It's easy if you try....
As I’ve said for years, students who don’t possess the requisite skills and knowledge shouldn’t be in universities, they should be at Community College. Imagine, no more impacted programs (as in nursing) as schools admit only the qualified.
The crisis in US K-12 public education continues to deepen, and decisions by many colleges and universities to abandon SAT and ACT scores are making it worse. Instead of demanding more accountability from high schools, colleges are expecting less.
In the latest dismal signs for students, scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fallen to the lowest level in 30 years, while fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (often called the nation’s report card) show devastating declines. Taken together, these results underscore the urgency of K-12 interventions and the necessity of reinstating testing standards for college applicants. link
Update, 10/31/22: Here's how universities make make higher education more affordable, if they had any incentive to do so:
If colleges and universities got back to basics -- teaching and worthwhile research -- they could serve students without saddling them with massive debt, writes Richard Vedder, an emeritus economics professor at Ohio University.
5 comments:
I have to disagree. I did not possess all the required K12 skills, due to my 12th grade English teacher being killed by a drunk driver ... no instruction in paper writing for me. Of course, being from a rural high school I was deficient in honors everything except math, as well as Earth Science and World History. Solid math plus work ethic is what gave me the margin to make good use of the midnight oil and grad a respected engineering college with honors in four years, unlike my on paper qualified classmates from the wealthy city high schools, public and private. All interested should have opportunity.
--lgm
There will always be the exceptions, but we should base policy on data, not on exceptions.
Rural students are not exceptions, there are many. If a state is not going to provide this group opportunity to take K12 academics that prepare them for University, the state needs to provide that opportunity later. I did the midnight oil, others do 2+3, and still others prep school. SUNY, to its credit, does provide free tutoring at a level that a student can make up for the underfunding of rural high schools as well as the deficiencies produced by lack of college prep seating in the urban districts. -- lgm
High school Honors classes for the last 30 years, at least, are virtue signaling rather than actual college prep, so Anonymous, you really don't have a reason to disagree.
SAT and ACT scores (plus AP classes and tests) are much better measures of preparedness -- no matter the students' background or victim-group-membership-- for college-level work.
AP and DE aren't available to large subgroups of the capable student population in my state, intentionally by design of the BofE. Hence, SUNY making tutoring available for those needing to catch up.
Its time to stop denying opportunity to the unfavored subgroups of capable students. -- lgm
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