Posted on 09/26/2004 10:21:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
It's back to basics for many in college - Most freshmen at community institutions need remedial classes to get up to speed
Nearly two-thirds of 2004's graduating high school seniors now enrolled in Houston-area community colleges are taking remedial classes because they weren't prepared for college.
Sixteen local school districts sent 6,552 newly graduated students to the Houston Community College System and the North Harris Montgomery College District this fall. Sixty-four percent of them, or 4,217, are taking high school-level courses, according to the colleges.
"It's sinful to allow a student to show up at a community college and tell them they'll have to spend the year learning what they should have learned in high school," said Gene Bottoms, senior vice president of the Southern Regional Education Board, a coalition of states working to improve education. "It's a problem everywhere."
Some students in area community colleges need up to 1 1/2 years of remedial math just to catch up.
Although the problem is generally worse among school districts with high poverty levels, such as Houston and Aldine, some of those with wealthier populations, including Spring Branch and Katy, face the same predicament.
And it's not just community college students who are struggling. Even those attending four-year universities lack many of the basic skills necessary to tackle college-level work as freshmen.
A report released this spring by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board found that half of the state's 2001 high school graduates needed remedial help in college.
Among Harris County's largest school districts, the percentage of 2001 graduates required to take high school-level courses in college ranged from 62 percent in Houston Independent School District to roughly a quarter of Katy ISD graduates. About one third of all college-bound students from Spring Branch ISD and Cy-Fair ISD needed extra help.
"We recognize the need to do a better job of preparing students for college and we are working hard to do that," said Terry Abbott, spokesman for HISD.
Jose Lopez had a decision to make entering his senior year at HISD's Lee High School: enroll in an Algebra II math class, or take an easier elective course.
"I took welding," Lopez, 19, said recently in the student lounge of the Houston Community College campus on the West Loop.
Lopez's three years of high school math — pre-algebra, Algebra I and geometry — were enough to get him a diploma in 2003. But more than a year later, Lopez is taking a remedial math class to learn the skills he was supposed to master in high school.
State education officials and local school districts say they are ratcheting up graduation requirements to make sure students are ready for post-secondary schooling.
This year's freshman class of Texas high school students is the first that must take Algebra II to graduate. To get there, a student typically takes up to three years of math.
Some national education experts wonder if that's enough to prepare graduates for even the most basic college curriculum. The 11th-grade Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, which students must pass to get a diploma, is more difficult than the old Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, but still only tests geometry and Algebra I.
"I'm not sure many youth know that they have to perform on a different level on that graduation test to avoid remedial studies," Bottoms said.
High schools should identify 11th-graders who are likely to need remedial courses in college and require them to take more math as seniors, Bottoms said.
"All those students who are slated for remedial math need to be in a specially designed remedial math course their senior year. The district and the college ought to work that out," he said. "You're going to more than cut that remediation rate ... in half."
Even a fourth year of math doesn't guarantee college success.
Vilma Saravia, 19, graduated from Sharpstown High School in 2003 after passing algebra, geometry, Algebra II and pre-calculus. So she was shocked when her score on HCC's entrance exam sent her to a remedial math class.
"In high school, I passed," she said. She's also taking remedial English and reading at HCC. "It was kind of surprising."
The community colleges and school districts recognize the problem and are beginning to do something about it, said Charles Cook, HCC's vice chancellor for educational development.
The college system's board recently voted to offer free remedial-level courses to students still in high schools in the system's service area, he said. "We're extending a hand to help close that gap," he said.
Doing so would save taxpayers hundreds of dollars for every student who gets into college ready to take credit-level courses.
The state pays HCC $250 to $300 per student for every remedial course they take.
"This points out some challenges that we face," North Harris' executive vice chancellor Steve Head said when asked about the number of students taking remedial courses.
"It also points out that we need to be working closely with the (school districts) to make sure that students who finish high school are prepared for college level work."
For its part, the Houston school district now requires qualified students to take Advanced Placement college preparation courses.
"Just last year we opened the new Challenge Early College High School, which will allow high school students to obtain a junior college degree," Abbott said.
The North Harris Montgomery Community College District is beginning work with the school districts it serves to align high school teaching with college curriculum, Head said.
"We want our college faculty to be talking to high school faculty to make sure ... you can move in a seamless educational transition from high school to college," he said.
"If you pass your high school classes and the (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), you should be able to move into college-level work. We all agree there are a number of issues we need to work closer together on."
Wanda Bamberg, Aldine ISD's assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said she wasn't surprised to see that 72 percent of the district's first-year community college students aren't up to speed.
"A lot of the students who go to North Harris College are going (there) to get their grade point average up in order to get into a four-year college," she said. "(Still), we want all of our students to be prepared."
Texas' push for tougher high school graduation standards hasn't hurt Bob Kushner's math tutoring business.
"There are kids even in calculus in high school who can't do the simplest things," said Kushner, who has been tutoring students from HISD, Spring Branch, Alief ISD and HCC for 10 years.
"Unless you're in some kind of advanced program, you don't get good math education. It's dumbed down. The textbooks are dumbed down. Too many pictures and not enough math."
Depending on how they score on the entrance exam, incoming HCC students may be required to take as many as three semesters of remedial math, said Neal Tannahil, the system's academic dean. The first semester is the equivalent of a high school pre-algebra course.
Brenda Treviño, 21, said she took Algebra II before graduating from Northbrook High School in Spring Branch in 2002.
Despite that, Treviño is just finishing her third semester of remedial math at HCC.
"It was kind of awkward. I felt like, why do I have to be in this class?" she said. "It's more money that we have to spend and we're not even getting credit for the classes. It's kind of a waste."
jason.spencer@chron.com
GRADE INFLATION!
That's why we referred to our local community college as:
COMEDY COLLEGE
OR 13TH GRADE.
Anyone who can't hit at least a 3.9 to 4.0 GPA at a Community College is a freaking dumb@ss.
And they say an associate degree from a CC can transfer right in to a real university at the Junior Year level.
BS !!!!
We should be calling pubic high schools, dummy mills.
What kind of jobs are there for these bozos after they are remediated and graduated?
There are only so many elected offices.
So9
Many very highly qualified people are looking for jobs but they can't work in the schools because they lack a piece of paper saying they are qualified.
Meanwhile, the "gatekeepers" who decide who can work in the schools absolutely are not doing their job!
People who are themselves essentially uneducated are being pawned off as qualified teachers because they are willing to jump through certain hoops.
Our country is really suffering from the negligence of our so called "professional educators".
If I were a recent High School grad, I would be steaming mad at having been ripped off by the education establishment (and now having to pay for the education I should have received as a HS student.)
Maybe that is what it will take to change things.
IMHO, many of those just bright enough to realize that the marketplace could only absorb so many BAs in Phys Ed, Sociology and Psychology decided to get a teaching certificate. The certification is required to teach in state schools, but knowledge of the subject is not.
If you majored in Geology, have experience working as a geologist, and taught labs in Grad School, you cannot teach 8th grade Earth Science here without the teaching certificate, and an additional 22 semester hours of primarily Sociology and Psychology. Go figure.
This makes me very angry because the tax payers are hit twice for high school and we still have illiterate grads coming out. By the time you are in college, it's too late to learn how to read. This is a big problem in all the big city schools. It's because of the teachers union being in bed with the Democratic party. No real changes can happen.
You bet! At freshman orientation they gave us the old "look at the person on your left, look at the person on your right" lecture. They were correct.
(Given today's economy, however, I think Mr. Lopez was smart in taking that welding class -- it will probably serve him better than a two year degree.)
Before I was accepted after WW II, I had to go back to HS to take a year of algebra and geometry. I believe today the problem is compounded in that when colleges do the remedial, the student gets financial aid. So the college hires staff and makes money.
You hit the nail on the head. I graduated from high school (1997) almost completely inumerate. Just aimed for my strengths (reading and writing) and scraped through the sciences and math.
I've been incredibly successful, but SO many doors are closed to me. Want to be a doctor? Not enough math and science. Want to design things? Not enough math and science. On and on. I'm lucky that I happen to be really good at what I do, or else I would be just another a dork with an arts degree.
My kids are going to get a real education, even if *I* have to give it to then.
Money so well spent that now generations of Johnnies and Suzies cannot read, nor write, nor count, nor reason ... But consistently, they vote "straight party line" - dim-0-cratic. Imagine where the teachers of the future will come from.
Will wonders ever cease ... ?
Isn't that "innumerate?"
Probably. Better look it up no?
My associates transferred from CC to Junior level of an University...of course that was in 1979. ;)
It depends on the Community College.
Just type it in the post window and click on spell.
How about this for an idea. Charge the students to take these classes, not the taxpayers.
I know, it will never fly. But once, long ago, it would have been considered the normal thing to do.
My brother went back to Community-college in his early 30's, with 3 small children. He had not been in school in almost 15 years, and when he was there, he was not on the college path. (we were not raised that way). After working his way through community college, and then through the University, he is now a successful CPA. (His education began with several terms of remedial math).
As for me -- I started at Community College too. I began 6 years after high school. I remember taking those remedial math classes to get up to speed. It sure hurts working and paying for classes that do not even count for college credit. Six years later, working full-time, I did graduate from a state University with high honors. Three years later, I was the most honored graduate in my law school class, and I was elected by my class as student speaker at graduation. That was six years ago. I have done very well since.
I would caution people from making silly assumptions about what this data means, or in particular about the skill level of students taking these courses.
Let's remember, at FR, we used to be known for deep analysis and scratching below the surface of an issue.
Now -- having said all that -- there really were some dumb kids in Community College! But I am not sure the "2/3 needs remedial work" stat tells us everything about this group.
"Can inflate" = "can't inflate".
Doh.
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