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[Assessment 491] Remedial courses, preparedness, HS, and GEDMarie Cora marie.cora at hotspurpartners.comFri Sep 8 11:26:56 EDT 2006
Hi everyone, this is kinda long. I had the opportunity to read thru the 2 articles that have been posted during this exchange on the GED and college admissions. I have some thoughts, comments, and questions for you all. In the article posted earlier today ("Paying Double: Inadequate High Schools and Community College Remediation") there are some alarming statistics: * Nearly half (42%) of students in Community Colleges (CCs) are taking remedial courses * 20% of students in 4 year colleges are taking remedial courses * CCs are quickly becoming the space where students who need to take catch up courses must go (11 states have passed LAWS banning remedial courses in 4 year institutions - I am assuming that other states will follow suit) The article notes that in addition to students arriving at higher ed institutions without adequate skills in reading, writing, and math, they are also poorly prepared in their study habits and in understanding and managing complex material. While about half of the students in CC remedial courses fall into categories including retraining, re-education, and learning English language skills (so these folks could be of any age), the other half are in fact recent or fairly recent High School grads who are taking remedial courses in order to gain the skills and knowledge that they should have achieve/received in their high schools. In addition, the leading predictor for dropping out of college is the need upon entry for a remedial course in reading. The other article, sent by Donna Brian the other day ("At 2-Year Colleges, Students Eager But Unready"), the following text-bits really hit me hard: * The young man featured in the article can balance his checkbook (a complex action and necessary practical life skill), but struggles to remember mathematical notions like Pythagorean theory, sine, cosine, and tangent. * That there is presently a movement among public universities to "crack down on ill-prepared students" (also noted in the first article above). * That many students are "shocked" when they learn upon entry to college that their high school experience has not prepared them for higher ed. It is their assumption that HS would/should do this, but instead, they find they need remedial courses first. * "It's the math that's killing us." (see page 2 of this article) What does this mean for us in adult education? If it's so clear that our youth is not prepared for the rigors of higher ed in terms of both academic skills, and critical thinking and study skills, then we all expect to see a lot of these folks in our adult education programs. How do we work with this? Will we become the next space where all the "remediation" takes place? Are we already there? What role does testing and accountability play at the high school level (which has invented the new term "Push Outs") - is it exacerbating this trend at the expense of our children's minds and capabilities, and of course the future of our economy and generations? How about the GED? Where does this fit in with this scenario? Which is better, which is worse at this point: a HS diploma or a GED, and does this matter? I know the research says that it does, but the emerging information we keep reading is that our HSs are also not up to snuff. What about that other 50% in the CCs - those folks of any age who are there because they need retraining (lost their job for whatever reason, or got laid off), re-education of older students (they need way better reading, writing, math, computer, critical thinking skills in order to compete for living-wage jobs), students who are in need of improving their English language skills. All these folks sound familiar to me when I think back on my work as a program administrator and practitioner in the field. Does this mean that ABE/ESOL needs to prepare students to go into remedial courses in CCs?? Do we need to surpass what HSs are doing, and what remedial courses are there for? Is ABE equal to the remedial level of study in the CCs? What do we need to do to go beyond the GED level with our students? If high school diplomas do not mean that with continued diligence and work, you can enter higher ed at a successful level and stay there until you graduate, then where does that leave us helping students to achieve a GED? marie Marie Cora NIFL Assessment Discussion List Moderator marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com Coordinator, LINCS Assessment Special Collection http://literacy.kent.edu/Midwest/assessment/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/assessment/attachments/20060908/9cec75b3/attachment.html
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