Students Not Ready for Prime Time

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: November 28, 2005 4:34:15 AM EST
To: Dave <dave () farber net>
Cc: JMG <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Subject: Students Not Ready for Prime Time

http://tinyurl.com/bqe3f
Colleges find many lacking
Students fall short in math, English and put in remedial courses

By Jodi S. Cohen
Tribune higher education reporter
Published November 20, 2005

In the lowest-level writing class at Columbia College, freshmen learn
about the pitfalls of run-on sentences and the correct places for
commas. In basic math, they learn about fractions, decimals and simple
geometry.

Sarah Rehder didn't expect to start college in either of these courses.
A graduate of Curie High School in Chicago, she assumed she was prepared
for college.

But like many students in the state and nationwide, Rehder learned
through a college placement exam that she wasn't ready for college-level
coursework. Now she's learning--and paying for--material that she
arguably should have mastered in high school.

"I thought high school was supposed to prepare you for college," said
Rehder, 18, a photography major and the first in her family to attend
college. "I'm just doing the same thing over again that I did in high
school. I didn't learn anything."

Educators say high schools need to do a better job at teaching students
the skills they will need to succeed in college. And they are also
falling short when it comes to ensuring that students are mastering even
the basics. State report card data released this month show that about
40 percent of high school juniors failed to meet standards in reading
this year, and 47 percent failed to meet standards in math.

In Chicago public schools, 59 percent didn't pass the reading test, and
73 percent didn't pass the math test.

Performance on the high school exam, which includes the college entrance
ACT test, is one way of gauging whether students are prepared for
college, said Jennifer Presley of the Illinois Education Research
Council. The council reported earlier this year that only about
two-thirds of Illinois high school students who graduated in 2002 were
at least minimally ready, based on ACT scores and grade-point averages,
and a disproportionate number of poor and minority students were
unprepared, Presley said.

As colleges and universities grapple with declining state funding, the
cost of remedial education is of increasing concern. What's more, if
college-going rates continue to rise, the need for remedial courses is
bound to increase. Such classes typically don't count toward graduation.

"You want to put those scarce dollars toward new classes, financial aid,
and not toward remediating students for the same skills they should have
been taught in high school," said Kristin Conklin, who studies college
readiness as a program director with the National Governors Association.
"The big equity argument that shouldn't be lost is that these are the
students who can least waste money on classes that don't count."

For the first time, the Illinois Board of Higher Education is collecting
data from the state's public and private universities about the number
of students enrolled in remedial courses. Results are expected to be
available next month.

The high cost of catching up

Community college students are most likely to enroll in remedial
courses, also called developmental, preparatory or basic skills classes,
educators say. Last school year, 21.3 percent of community college
students in college credit programs took at least one remedial course,
spending $106 million on the classes, according to the Illinois
Community College Board.

At the seven campuses of the City Colleges of Chicago, where the
majority of students come from Chicago public schools, 61 percent of
students who took the placement test were below college level in
reading, 69 percent in writing and 92 percent in math. The numbers are
higher for Chicago Public Schools students.

At the University of Illinois at Chicago, 16 percent of students took
preparatory English and 57 percent took preparatory math in fall 2004.
But of the Chicago Public Schools students, 25 percent took preparatory
English and 73 percent took preparatory math. The math classes do not
count toward graduation.

Even at the state university's flagship campus at Urbana-Champaign,
about 6 percent of freshmen are taking math courses this fall that won't
count toward credits needed for graduation.

Tougher graduation rules

Students continue to enter college unprepared even as the federal No
Child Left Behind law holds elementary and high schools accountable for
student success. What's more, Illinois increased its graduation
requirements in August, although the full effect of the law won't be
felt until 2012. By then, students will need four years of English,
three years of math, two years of science and two intensive writing
courses.

Still, tougher requirements are only part of the solution, experts said.
While algebra will be required next year, for example, the course
content is undefined and could be more challenging in some schools than
in others. Another problem, experts say, is that high school leaders
typically design course curricula without knowing what colleges expect
students to know.

State Sen. Edward Maloney (D-Chicago), chairman of the Senate's higher
education subcommittee, said he would like to see colleges send their
syllabuses to high schools.

"Rather than identify the titles of the courses, perhaps we need to
identify the content of those courses and somehow communicate that to
the high schools," Maloney said. While he praised tougher graduation
requirements, he said Illinois should mandate a college preparatory
curriculum in all high schools.
Policy experts also have suggested that college leaders get more
involved in helping high schools improve their curricula, and that high
schools be held accountable when graduates start college unprepared.

A recipe for failure

City Colleges of Chicago bears the brunt of teaching students who leave
Chicago schools unprepared. More than 95 percent of Chicago graduates
test into remedial math, and 70 percent test into remedial English.
About one-third fail the courses. Those students then become the least
likely to graduate, with only about one in 10 students who start at the
lowest level of math able to transition to college-level math courses.

Deidra Lewis, executive vice chancellor at City Colleges, said that
while the Chicago Public Schools system has done a good job in recent
years of changing the curriculum to meet state standards, those
requirements still do not match the skills needed for college.

"We are attacking the student learning outcomes in the courses
themselves," said Lewis. She said that the college has been working with
Chicago schools and five universities to help city students get ready
for college, and it hopes to see improvements soon.

Martin Gartzman, Chicago Public Schools chief officer for math and
science, said that two years ago, the district began requiring a double
period of algebra for students who enter high school behind in math
skills. The district also is trying to encourage more students to take
algebra before high school so they can take more difficult math classes
before they graduate. Nationwide, 34 percent of students take algebra
before high school, but only 7 percent do in Chicago, Gartzman said.

`A long way to go'

"The rigor of our courses in many of our high schools is not the same as
the rigor that is expected in other high schools outside of Chicago,"
Gartzman said. "We know we have a long way to go."

Juaquina Murcio, 28, knows that first-hand. A 1995 graduate of what is
now called Jones Preparatory High School in Chicago, she had to take a
non-credit remedial math class before starting college level work at
Northeastern Illinois University in the spring.

Last fall, when Murcio took the placement exams, about 72 percent of
Northeastern freshmen placed into one of two non-credit remedial math
courses.

Murcio recommended that Chicago make it mandatory for students to take
four years of math. She took only two. "You go out as a student thinking
you're complete, but you come to college and realize you're not," she
said.

Lewis said students are often shocked when they do poorly on placement
exams.

"What we are finding is that students may do well in high school and
have a high GPA, but they are not taught the college readiness skills to
be successful," she said.

Getting back to basics

That was true for Rehder, a freshman at Columbia, where she's in a
writing class with 11 other students. She meets with a writing tutor
once a week and revises each assigned paper at least three times based
on comments from her instructor.

Rehder and her classmate, Gabriela Rodriguez, a graduate of a Cicero
public school, said that while they were disappointed to be placed in
that class, they are learning more about writing than they ever have.

"The teachers are way better than in high school. They actually care
about you," said Rodriguez. Still, she said, "I can't wait to get all
the basic mandatory classes out of the way."

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jscohen () tribune com

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