High School Preparation, Placement Testing, and College Remediation

Abstract

The need for educated work force and a education has increased over last several decades. However, a large number of entering students are not prepared for college-level course work. There is a widespread need for remedial education at colleges and across country, increasing costs to students and public for education that students should successfully completed in high school. Although recent literature often documents this problem, for several years public has to fully recognize and understand this issue, and schools in general been slow to respond to need for change. These factors led to imminent federal legislation requiring greater accountability and increased testing in public schools. 1995, nearly all public two-year institutions and 81 of public four-year institutions offered remedial (Kirst, 1998, p. 76). In Georgia, 30 of.. students who graduated with preparatory diplomas in 1995 took remedial courses in college (Sandham, 1998c, p. 25). In New York, only 13 of CUNY community students pass[ed] three basic skills tests measuring 11th grade proficiency (Sandham, 1998c, p. 25). College remediation rates for students were 46% in Maryland and 60% in Florida (Malooney, 1996). The California State University System reported that 47 of freshmen had to take remedial English, and 54 enrolled in remedial (Kirst, 1998, p. 76). At some California campuses in system, 80% to 90% of freshmen needed remedial education (California Community Colleges, 1995; Manzo, 1996; Ponessa, 1996), These remediation rates exist in a system that is supposed to take top 30% of high school graduating classes in state. In 1995, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that 29% of all freshmen required remedial education at 4-year colleges and universities. At community colleges the figure was 41 percent (Ignash, 1997, p. 9). The chain of is a metaphor for discourse taking place in educational community. It describes how universities blame high schools, high schools blame middle schools, and middle schools blame elementary schools for poor [student] preparation (Ponessa, 1996, p. 31). A lack of adequate funding and overcrowding in classes are often cited as reasons for poor results (Ignash 1997, p. 5). Educators express concerns that student failure to take preparatory courses, grade inflation, and a lack of academic rigor in high school courses all contribute to need for remediation in college. College administrators report that been so much grade inflation, colleges don't know what they've got until they get it (Sandham, 1998c, p. 25). Recommendations for rigorous work requirements in order to reduce grade inflation (Bandy, 1985, p. 88) been advanced, and many educators also advocate an end to social promotion and emphasis on intervention (Feldman, 1997, p. 9). College teachers report that students have gone through high school math classes without gaining a real understanding of subject matter. `We've found that they've in high school, but somehow there's a C on their report card' (Ponessa 1996, p. 31). English instructors in high schools state: Our basic is kind of like remedial, and our so-called honors is more like a college-prep borderlining on basic....If we go strictly by book, half of my honors class would failed (Ponessa, 1996, p. 32). A prior study conducted by Lappan and Phillips (1984) found that nearly 70% of students enrolled in intermediate algebra at a university had taken 3 to 4 years of math in high school at algebra 1 level and above. In same study, another 42% of students in elementary algebra had taken 2 to 3 years of preparatory math. Many of these students earned C grades in their high school preparatory courses. …

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