Free Republic

3 in 4 parents of college-age students also oppose men in women’s spaces A majority of parents with college-age students want universities to stop prioritizing race in hiring and scholarship decisions ... The results showed a majority of parents “are at odds with our country’s higher education institutions on several contentious issues that are consistently in today’s political dialogue,” according to a news release. Defending Education works to rid education of ideological agendas. In the poll, which involved parents of 15- to 21-year-old students, 54 percent said universities should not prioritize a student’s race when awarding scholarships, and 57 percent...

SAN DIEGO—Anthony Rodriguez recalled sitting in a remedial math class at Grossmont College, bored out of his mind. The professor was teaching basic math skills that the 18-year-old had already learned in high school. Rodriguez was forced into remedial math by the community college’s placement test, which assesses a student’s ability to succeed in for-credit, higher-education classes. Rodriguez’s placement-test scores dictated at least a year of these low-level math courses. They cost the same as regular classes but don’t count toward a bachelor’s degree. Each week, Rodriguez watched as fewer and fewer classmates showed up. Eventually, he dropped out too....

New data shows about half of Illinois high school graduates going on to the state's community colleges need remediation in at least one subject. That data was released this past week by the Illinois State Board of Education. It shows 48.7 percent of graduates who enrolled in the community college system needed remedial instruction to prepare them for entry-level college coursework. ... For the first time, that information is being reported with Illinois Report Card data.

If you're looking for the action in education, forget the Ivy League. Talk instead to Anthony Zeiss, president of Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte. It has six campuses and 70,000 students taking classes in everything from remedial English to computer networking. With about 12 million students, the nation's 1,200 community colleges help answer this riddle: Why do Americans do so badly on international educational comparisons and yet support an advanced economy?