According to a report published by three state education agencies in December 2004, 55 percent of all recent high school graduates who go on to community or technical college in Washington state must take remedial courses in reading, writing or math. Twelve percent of the students who go straight to a four-year college or university are in the same boat.
“Remedial” means pre-college. It means students must spend time in college obtaining knowledge and skills they should have learned in high school. It means state taxpayers are paying twice to teach the same material. It means scarce college slots are needlessly filled with students who are not earning college credit (much to their detriment).
“Existing statewide data are inadequate to tell the whole story,” says the report, “but system experts believe that the core issues are communication, student preparation and planning, assessment, curriculum, and teaching methods.”
Hm. What else is there?
Posted by Marsha Michaelis at February 21, 2005 11:40 AM | Email ThisAside from that, the real problem is that education has turned from a community thing into a state and national thing. Citizens in communities must assert their power to reform the local schools. A lot can be done that cannot be done at the state and national level.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on February 21, 2005 12:47 PMAs a result, I was scolded for suggesting that I knew better. She told me this is the latest technique from New Zealand, “…where they are way ahead of us in teaching”. I pointed out that it was the Asians and not the Kiwis that were kicking the crap out of our students.
That didn’t score me any points. In the mean time, I continue to supplement my son’s education with basic fundamentals.
As a result, I was scolded for suggesting that I knew better. She told me this is the latest technique from New Zealand, “…where they are way ahead of us in teaching”. I pointed out that it was the Asians and not the Kiwis that were kicking the crap out of our students.
That didn’t score me any points. In the mean time, I continue to supplement my son’s education with basic fundamentals.
That would seriously tee some people off. Probably immensely profitable at college prices too.
The 'Early Entrance' program at the UW is along the lines I'm thinking of - but blow it up to a more sizable number... and offer diplomas.
Posted by: Al on February 21, 2005 01:14 PMAccountability!
Posted by: josh on February 21, 2005 02:15 PMA long time ago, our children spent 4 years in high school preparing themselves for either a life in the work force following graduation (from high school), or entering a university to earn a college degree necessary to pursue some profession. Enter the community colleges in the 60's to accomodate the baby-boomers. As the boom faded, the mission of the community colleges changed. A large number of 11th and 12th grade high schoolers are entering community colleges via a state-sponsored "running start" program. This relieves high schools from the burdon of providing high level college prep classes, and leaves the heavy lifting for the local community colleges.
I wonder how many of these running starters are enrolled in the remedial classes? Does anyone know if there are rules preventing high school students that require remedial coursework from enrolling in community colleges?
Al also made mention of the Early Entrance Program at the UW. This is not really a running start program. This is a program for high achieving or high potential high school age children... the extreme end of the bell curve. The typical EEPer will perform better than the typical high school graduate at the UW. Or am I missing something?
I believe that today's typical high school graduate is equivalent academically to your average 8th grade graduate of the year 1890 or 1900.
Posted by: Huckleberry on February 21, 2005 02:31 PMPerhaps we are also looking at the impact of driving everyone into colleges - 2 or 4 year. Today, we are no longer drawing a relatively elite group into college, but instead are taking a very large subset that encompasses a broad range of abilities. Our high schools are now designed to funnel essentially all students on to college programs - whether or not that is the best avenue for a student's aptitude, interest and abilities.
I have taught at both a private university and at a community college. I also echo Patrick's comments that far too many decisions were being made at the community college for the purpose of padding FTEs than delivering the highest quality education in an efficient manner. We had students failing, and re-taking, classes up to three times. And surprisingly, many of these students were getting paid to attend on financial aid grants! I mentioned this problem to an administrator and was initially told "You've got to be careful on this as it will lower our FTEs". (The college did, later, put a stop to this abuse of the taxpayers - and other students, since it meant less financial aid available to worthy students.)
Posted by: Edward on February 21, 2005 03:34 PMUnfortunately, it is also my perception that PC trends have started to "dumn down" the running start programs. They were intended, initially, for the most gifted high school students. Now the lesser gifted are insisting on participating. And so it goes.
Posted by: Patrick on February 21, 2005 05:01 PMI see honor rolls every semester from every little town in our county. A very large number of all A's and an even larger number of 3.50 to 3.99 grade averages. One semester our town with a high school student population of approx. 220, 4 grades, had 37 all A's. And that senior class (57 students) had 5 valedictorians. Can you spell g r a d e i n f l a t i o n?
Posted by: cc on February 21, 2005 05:31 PMPart of the problem is the job market. More and more jobs require a college degree because they want the 'best', and the colleges like having lots of students because they're customers. So the push is on from practically everywhere in society to get more and more people into college. The only people saying, "I don't know about this," are the people paying the bills.
Posted by: Shannon K on February 21, 2005 05:43 PMMy first year at college went smoothly, all A's. The next few years were challenging, and now I find myself getting close to graduation with a 3.5 (All A's & B's).
What angers me most about kids needing to take remedial courses isn't the money expended. We are cheating our students out of a good education, a chance at honing their god-given faculties to unparalleled sharpness.
All too often I've heard people say, high school was a joke-- "it didn't prepare me for jack-sh!t" These are also the same people who say they they would have tried harder, if only someone would have cared, i.e. classic victim mentality.
Who will save America's school children from a life of ignorance?
Posted by: CR ACTIVIST on February 21, 2005 08:09 PMAs a college student in nursing school, I was in (what I thought at the time was) heady company with other students who had graduated with honors from their high schools. I had been out of school for nearly 20 years before going to college for my BSN. I was not the most attentive student in high school (1.75 GPA). But by the time I got into college, I had learned the value of the basic 3 Rs (finishing a very tough nursing program with a 3.92 GPA).
So I had the benefit of perspective that the 30 young ladies and 3 young men around me lacked (I was one of 4 men, and at 39 the "old man" of the nursing class).
Due to the nature of nursing, a huge percentage of our education was built on math, science, and English. We had to write countless research papers, perform thousands of drug dosage calculations, understand the chemical properties and therapeutic actions of hundreds of different medications, and give dozens of presentations before the class and faculty. Furthermore, graduation from nursing school did not guarantee a place in the workforce. We still had to pass the NCLEX-RN, arguably one of the toughest licensing evaluations in existence. On many occasions throughout the nursing program, we were required to review and critique each other's work.
Oh, my God.
I could not believe how bad some of these freshly-graduated "honor students" were at math. Their science knowledge was nearly non-existent. Nearly all of these kids lacked basic knowledge of sentence structure. Spelling was abominable. (One girl chronically spelled "hello" as "hellow" and, in spite of four years of college, stubbornly continues to do so to this day.) Nearly all had no understanding of the use of the words "there", "their", and "they're" in proper context, usually substituting for the wrong example. (i.e., "Family members approached me to ask how there mother was doing...")
(And if you can't see what was wrong with that sentence, then you too can be a university student.)
Look. We need to get serious about taking our kids' education back from the NEA and the state.
This is not about cost. Any school administrator or representative who says it is should be sent packing. This is about quality, and about producing a generation of students who can hold an edge in an increasingly competitive world.
The answer is not lowering our standards. It is not giving failing students a pat on the head and passing them anyway. It is not money or smaller class sizes or more teaching staff. God knows, none of that has worked.
The answer is ACCOUNTABILITY. And unless we start holding our kids, teachers, school boards, state representatives, and that pack of thieves known as the NEA accountable, we will continue to rob our kids of the education they deserve and the hope and self-esteem that can only come through accomplishment.
Off the soapbox.
Posted by: ERNurse on February 21, 2005 08:26 PMthe real problems begin in a phoney grade school curriculum that enphasizes "getting along" and "diversity" ( as if "diversity is a noun") sexuality, etc etc.....
we need strong math, English, reading, science courses for our kids....
We must demand more from grade school....sucess in HS will follow....
Yeah, and parents too- including myself (we homeschool)!
Posted by: ERNurse on February 21, 2005 11:26 PMThe problem is, many families who send their children to public schools are getting what they want, or at least, what they say they want. They don't want to burdon their children with homework, they are tolerant of creative spelling, and they are ignorant of their children's appalling grammar. They could not care less about mathematics, science, and other elitest pursuits. A self-contradicting but steady diet of esteem-building and victimology is the curriculum of choice, and that seems to be what many parents, and voters, want from the schools.
Like so many other areas of public policy, this is a division that needs to be reconciled. We need to all agree (or nearly all agree) that the 3R's are very important, and that the 3 R's should be given top priority in our schools, or else we should all agree that socialization is king, and it must dominate the curricula. For me, I think the battle was fought, and the 3 R's lost while we were all sleeping.
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=50964
Posted by: Cheryl on February 22, 2005 09:59 AMIt is interesting that you mention the parental aspect of public education from a consumer perspective.
I know that in my school district, there is little to no information sent to parents regarding either new curriculum or changes in existing curriculum. I have two kids who are finishing high school in this district. We get no information from the high school other than progress reports. No syllabi, or course description has ever been provided.
This begs the question: how do parents know that they are in fact getting what they have asked for?
Even the language used in school levy literature is vague and leaves room for school districts to spend taxpayer money for curriculum that, if parents were fully aware, would never be allowed.
So IMHO it is not simply a matter of parents getting what they want; rather, it is a matter of the school districts telling the parents that they are getting what they want, without being held accountable for providing proof that such is the case.
With regard to Alaskaboy's question about two-income homes, I can only give my household as an example, but more the exception than the rule.
My wife and I made the decision to become a single-income family some years ago, because my wife firmly believed that our kids would benefit by having her home to care for them and teach them while I worked.
Financially, this was a difficult choice to make, and took a great deal of faith. In the beginning, it was very dificult, as one may imagine. We did without a lot of things. But the investment we made is beginning to pay off.
I cannot speak for others out there, but my wife and I believed that a strong faith-, knowledge-, and values-oriented upbringing for our kids was more important than accumulating a bunch of stuff. We believed then and believe now that the quality of our kids' home environment and education took precedence over any material gains that a dual income might reap.
Again I say that that is just us- that is what we personally felt called to do. In no way should this be construed as casting aspersion upon families wherein both parents work.
But I do maintain that even in a dual-income family- perhaps even moreso than otherwise- parents must be diligent in ensuring that their school districts are providing a proper and sufficient education. That is not a statement that I make lightly.
But whether a family is single-income or dual-income, the parental investment must be consciously and diligently made, because the consequence of disconnecting from our kids' education is what we now see before us.
Posted by: ERNurse on February 22, 2005 10:01 AMSo many kids need remediation because our schools just don't try to teach any real knowledge. They teach skills. They are convinced they can teach critical thinking and analysis without giving kids a large body of knowledge to analyize.
My children's education is so schizophrenic. They are either doing projects that distract them from the subject they are supposed to be learning about, or they are doing the worst sort of repetitive work. My third-grader learns spelling by filling in endless worksheets instead of by writing sentences (or looking up and writing down definitions). Then they grade them as a class. Sometimes they complete the assignment as a class. Math assignments don't have to be finished, the kids just have to "do their best". His teacher has made everything as boring and unchallenging as possible, and sucked out any feeling of accomplishment at the same time. My child has discovered that shoddy work gets the same praise as good work, and he instictively knows that means he will never be able to have what he really wants: genuine praise for quality work.
Too many educators are enamored with anything that looks distinctive and revolutionary, and especially that appears to go against your better instincts. I think it's a misguided notion of 'really smart ideas always go against mainstream common sense'. Also, how are you supposed to make a name for yourself in the education world if you don't have something new to advocate?
Curriculum is the issue, and educators know it. Look at our state standards to see: they really think you can teach mathematical reasoning without teaching or practicing much actual math, and that you can teach English language arts without teaching about the literary traditions of the English language. (Sound of my head hitting my keyboard again.)
Posted by: California Dreamer on February 22, 2005 10:55 AMMy experience has been that when the district does include information about their educational approach it is unhelpful. One district I was in called their reading program "balanced", meaning a combination of phonics and whole language, but teachers told me the district hadn't provided phonics materials in 4 years. They knew teachers were hoarding phonics materials from the years before, so they felt justified in calling their program balanced. So they told us what we wanted to hear to get us off their backs.
Communication with teachers is either non-existant (meaning no newsletter, a token homework packet, and no other graded work sent home) or useless (a newsletter filled with chatter, like "monday we worked at our math station" to mean "we did a connect-the-dot worksheet.") Despite attending back-to-school night, I never know what my kids are learning, and how it is being taught until I get into their classrooms.
Which is why my husband and I made the same decision your family did. I stay home and keep an eye on things.
Posted by: California Dreamer on February 22, 2005 11:24 AMThe 1980's represented an increased challenge as students were not only less prepared for college-level instruction, but they had somehow been given the impression that their success or failure was the responsibility of those attempting to teach them rather than their own!
It gets worse. In the 1990's, in addition to poor preparation and unwillingness to take responsibility for failures to learn, we now found an attitude that faculty weren't being "sensitive" and sufficiently caring. Our students were now exhibiting the full-fledged effects of the self-esteem movement.
Some professors struggled to resist the pressures to inflate grades, catering to lowered standards of accountability. They were finished off by the emphasis upon student evaluations of their professors, making professional success dependent upon receiving "good grades" from their students.
All is not lost, yet. But higher education is floundering in this country. Please don't take it for granted.
Posted by: RLG on February 22, 2005 12:14 PM