Thursday, October 14, 2004
Gauging High-School Students' Readiness for College
I'm reproducing in its entirety the following article from today's Chronicle of Higher Education. It seems to show that the vast majority of students are woefully inadequately prepared for university level English. The statistics, however, need some interpretation. What proportion of the 88% of students considered "not proficient" in English (the academic subject) are actually not proficient in England (the language) because it is not their native language? This must be taken into account in judging the effectiveness of the school system. From the other sid of the coin, the university's perspective, what proportion of these students are we seeing? Are 88% of our students "not proficient"? Or, at least, were they "not proficient" when they started their university careers? Probably that percentage should be lowered. The question is, by how much?
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Cal State Releases First Results in Program to Gauge High-School Students' Readiness for College
By SARA HEBEL
The results are in from the first year of a new California testing program that is designed to help high-school juniors learn how they can better prepare for college, and the findings, released on Wednesday, show that many students have more work to do to become proficient in mathematics and English.
Of the more than 115,000 students who opted to take the math portion of the program's test last spring, 55 percent scored high enough to be declared ready for college-level courses at California State University. Of the more than 150,000 who took the English portion, only 22 percent were classified as being prepared.
In all, nearly 40 percent of the state's 385,000 high-school juniors chose to take part in the Early Assessment Program, which its creators say is the first of its kind in the nation.
High-school juniors decide whether to participate in the program when they take California's mandatory standardized test, to which optional questions for the Early Assessment Program are attached. Students who want to learn whether they are ready for college-level work must complete 15 multiple-choice questions for math and 15 multiple-choice questions and an essay for English.
Cal State administrators, faculty members, and trustees developed the Early Assessment Program, in collaboration with public-school and other state education officials, so that students could gain information about their level of preparedness for college when they still have time to improve their skills in high school.
University and state leaders hope that the program will prod high schools to increase the rigor of their courses and reduce the number of students who show up for college needing remedial help. That goal is especially important as the state's public colleges and universities struggle with how to handle a huge influx of new students over the next two decades.
More than half of first-time freshmen entering Cal State now need extra academic preparation in at least one subject, university officials said. The university aims to slash the percentage of freshmen who must take remedial courses to 10 percent by 2007.
David S. Spence, Cal State's executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer, said that giving students an early signal about their readiness for college amounted to a "fairness issue for students."
He also said that the results of the tests were about what university officials expected for the first year of the program. He believes the scores will improve in each successive year.
Jack O'Connell, California's superintendent of public instruction, added that the findings confirm the need to continue to improve the state's public high schools.
"The Early Assessment Program is an enormous step to better preparing our students," Mr. O'Connell said. "I believe the senior year in high school will become much more productive."
Comments:
Not anonymous, just not a Blogger User: it is me, Liz Ditz, http://lizditz.typepad.com
Let's see, the hierarchy of state-funded California tertiary institutions goes:
Community Colleges (California has some really strong districts)--no requirement for entrance exams or SATs, you have to have a high school diploma or GED, or be in "middle college" --that is, community college for kids who are bored with high school. Better alternative than APs for most kids as not in the lock-step, boring, AP mode.
State College System (some are quite selective and others are well not)
State University System (Berkeley for example is very very selective).
Now, there's also a sorting out of kids:
1. Academic stars and superstars (two cohorts--ONE, those whose parents expect the kids will go to a selective college and have been doing the things the kid needs to do, like making sure the kid is ready for the UC A-F requirements
http://www.esuhsd.org/uc_req.html
and TWO, kids whose parents perhaps themselves did not go to college and so are naive about the requirements, but the kids have been "on track" since middle school (and a lot of districts DO track the kids who have the brainpower).
2. Middle of the road kids, whose parents perhaps just kinda went to college--like a state college--and who aren't really focused on knowing what they have to do to meet the UC requirements
3. Kids who hope to graduate from high school and get a job
4. Kids who hope to get a job
I am guessing tha the kids who opt to take the test are in the lower end of 1 or in 2. I haven't a clue what the number divide is.
I do know that kids at academic powerhouses--say, Palo Alto High School--really resist participating in the APIs--it is just another set of boring but stressfull tests. These, however, contribute exactly zero to the march to college.
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Let's see, the hierarchy of state-funded California tertiary institutions goes:
Community Colleges (California has some really strong districts)--no requirement for entrance exams or SATs, you have to have a high school diploma or GED, or be in "middle college" --that is, community college for kids who are bored with high school. Better alternative than APs for most kids as not in the lock-step, boring, AP mode.
State College System (some are quite selective and others are well not)
State University System (Berkeley for example is very very selective).
Now, there's also a sorting out of kids:
1. Academic stars and superstars (two cohorts--ONE, those whose parents expect the kids will go to a selective college and have been doing the things the kid needs to do, like making sure the kid is ready for the UC A-F requirements
http://www.esuhsd.org/uc_req.html
and TWO, kids whose parents perhaps themselves did not go to college and so are naive about the requirements, but the kids have been "on track" since middle school (and a lot of districts DO track the kids who have the brainpower).
2. Middle of the road kids, whose parents perhaps just kinda went to college--like a state college--and who aren't really focused on knowing what they have to do to meet the UC requirements
3. Kids who hope to graduate from high school and get a job
4. Kids who hope to get a job
I am guessing tha the kids who opt to take the test are in the lower end of 1 or in 2. I haven't a clue what the number divide is.
I do know that kids at academic powerhouses--say, Palo Alto High School--really resist participating in the APIs--it is just another set of boring but stressfull tests. These, however, contribute exactly zero to the march to college.
# posted by 
: 12:13 am
: 12:13 am
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