Let me point this out. Around thirty years ago...universities started to put pre-college courses on their offerings...and forcing a number of students to take college classes which were less than math 101 or English 101. The whole gimmick was because numerous kids were showing up and unable to do first-year college work. They forced you into a room...to take a test, and the result was that you’d be denied 101 type classes until you took the pre-college class. At that time, it was around $300 for the class. I failed the math exam and this was the gimmick they wanted me to do.
Instead, I walked over to the base education office...took the math 101 CLEP test and passed it. No cost, automatic college credit, and I skipped this whole gimmick.
So, let me tell you how this UMich deal works. The unqualified students will be brought in. They won’t be able to do real college work....so they will do pre-college classes (maybe four classes, maybe ten). Who pays? Well, I’m guessing that the university will rig up some hidden deal where all students are paying into a pot for the unqualified classes to be covered, or the state will be forced to pay. An entire year will be wasted on the catch-up classes. If you had bad learning habits before....nothing will happen with the trend, and you will quit by the end of the this first year.
It’s a gimmick, for more customers, and more junior professors who are now teaching below the line....to kids mostly at the eighth grade level. The high school and county board were stupid enough to pass them no matter what, with lousy instructors throughout their years in middle and high school. This is the result.
We might as well create a fresh new concept called ‘college school’, which is where you go after high school, to teach you what you should have learned in twelve years. The activists aren’t stupid....it’s just that they aren’t willing to tackle county education boards and demand responsibility on their part, or demand teachers be fired when they can’t teach at a competent level.
I'm a high school science teacher. The problem with graduating under-prepared students runs very deep. If I were to fail every student who couldn't pass grade-level tests in chemistry, I'd have to fail half or more of each class. This is in a suburban parochial school. When I taught in the inner city, I would have had to fail nearly all of them - and that was biology. By the time they come to high school, many of them are hopelessly behind where they need to be, with weak reading and math skills, and poor work habits. My handful of exchange students from Asia run circles around them, despite somewhat limited English proficiency.
We need to be willing to address academic failure in the early primary grades. Students who can't read properly should not be progressing beyond 3rd grade until they do. Likewise basic math. Social promotion and 'feel-good' self esteem building are doing these kids a terrible disservice. They are passed along year to year with deficient knowledge and skills. By the time they're in high school, it is next to impossible to catch up to where they should be. The top kids are still doing OK, but the average and slightly below average kids are not. A high school teacher can't hold the standard and fail those who don't measure up. Admin will over-ride the grades, fire the teacher, or both.
It has to be fixed with a top-to-bottom commitment to honest reporting and genuine achievement. That also means we need to face the unpleasant reality that not all kids have the ability to learn the most difficult material. I have students who haven't a prayer of understanding chemistry. They should have a drastically modified science course or a more practical academic track. This flies in the face of our society's misguided sense of equity.
I don't disagree that there are poor teachers out there. I've met quite a few. Every field of work has stars, average performers, and under-performers. However, I truly don't think we can put the massive failure of our educational system entirely at the feet of teachers. Education is a reflection of many ills in our society, and we can do much better without firing all the teachers.