Posted on 08/18/2010 5:12:42 AM PDT by reaganaut1
New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S high-school students in the last few years.
...
While elementary schools have shown progress on national achievement exams, high-school results have stayed perniciously low. Some experts say the lack of rigor in high-school courses is partly to blame.
"High schools are the downfall of American school reform," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington. "We haven't figured out how to improve them on a broad scope and if our kids aren't dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally."
...
In the recent results, only 24% of the graduating class of 2010 scored high enough on the ACT in math, reading, English and science to ensure they would pass entry-level college courses. This is a slight uptick from last year, when 23% were ready for college, and from 2008, when 22% were ready.
Still, 28% of students didn't score high enough on even one subject-matter exam to ensure college readiness.
...
The average ACT composite score has actually fallen since 2007, after increasing during the five-year period before that. This year, the average composite was 21.0, compared with 21.1 last year and 21.2 in 2007. The test is scored on a 1-36 point scale.
ACT officials say a more diverse test-taking population partly explains the less-than-stellar results. African-American and Hispanic students made up 24% of the test-taking pool this year, compared with about 19% four years ago. African-American and Hispanic students generally post lower scores than their white and Asian counterparts.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
But thankfully Obambi just spent $26 BILLION more to help teachers unions do more of the same
oh- and $300 million to secure the border to mexico
Don’t forget the student loan program. Now every child can graduate into crushing debt.
What is the evidence that 72% of students are capable of becoming ready for college?
Raw intellect certainly doesn't hurt, but IMHO
It is more a matter of discipline and focus.
/s
This is a travesty
The vast majority of undergraduate studies can be done
in-state, close to home, at the community college level
And vastly cheaper than at the Universities
Yet they will pass those courses anyway now that so many colleges have become such jokes.
Far as I'm concerned, 25% sounds about right for the percentage of the population that is truly college material.
I have taken over the ARTH and the main Homeschool ping lists. Please ping me to relevant articles!
Gosh, I hope their self-esteem is OK!
Maybe a trophy just for showing up is in order.
If these people had any guts they would reveal the demographics of the students including the disparity between city scores, suburban and rural.
I completely disagree. Were students taught in the same way as private college preparatory schools most would be able to do well in college. That's why most college prep schools have graduate success rates in college in the 80's percentile range.
It's the method of teaching, lack of discipline and union apathy that destroys public schools.
Add to that the fact that most families have both parent working to support the tax burden they have less time for working with their children and helping them than before. As for the inner cities they are a lost cause because the inner city is nothing more than a bureaucracy in itself and human beings don't exist in a bureaucracy.
Check your math and logic.
28% failed ALL categories. Only 24% passed ALL categories. Only 24% were ready for college, and 28% will require remedial instruction in ALL categories.
If the IT industry were like our public schools, you'd be using an abacus instead of a computer and walking a dirt path to your neighbor to transfer information.
Absolutely. Anybody who wants to learn AND who is taught how to learn, can learn up to their inherent physical and mental capabilities.
Regardless of skin color.
“Most people are not smart enough
to study at the college level”
True enough if you’re talking about college of the 50s and 60s...and science courses through the present.
However, if your progeny is taking lib arts at any of our top schools, or - even worse - if their academic joke... er...major has the word “studies” in it...no standards were extant in the university curricula and your unfortunate child is doomed to a useless life of politics, the arts, community organizing, or journalism.
Shocker. How about we start teaching reading, writing, mathematics, and science again? Maybe throw in REAL American and World history; maybe even get crazy and require civics courses again. Drop all the other extraneous subjects, like government indoctrination and the touchy-feely crap they call social studies.
Public school officials claim that private schools can pick and choose their students and that public schools have to take everybody. Well, the majority of public school students are not mentally deficient, yet many of them do poorly in public school. My sister-in-law teaches at a girl’s prep school. The school year is about 170 days a year (not the 200 days that the Obama regime wants to put public school students through) and most everyone who stays the course graduates and goes to college. I believe this is true of most private schools — the one’s that want to stay in business.
Those scores are a direct reflection and repudiation of Bush's No Child Let Behind Act that he allowed Teddy Chappaquiddick to write. The public schools system in America was bad before NCLB and all NCLB did was accelerate the decline!!
If we want public education to live up to its promise (for our kids and America's future), the FIRST thing we have to do is abolish the Department of Education, get the federal government OUT of the schools and return the schools to local control.
When local communities controlled their own schools, education may NOT have been consistent across America, but the kids that graduated from school weren't dumber than when they first enrolled, either!!
Segregating male and females students would be a start. Most high school students think they are there to find a sexual partner.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.