Free Republic

Teaching was my second career. I enjoyed teaching high school and college English, but there were frustrations. Among them were college teachers and administrators complaining about how unprepared incoming freshmen were. I know what you’re thinking: plenty of high school teachers are awful. It’s their fault when kids entering college can’t read or write or do math. Without question, there are some poor teachers out there. After all, 50% of people in every endeavor are below average. However, there are two arguably more important factors to consider. The first is the effort of each student. The greatest teacher in the...

The Center for American Progress reveals that students pay more than $1.3 billion in tuition and fees each year for remedial courses which qualify them for academic credits, but do not count towards graduation. California had the highest rate of out-of-pocket remedial spending with more than $205 million, while Alaskan students spent just $1.1 million, statistics generally attributed to student enrollment in these states. According to the survey, the majority of college students enrolled in remedial courses are ethnic minorities, including 56% of African American students and 45% of Hispanic students, compared to just 35% of white students.

Over the weekend we closed the chapter on the "mystery" of America's collapsing labor force and the record 90+ million Americans out of the labor force. As Pew reported, confirming what we had said all along, it has little to nothing to do with Boomers retiring - simply because under ZIRP they can't afford to retire - and everything to do with Millennials staying in school because they can't find the well-paying jobs they had expected, raking up $1.2 trillion (and exponentially rising) in government-funded student debt in the process. To wit: More and more Americans are outside the...

Remedial classes await. Thousands of Colorado high schoolers are graduating this month with plans to go to college in the fall. Hundreds of them will be academically unprepared when they get there. Those students will take — and pay for — remedial classes that don’t count toward a degree. Educators say the need for remedial work is fueled largely by a lack of communication between high schools and colleges about what’s important to know. They also say high school students need to pay closer attention to class selection and grades, especially in the senior year when many coast toward graduation...