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College prep expectations don’t mesh with realities
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Leah Belisle just assumed she was prepared. She had, after all,
graduated second in her class.
She took the most difficult classes at Meridian High School, a
rural school near Bellingham, from which few of her peers went on
to four-year colleges. She served as student-body president, played
two varsity sports and developed close ties to her teachers.
But in her first semester at the University of Washington,
Belisle was stunned. The pace, the intensity, the fact she was
expected to read 200 pages of a psychology textbook in one week
– all of it felt overwhelming.
“I worked hard in high school, but they could have worked
me harder,” said Belisle, now a sophomore. “Not only
was I adjusting to new people, a new place to live and a new city,
but I was adjusting to a new way of learning.”
From the U.S. Department of Education to the company that
designs the Advanced Placement (AP) program, experts have described
a growing problem: High-school and college expectations rarely
connect. Most high-school graduates are not prepared to enter
college, studies show. And when they do enroll, many are not
prepared to succeed.
One in four freshmen at four-year colleges don’t return
for their sophomore year, according to Education Trust, a nonprofit
group that promotes higher academic achievement. One in two
freshmen at two-year colleges does not return.
“I think people are catching on and beginning to recognize
that this is one of the most serious issues confronting
America,” said Peter Negroni, senior vice president of K-12
education at the College Board, which develops the SAT, the PSAT
and the AP program. “To me, it is the issue of our
time.”
Decades ago, high schools equipped students with basic knowledge
and skills, then sent them into a work force where a “strong
pair of shoulders” could get a student lifelong, well-paying
work in a factory. Then, college was considered a finishing school
for the elite.
But today’s America revolves around the “knowledge
economy,” where high-school graduates earn an average $15,000
less than college grads; most of the fastest-growing job sectors
require higher education; and more than 75 percent of high-school
grads plan to go to college.
“Parents and students of all incomes and races have gotten
a clear signal that college pays off economically,” said
Michael Kirst, a Stanford University professor and director of The
Bridge Project, a research group that works to strengthen the
transition from high school to college. “But the system is
still set up for 1903, when few went on to college.”
The best college preparation is a curriculum that increases in
rigor and sophistication as students advance, according to the
Standards for Success Project, an initiative of the Association of
American Universities. Before graduation, students should know how
to think analytically, solve problems, form opinions and conduct
research.
As part of Washington state’s education-reform movement,
the Governor’s Council on Education Reform and Funding had a
lengthy debate about what students should know, and be able to do,
before they graduate. The discussion ended in new graduation
requirements, which take effect in 2008.
The governor’s council included business leaders and
educators but did not include higher-ed representatives. Some say
this is why a gap in expectations remains: Seniors are still
required to complete at least two years of math, for example, but
the state’s higher-education system will not admit them
unless they have completed at least three years.
“There are gaps all over the place,” said Robin
Rettew, associate director for policy for Washington’s Higher
Education Board.
More than 20 states have joined a “K-16” network,
working both locally and with counterparts in other states to
coordinate learning at all levels, kindergarten through college.
Washington has not joined that network, but Rettew said she and her
colleagues at the Office of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction and the State Board for Community and Technical
Colleges are working on the issue.
Leaders in the K-16 movement say it is a matter of social
justice. Upper-middle-class students are more likely than
low-income students to take the rigorous classes they need for
college success, according to Education Trust, which traces the
problem to “tracking” in high schools.
Low-income students are not always encouraged to take high-level
courses, such as Algebra 2, that are strong predictors for college
success.
In Bellevue, Wash., where 90 percent of graduating seniors in
2002 planned to go to college, the level of preparation varies
significantly.
The district ranks in the top 1 percent in the nation for
participation in the AP curriculum. But in a district-sponsored
follow-up study of the class of 2002, 35 percent of respondents
said they had taken a remedial reading class in college and 38
percent said they took one in math.
To strengthen its connection to college, the Bellevue School
District is working with educators from the Standards for Success
Project.
The national project involved in-depth interviews with about 400
teachers and staff at more than 20 major institutions and has been
hailed as the most comprehensive look into what higher education
expects from its students.
Earlier this school year, Bellevue Superintendent Michael Riley
convened his own advisory group on that topic. The group includes
the director of the Standards for Success Project and other
national-education reformers, as well as local officials from the
University of Washington and Bellevue Community College (BCC).
“We need to make sure that the K-12 curriculum is a stair
step in sophistication and rigor that prepares students for what
they will experience at college and university,” said Jean
Floten, president of BCC.
Higher-education officials must take more responsibility for
clarifying their expectations, Floten said. Many students enter
community college expecting low standards, she said, then find
themselves left out of credit courses because they could not pass
placement exams.
About 80 percent of students who took the math-placement test at
BCC were steered into remediation this autumn, while 46 percent
ended up in remedial reading. State figures show about 66 percent
of community-college freshmen end up in at least one remedial
class.
The remedial rate is in the single digits at four-year colleges,
said Rettew of the Higher Education Coordinating Board. But that
figure is misleading, she said, because some institutions not
equipped to provide remediation send their students to community
colleges for the work.
By Cara Solomon / The Seattle Times, KRT
