Posted on 05/30/2011 4:33:01 AM PDT by massmike
By a number of indicators, hundreds of thousands of high school students are graduating unprepared for the rigors of college. Nationally, in 2010, only 24 percent of ACT-tested high school graduates were deemed college ready in all four subjects tested — English, math, reading and science. In Illinois, only 23 percent met those benchmarks.
In 2008, an estimated 44 percent of students under 25 at a public two-year college and 27 percent of all students under 25 at public four-year schools were taking at least one remedial course, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics.
A survey by an education non-profit group showed that four out of five students taking remedial classes graduated from high school with a GPA above 3.0.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
That’s true. Just like the parents that don’t want to make waves with their kids, they end up letting them down in the long run. They set them up to fail.
“Who cares if the read Shakespeare or know details in history. It isn’t going to help them flip burgers.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I agree with the basic idea but the problem is that they are allowed to VOTE! When I finished high school I had at least been taught enough about the history of governments, nations and wars to know that most modern politicians are frauds. I would have had no excuse to become a worshiper of some socialist/communist dictator, I knew better.
I think we should have requirements for voting other than being a living, breathing, warm body. On second thought liberal democrats are often elected by constituents who don’t even meet that standard.
My sincerest congratulations to you and your son!
If carefully examined and studied you would likely find that 99.999% of that success was due to the ** hard work** done in the home by your son and the values you as a parent created in the home. Behind every academically successful student I have ever met stand dedicated parents, and **tons** of afterschooling done by the child and the parent.
I know this is anecdotal, but when I ask parents with academically successful children about their home habits, I find that there is little difference between homeschoolers and institutionalized kids. Both sets of families share similar values about education. Both sets have similar home values concerning, health habits, exercise, sleep, choice of friends, and TV and electronic games habits. And...( This is important)...Both sets of kids are spending about the same amount of time at the kitchen table or their desks working on education projects IN THE HOME!
Personally...I conclude that academically successful institutionalized children are successful IN SPITE of being institutionalized. The school is mostly merely sending home a curriculum for the student and parent to follow. The real work is being done by afterschooling in the home! And...It is possible that these bright institutionalized children could be **finished ** college and on to graduate school instead of working on AP courses taught by high school teachers. It is possible that the government school is actually retarding their progress.
By the way...I noticed that AP courses were introduced by government schools just about the same time that homeschoolers were entering college as young teens and graduating from college at the same ages as their institutionalized peers were collecting a mere high school diploma.
Again my sincerest congratulations. I give you and your son 99.999% of the credit.
Just one more thing:
Two of my homeschoolers finished B.S. degrees in math by the age of 18. The older of the two was teaching college math courses ( as a TA in her graduate program) at the age of 18. As I drive by any government school, I **KNOW** that the top 10% are languishing in high school and could easily be making the same academic progress of my kids.
“... too many in public education think they are doing kids a favor by passing them along...”
How true. Years ago, if you didn’t pass, you didn’t go on to the next grade. Many times, it did the trick. Not as punishment but sometimes a child needed an extra year. For example, I know one man who struggled academically till third grade and then his parents requested he repeat that grade. Boom! A year of maturing was all it took. His grades soared and he graduated very high in college and law school. Schools do not tend to have kid’s repeat a grade for whatever reason like they used to IMHO.
How much does an AP exam cost?
Absolutely!
Judging by the people I worked with entering the workforce from about 1985, major remedial attention should’ve been provided decades ago. They had (have) their dorky degrees in H.R. Management, Law, Engineering, etc., but couldn’t compose a gramatically correct sentence; never figured out the difference between “you and me” and “you and I”; subject-verb agreement, etc.
Spouse is PhD in Physics, and he’s complained since we met in 1995 that the new PhDs have no writing skills. The corps hire the new kids, but assign proposal writing, etc., to the ones who learned the basics in junior high, and high, schools, i.e., “the old guys”.
I noticed in junior and senior high school back in the 70’s that my teachers aged about 40 or older had all mastered basic grammar and were sound in their spelling.
The new hires, those from their early 30’s down, however, made frequent errors in spelling and grammar—even if their subject was English.
There’s a trend in colleges now to have an English specialist grade papers, in addition to the regular class professor, across disciplines. The only good reason for that would be that the instructors outside of the English department are themselves incompetent to correct and grade writing.
One graduated this spring, another starts in the fall....
Except the entire history of baccalaureate work from 1615-1975 or so.
In 1941, the white high school graduation rate was 25%. The evidence that more than 25% of the white population can master twelfth grade work, never mind a bachelor's degree, is what exactly?
Schools are rife with fake grades, fake exams, and fake courses to make it appear that "no child [is] left behind", when, in fact, school should end at eighth grade for the vast majority of the population.
The notion that more than 25% of the white population can earn a baccalaureate degree (I mean, a real one) has no evidentiary support - if anything, the number is closer to 10% than 25%.
I'd be glad to review the data that says otherwise.
“While it is by no means the whole explanation, top-tier undergraduate and graduate programs knowingly admit ill-prepared students in part to support the diversity of their classes (and for undergraduates, the strength of their sports programs).”
For state schools that aren’t otherwise limited by law love admitting out-of-state/foreigners. They pay out-of-state tuition and when states are not funding them to the level that they would prefer, that means more money for them.
Amazing, isn't it?
The whole "system" is an empire of lies.
I can’t tell you how many of my students’ parents are the biggest problem in their children’s lives...
For those of you that take offense to that, think about this: We have dumbed down our schools/our country to the point that an incredible number of voters saw Obama as the answer to all our problems. Well, folks, those voters have kids going to YOUR child’s school! Who do you think these entitled ones believe is to blame for their childrens’ failures?
The whole system is collapsing...get your kids out and homeschool, if you can...Me? I’ll continue to try to undermine the Left’s approach to edu-mah-cation by surreptitious teaching of faith and family, God and country, values and character WHILE I TRY TO TEACH THEM TO READ, WRITE, THINK. Prayers welcome.
You do them a disservice.
The constant lying required to keep this "system" going requires tremendous effort.
“The whole “system” is an empire of lies.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
That it is, I have only learned how bad it is within the past ten years or so. I began to suspect something when I sensed a growing disrespect for a “B” average. When I was young a B was nothing to be ashamed of. Of course then a B was a real B, now it would appear that an A plus is often a C minus in the real world.
“Report: Over a third of students entering college need remedial help”
Almost all of the ones that go, should seek psychiatric help.
College shouldn’t be for everyone as it has turned serious fields of study into McMajors. Real scholars cant excel in their fields because they have to instead worry about competing with slackers that universities cater to by lowering standards in order to keep the money train going.
I hated college, and never felt that it was necessary for much of what I was taught. Many classes, like an astronomy course I took, was a rehash of all the stuff I learned from my weekly visits to the library as a child. Easy A....that cost me lots of money, but I had to take the class for credit.
I rather be like all the great Americans of the past that taught themselves their trades. People like Franklin, Edison, Wright, and Fulton.
They didnt need college to do great things.
LOL Yeah, the voting thing does become a problem, and there should be some kind of criteria, better than we have now.
Ha—I’d say the baccalaureate was significantly degraded by 1975. The ‘Gentleman’s C’ at Harvard was long famous. But the lowering of standards since just back in my day is breathtaking.
Homeschooling sure looks like the way to go for a family that can arrange it, though smart enough kids do well enough in a crummy educational system anyway.
and they all play basketball...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.