Posted on 03/03/2011 1:27:25 PM PST by reaganaut1
The City University of New York has long spent much of its energy and resources just teaching new students what they need to begin taking college-level courses.
But that tide of remedial students has now swelled so large that the university’s six community colleges — like other two-year schools across the country — are having to rethink what and how they teach, even as they reel from steep cuts in state and local aid.
About three-quarters of the 17,500 freshmen at the community colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading, writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required such instruction in all three subjects. In the past five years, a subset of students deemed “triple low remedial” — with the most severe deficits in all three subjects — has doubled, to 1,000.
The reasons are familiar but were reinforced last month by startling new statistics from state education officials: fewer than half of all New York State students who graduated from high school in 2009 were prepared for college or careers, as measured by state Regents tests in English and math. In New York City, that number was 23 percent.
Many of those graduates end up at CUNY, one of the nation’s largest urban higher-education systems, which requires its community colleges to take every applicant with a high school diploma or equivalency degree.
To bring thousands of students up to speed, those colleges spent about $33 million last year on remediation — twice as much as they did 10 years ago.
...
“Most students have serious challenges remembering the basic rules of arithmetic,” Dr. Ianni said of his remedial math class. “The course is really a refresher, but they aren’t ready for a refresher. They need to learn how to learn.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Without government subsidies to both colleges and students we would not have colleges flooded with unqualified students. Government subsidies distort reality and we end up with a world in which people who don’t have basic academic skills are pretending to be college students.
“Not everyone is college material”
is a blasphemy to modern “public educators”.
I’m not sure why, but they really get agitated when you say something like that around them.
Heck of a job, Arne. In two years, you’ve managed to screw up the nation’s educational system like you did Chicago’s.
Kinda like saying...”Not everyone is UNION material” to them
This commonsense observation ranks right in there with "marriage is between a man and a woman." In the wrong circles, you could be boiled in oil just for thinking it.
CUNY used to be a very good school system, especially City and Brooklyn colleges. Open admissions killed them as many conservatives predicted it would.
I grew up in a time where “college” and “remedial” were never used in the same sentence.
Remedial courses? Such students should have to night High School for what they are lacking just like I had to do. But the angle is the colleges make money on the courses so they offer remedial courses.
College has been twisted into something it was never meant to be.
It used to be that it was for people who wanted to experience a higher level of learning, to study philosophy, advanced degrees, and get more understanding of the world. Just watch any period movie that shows college a hundred years ago. Chariots of Fire comes to mind.
I remember a miniseries years ago called the First Olympics, and the debate was should sports even be allowed on campus, because it would detract from education.
College today has degenerated into (for many) a party time that hopefully will get you a higher paying job. This is idiotic on so many levels. If everyone is funneled into the system, it necessarily must dumb down the system.
Unless employers start to rebel against this by changing their criteria, it will continue. And I would point out here that by hiring a college graduate you are more likely to be hiring someone who may be absolutely drowning in student debt.
I spent years acquiring my degrees. And I did learn things - but you know, the most important things I learned I sought out myself. With today’s internet, the model should be so much different.
I guess you don’t need a Regents diploma to get into a state college, I got mine as a junior.
How’s about,
“Not everyone is High School material”
Which it seems is also true.
Multicultural, affirmative action, politcally correct, Government run education. Come in stupid and leave stupid, we’ll fix the books.
i swear to God this is true... It was the first English 105 class of the semester. You had to stand up and introduce yourself.
This b-baller stood up and said, and I quote
“I lites basitball- girls, I be lawyer.”
And with that… I lost it. Then a couple more lost it too!
Now he’s all “What funny, what funny?”
I said “What Funny??? You funny, you need lawyer before you be one!” and with that the whole class was howling...
I said I had to take a test to get into this class, how in the hell did you get in here?
The teacher finally got the class under control but not before the boy told me “yo, I’m a f*k u up!”
I told him “Take your best shot azzhole, I can Always find out where you live.”
When I said that his face went I won’t say pale, but a lighter shade than it was and the teacher told him to be quiet. And that was that. He never came back to class.
I saw him a couple days later in the commons with an English 100 textbook which is remedial English- see spot, see spot run.
You can’t graduate or even transfer to another school without English 105-106, he was taking a 100 level course.
How they thought he was going to pass SIX English courses in four years was a joke. Social promotion I guess.
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.