What My Dissertation Got Right—And What Time Taught Me to Rethink

Stories from the Margins: How Continuation High School Principals Use Personal Adversity to Shape Student Success.

Reflecting on my dissertation 12 years later. - Dylan Farris, Ed.D.

I used to believe—without hesitation—that the best thing a high school could do for its students was get them into college.
I wasn’t just aligned with the college-for-all movement. I embodied it.

As a social studies teacher at Culver City High School, I led our AVID program with urgency and purpose. Later, as Assistant Principal and eventually Principal of that same school, I helped build a college-going culture from the ground up. We tracked college applications, celebrated acceptances, organized decision day events, and pushed students—especially those from underserved backgrounds—toward four-year degrees as the surest path to success.

And for a long time, I believed that if we could just get more students to college, we’d be doing right by them.

But that belief started to shift—and my dissertation was the beginning of that change.

The Research: What My Dissertation Set Out to Understand

In Stories from the Margins, I set out to explore how continuation high school principals—leaders working with students who’d been pushed out of traditional school settings—understood and responded to student adversity.

I focused specifically on principals who had faced significant personal challenges of their own: poverty, violence, trauma, systemic barriers. My central question was simple: How does personal adversity shape how school leaders view their students—and the possibilities they see for them?

The answer was powerful.

Across the board, the principals I interviewed shared a deep belief that their students could overcome hardship because they themselves had done it. That belief wasn’t just philosophical—it was practical. It informed how they structured school culture, how they approached discipline, how they communicated hope.

At the time, I framed much of that hope through the lens I knew best: college-going. I surmised that that principals who had overcome adversity were more likely to believe their students could and should be college-bound.

But today, I see things differently.

The Blind Spot in Our Belief Systems

In comprehensive high schools like the one I led, we treated college like the holy grail. It was the goal that validated everything we were doing. And when students from historically marginalized communities earned admission to four-year universities, we saw it as proof that we were leveling the playing field.

But what we rarely acknowledged was how narrow that playing field had become—and how few students actually made it across.

Nationally, fewer than one in three public high school graduates will earn a bachelor’s degree within six years of enrolling in college. Among low-income, first-generation students—the very students we were pushing hardest—completion rates are significantly lower. And even for those who do graduate, the payoff is increasingly uncertain.

Today, over 43 million Americans carry student loan debt totaling more than $1.7 trillion, and many college graduates are underemployed in jobs that don’t require a degree at all. According to the Federal Reserve, nearly 40% of recent college grads work in roles that don't utilize their education—and that disconnect hits hardest in Black and Latino communities.

These aren’t just statistics. They’re a wake-up call.

We believed we were expanding opportunity. But in truth, we were funneling students into a system with high risks, uneven rewards, and no guarantee of mobility. And we weren’t offering real alternatives.

A New Lens: What Workforce Development Taught Me

One of the most important things I’ve come to understand is that technical and trade-related pathways are just as noble, just as rigorous, and often more financially rewarding than a traditional college education.

Apprenticeship programs, for example, combine classroom instruction with paid, on-the-job training—often leading to careers in the building trades, advanced manufacturing, information technology, and healthcare. These are not backup plans. They are highly structured, deeply skilled professions with defined pathways for advancement.

In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, individuals who complete registered apprenticeships earn an average starting salary of over $77,000, and many go on to earn more than the average college graduate—without carrying student loan debt.

These programs require discipline, commitment, and critical thinking. They don’t just offer an alternative to college—they offer a redefinition of what success and intelligence look like in a modern economy.

Yet our K–12 system rarely presents them that way.

Until we treat these pathways as equally valuable—and prepare students for them with the same urgency and intentionality we give to college prep—we’re not delivering on the promise of equity. We’re offering a limited vision of success.

What My Dissertation Still Gets Right

To truly serve students—especially those in continuation schools—educators and school leaders must first broaden their own understanding of what opportunity looks like.

Many school leaders, myself included, have spent their entire professional lives within the four walls of classrooms, campuses, and central offices. We have gone from being students, to teachers, to administrators—often without stepping outside the education system. As a result, we tend to know a great deal about colleges, transcripts, and GPAs—but far less about apprenticeships, workforce pipelines, or technical training programs that lead to high-wage careers.

This limited exposure shapes our assumptions. If we’ve never seen how a union apprenticeship works—or how much a licensed electrician, software technician, or advanced manufacturing specialist can earn—we’re unlikely to value those pathways, let alone recommend them to students. And that’s a disservice.

The core of my research still holds true: school leaders who have experienced real adversity are uniquely equipped to lead in environments where students face steep odds. They lead with empathy, urgency, and a refusal to give up.

What I’d add today is this: those same leaders must also be willing to expand their own definitions of success. Especially in continuation schools, we need to build systems that normalize multiple outcomes—not just college admission, but career preparation, skill-building, and connection to real-world opportunities.

Belief in students should not require them to follow one path.

Call to Action

If you’re a school leader, counselor, or policymaker, remember this: the most important thing we can do for our students is believe in them. That was the core finding of my dissertation—and it still holds true.

But belief alone isn’t enough.
We also have to believe in options.

For too long, our systems have treated college as the only worthy outcome. That narrow focus has left too many students behind—and left school leaders unprepared to guide them toward viable, rewarding alternatives. Most of us in education have spent our entire careers in classrooms and offices. We know how college works. But do we know how apprenticeships work? Do we understand the earning potential in the trades? Do we value credentials that don’t come with a campus?

If not, we can’t offer students what they truly need: informed guidance, real choices, and pathways that match their talents and goals—not just our own experience.

Let’s commit to learning what we don’t know.
Let’s build relationships with workforce partners, union programs, and training providers.
Let’s stop treating college as the only story worth telling—and start treating every path with the dignity it deserves.

Because believing in students should also mean believing they deserve more than one way to win.