There was a time when graduating from high school signified preparedness for college. Not anymore, according to reports in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how many college students need remedial courses.
For years, colleges have been pointed out gaps in students’ readiness to compete and have responded by offering remedial classes. It has become the norm for high school graduates to need these classes. This disconnect is an equal opportunity problem: It’s not just students who live in some of our poorest neighborhoods and lack proficiency in reading or math, but many of our accomplished students, too.
When we allowed the public education debate to focus on high school graduation as a marker for success, we unwittingly lowered the bar on expectations of what our children can achieve. Thus, high school graduation became the goal, not the springboard, and we have established for students the floor, not the ceiling, of our expected ambition for them.
By making high school graduation the gold standard of what it means to be a successful student, we’ve contributed to a mind-set in which many students believe it’s good enough to get by doing no more than is necessary to graduate high school. “Good enough” is not good enough.
Here’s what contributes to academic mediocrity: limited early learning opportunities, unsupportive peer groups, ineffective instruction and uneven parental concern. Colleges then must respond to the gaps in knowledge and skills among high school graduates by offering remedial course work.
The opportunity to take remedial classes — which research suggests may represent 40 percent of a college or university’s course offerings in some cases — reinforces students’ perspective that doing just enough to graduate high school still gets you into colleges. You get admitted, have to take these classes that add to your education bill and the kicker is the classes don’t even count toward graduation requirements. Worse yet, only 25 percent of such students who require remediation in college go on to graduate.
We need billboards to shout to students, their parents, educators and policymakers that the cost of academic mediocrity is wasted time and money. In this competitive economic environment, no one can afford to waste either.
Education leaders are hopeful the Common Core State Standards will boost the performance of all students, presumably because the new standards are more rigorous than the old and communicate a higher expectation for achievement.
More teacher training is likely on the horizon to ensure teachers know how to teach to these new standards. However, this policy, like most others, incorrectly presumes that students are invested in learning and know how to achieve, and that all they need to compete more aggressively in the classroom is more rigorous standards and better teachers.
Given the state’s recent — and backward — decision (following many students’ failure of the new math standard) to allow remedial math to count toward the four math classes required to receive a diploma, it’s hard to see how we’ll get where we need to go from here.
We raise our expectations for student performance in math by requiring students’ to take four math classes to graduate.
Then we lower the expectation for student performance in math by allowing the remedial math classes to substitute for the math requirements necessary for a diploma. That’s a pretty clear message: Even barely good enough is good enough.
What if students who needed math remediation had to complete these classes, in addition to the four classes required for graduation.
This would send a clear message to parents and students alike that as a state we expect students to be more than proficient in math and that we’re serious about ensuring they are equipped to analyze and assess data, solve problems and think critically when they move on to college or work.
Students who need remediation may not be able to engage fully in the life of the school, but as we see from the current situation, we either pay now or pay later. There are no shortcuts. Here’s what needs to happen. Soon.
● Students who are not proficient in basic skills need to take action — study harder and seek out your teacher or other resource for additional help.
● Teachers must stop moving students along if they don’t have the requisite skills they need to be successful.
● Parents must open their eyes and accept responsibility to inspire their children to learn and stop complaining when their child needs to do more to be academically successful.
● Policymakers must look for opportunities to innovate — a policy that intentionally or unintentionally lowers performance expectations at a time when we need higher expectations isn’t useful.
We can no longer afford to accept the mediocrity that has crept into our dialogue about education reform.
Our goal has to be that we expect every child in Georgia to acquire — in high school — the skills needed to compete in college, work and life.
This includes graduating from high school, but recognizes that doing so is the jumping-off point, not the destination.
Etienne R. LeGrand is president and co-founder of the W.E.B. Du Bois Society, whose mission is to transform the lives of more African-American youth through increased academic ambition.
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