One in Four
Published on May 14, 2007 at 4:26 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under college teaching.
The local newspaper is doing an interesting series on Texas public schools. This past weekend, we had a very contentious school board election. The state legislature is babbling about education, funding of education, and “accountability” of educators, including talk of a statewide test for college students, to go along with the statewide tests given to pre-college students. So, a lot of people are talking about education. Unfortunately, most don’t know what they are talking about.
Here in Texas, for a number of years, we’ve had statewide tests given to all public school children. These tests are high pressure things for the schools and teachers. Funding for school disticts is tied to how well the students do on these tests. Districts then tie funding of individual schools to the tests. And, some districts even tie teacher salaries and bonuses to how students score on the tests. All this is done in the name of accountability of the educators. The idea is that the better the educator, the better the students will do on the tests. Of course, it does not allow for the occasional bad class, or the fact that parents might not be supporting their student’s education. It also doesn’t allow for the fact that those tests are testing a very tiny subset of what students should know. Many schools strongly discourage teachers teaching anything that is not on the state tests. Schools and school districts are rated by how well their students do on the tests. If they do well, then they are highly rated. If they do poorly, then the schools are rated poor. People with childred want their kids in good schools, so home values are higher in the good school districts, and lower in the poor school districts.
But, the newspaper is now bringing the fore something that most people outside of education don’t know: how well students score on those tests has nothing really to do with how good the schools are or how well they prepare the students for college. The local school district is rated rather highly. They proudly boast of their ratings. But, it turns out that 26%, almost one in four, of the students from the local highly rated high school needs to take remedial courses before they can take their first college credit courses at least one subject. Oh, but they score very well on those statewide tests! Boy, do they do well on those tests. In fact, they have special classes on how to take those tests, and the biggest emphasis in the classes is always on what they will need to be able to do for the test. Granted, they can’t go to college afterwards, but they can sure score well on those tests! Oh, but 26% in need of remediation is actually pretty good it turns out, compared to the state average. Almost 60% of high school graduates here in Texas who go to college require remediation in at least one subject, according to the reports cited in the newspaper (and I had heard that figure from two other sources, as well, so I believe it). Even the top rated high school in the area still has about 14% of their graduates who need remediation when they get to college.
So, what’s wrong? Clearly, the schools are teaching students how to take the statewide tests. But, just as clearly, those tests do not really reflect what the students need to know to succeed in college. The problem is that those tests are a benchmark. They are written to test the minimum level of competency that students are expected to have. Unfortunately, as often happens, that minimum standard becomes the goal. And that is really sad.
Oh, and since our tuition is much lower than the big universities in the state, we get a lot of students coming here to take their remedial courses before transferring on to other places. That means that nearly 75% of our incoming students require some form of remediation. So, only one in four are actually ready for college level work. Something is seriously wrong with the way the schools are turning kids out around here. And, of course, the ones who suffer the most are the students. And, they have the least to do with how things got into this big of a mess.
-Astroprof
Special Education » Special Education May 14, 2007 6:07 pm on May 14, 2007 at 5:12 pm: 1
[…] One in Four The state legislature is babbling about education, funding of education, and ?accountability? of educators, including talk of a statewide test for college students, to go along with the statewide tests given to pre-college students. … […]
Jessica on May 14, 2007 at 7:25 pm: 2
I saw this article in today’s paper at work and immediately thought of you and your blog. I read your RSS feed from LiveJournal, so I don’t ever comment, but I just wanted to pop in and say that.
I really hope that people figure out that the problem is setting the minimum as the goal. I really lucked out getting into the Magnet program right before they closed it down forever.
MI Native on May 16, 2007 at 3:21 pm: 3
Key word: *those* tests. If the situation in TX is anything like FL, they teach to a *particular* kind of test (the one the kids need to pass). One side effect is they are trained to cram and forget, and they are also trained to skim rather than read carefully. You may notice this defect in your college students. Do they miss a key adjective in a question or instructions?
FL also has a “college level” skills test, required to transition to junior standing. I put that in quotes because a 500 on the SAT exempts you from taking it! Take a look at
http://mathcenter.usf.edu/courses/clast.html
for some samples. As you would guess, once you set a “college” standard that includes fine arts as well as engineering, the level is down around high school … but higher than the HS test.
Lab Lemming on May 19, 2007 at 5:32 pm: 4
I’m surprised that high school kids haven’t yet organized on MySpace or some such place in order to use the threat of intentiaonally flubbing these tests to wrangle concessions from their administrators.