When Alexis Bartholomew began attending Cedar Grove High School last fall, she was behind on her courses. She lived in a group center for foster children and had already attended half a dozen high schools, moving from home to home and struggling to maintain her grades.
School officials connected the senior with a “transition specialist” who helped her sign up for online courses, take ACT and SAT college-entrance exams and improve her grades. DeKalb schools’ new specialist positions, created to give students like Alexis more attention so they graduate on time and succeed after high school, are just one example of metro Atlanta school systems trying to improve students’ college readiness at a time when Georgia business leaders are calling for more qualified employees to fill higher-skilled jobs.
High school graduation rates continue to inch up in Georgia, but close to 1 in 5 students, or about 12,000, still must take remedial courses at the state's public colleges – a key indicator that many are not ready for college and more likely to drop out or not graduate on time. There's been improvement, but state education leaders want to see the need for remedial courses dwindle more.
Alexis was one of thousands of metro students who graduated this month, and she is signed up to attend college this fall, with hopes of becoming a museum curator one day.
“I always knew I wanted to go to college,” said Alexis, 18, who would be the first person in her family to graduate from college. She said Cedar Grove’s transition specialist helped get her get ready for college.
In recent years, the number of Georgia students needing remedial courses in college peaked in 2009 at close to 30,000, according to the Georgia Department of Education. That number has steadily declined, due in part to colleges becoming more selective. In 2012, University System of Georgia policies changed to allow admission to students who needed remedial classes in up to two, but not all three, of these areas: reading, English and math.
State education officials also attribute the decline to high school courses becoming more rigorous. More high school students are taking advanced placement and other demanding courses, too. Georgia students are also performing better on the ACT and SAT and other standardized tests.
To get more students ready for college, teachers have received training on how to increase rigor in the classroom, and Georgia’s standardized tests have been made more challenging. Students at the college level are also getting more support, with tutors and other specialized assistance.
“We have students who are graduating with a stronger skill set” said Becky Chambers, program manager for college readiness for the Georgia Department of Education. “We’re seeing a lot of things come together.”
Metro school systems are trying new initiatives, such as DeKalb’s transition specialists.
Atlanta Public Schools and education group Achieve Atlanta established needs-based scholarships this year to help remove financial barriers that prevent many students from completing college. Scholarship recipients are paired up with an adviser who follows them through post-secondary work, making sure they're on track with class credits and graduation.
“It’s about building the next generation of Atlanta citizens,” said Kenya Gilliard, school counseling coordinator for APS. “We want to make sure we have productive citizens coming out of our schools.”
APS estimates close to 700 students this year will receive the scholarship. For students attending a 4-year college, the award is up to $5,000 per year, renewable for up to four years. For students attending a 2-year college or technical program, it’s up to $1,500 per year, renewable for up to two years of school.
By 2020, more than 60 percent of job openings in Georgia will require some form of post-secondary education. Meanwhile, only 22 percent of APS graduates are projected to earn a post-secondary degree or credential, according to school leaders.
Georgia's 2015 graduation rate grew 6 percentage points from the prior year to 78.8 percent, an all-time high under the most recent method of counting those who earned diplomas.
Graduation rates have also risen nationally, but while other key indicators such as college-entrance exam scores have shown some improvement, they haven't kept pace with the graduation rate, according to Achieve, a nonpartisan education group that tracks college readiness.
“It calls into question to us about the meaning of these diplomas that are being handed to kids because you’re not seeing the same growth in any of the other indicators we took a look at,” said Marie O’Hara, an associate director with Achieve.
“We’re talking about 30 to 50 percentage points in gaps between what an assessment like an ACT or SAT” indicates, and students’ scores on state college and career assessments. “When they administer it to kids, we’re seeing somewhere between 30 to 50 percent of kids demonstrating proficiency on it. Then you compare that to the number of kids that are walking across the stage graduating. So what can we make of that gap and what does that tell us about the pieces of paper those kids are being handed?
“So that feels like a real disconnect.”
Business leaders in Georgia and other states are also aware of this gap and have stressed they need more employees with post-secondary skills to fill jobs.
“Investments in education are really investment in economic development,” said Dana Rickman, with the education group Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. “They want to make sure they have a pipeline of workers they can hire from to produce their best quality product.
“The immediate thinking is when I move my company here, and I bring my top executives and my staff, will their children experience a good quality education themselves? We all want our kids in good schools.”
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