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U.S. Dept. of Education report says students are unprepared for college
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High school graduates are entering college unprepared and undereducated, according to a recent study.
The report, written by a commission appointed by the U.S. Department of Education, says institutions of higher education and secondary schools must work together to assure a higher success rate among college students.
“The Lost Opportunity of the Senior Year: Finding a Better Way” states that almost half of all high school students “are uneducated or miseducated” and those anticipating college look at their senior year as a “farewell tour of adolescence.”
The National Commission on the High School Senior Year, formed last summer by the Department of Education, states in the report that institutions of higher education and K-12 schools don’t properly align academic content, admissions procedures or expectations for students.
As a result, the report concludes, new college students are more likely to fail or give up.
Roy Grasshoff, spokesperson for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, said Texas’ newly developed higher education plan, “Closing the Gaps By 2015,” sets out programs to help alleviate this problem.
The goal of the plan is to make the Recommended High School Program, which consists of college preparatory courses, the standard curriculum in high schools and make it a prerequisite for admission into the state’s public universities by 2008.
“(It will) automatically get more students taking courses they need for college, and if they don’t go into college, then for the workforce,” Grasshoff said.
A nationwide teacher shortage is one hurdle schools will have to clear in order to institute better college preparation programs, said Grasshoff and Debbie Graves Ratcliffe, a Texas Education Agency director.
“Do we increase graduation requirements even more when we know we have a teacher shortage in those areas?” Ratcliffe asked. “It’s a Catch-22 for us.”
The University of Texas system has also realized the importance of communicating with secondary schools, said Felipe Alanis, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. The system has developed two programs to work on this relationship.
Project Texas Professional Development Online is a Web-based course designed to help high school Algebra teachers prepare students for college-level math.
Another program, which Alanis says is in its very early stages, would take data from high schools and link it with universities, giving universities the opportunity to evaluate which high school classes proved effective in preparing students for college.
“We would know what programs or courses are being successful for high school students,” he said.
Melissa Thrailkill is a reporter for the Daily Texan at the University of Texas-Austin. Article reprinted with permission.
Melissa Thrailkill