I’ve been teaching in the community college and public university system for 10 years now, and I still cannot figure out why there are remedial courses given at the college level. I’m talking about basic math and English–subjects which students should have become reasonably proficient in by the time they graduated from high school.
Yes, I realize that some of them were shortchanged by the system and passed through, and that the high schools lack the resources to retain all the students needing extra time and work to become proficient.
And I am not talking about those for whom English is a new language. Second-language learners are not the same as native-born English speakers needing remediation.
Even so…I think there should be some kind of transitional school or series of courses that one could take between high school and college, to “get up to snuff” before entering the world of higher education. Otherwise, what is the point of going to college and taking an extra semester or year just to get ready to manage the next few years?
Remedial courses in college also take space, time, resources, money, teachers, etc. away from those who are already prepared to go the distance in college. And the students who are still struggling with the basics have trouble in their academic courses. Then they need extensive tutoring–not just for a little help, but to make it all the way through each course.
Debates, anyone?
I’m torn over this issue.
On the one hand, there are kids in my college that can’t manage to write an essay. There really isn’t an excuse for that. Resourses are limited and we don’t have time or money for people without even the most basic skills.
On the other hand, I have seen how high school has failed many. I know plenty of hardworking, intellegent people that were just never given the tools to make it in college, and had to do remedial work. Add me to that list. I am sure that if I had to take a math test I would fail it miserably. Luckly for me, math is something that has never and will never come up in my college career.
I guess the only real solution is for high schools to better prepare kids. That is asking a lot, I guess, but it seems like a neccesary step.
I, too, feel that these problems should be addressed earlier in a student’s career–starting in kindergarten, frankly.
I hate to see kids coming into college without basic skills through affirmative action. They’re just set up to fail, with or without remedial classes, and this perpetuates stereotypes and fosters resentment.
Yes, there are basic social injustices that need to be rectified–but this isn’t the way to do it. You can’t make up for 12 years of crappy education by sending an unprepared student to Harvard.
I think you have answered your own question: there is a series of courses to get you up to snuff, and those are remedial courses. I don’t see how your system would be different except to put them in a different building and build up a seperate administration to run them, which would increase expenses. I don’t like this as a solution, but if the kids don’t get the education they need in HS, this is the only alternitive. If anything, the sort of thing you are talking about is what a comunity college is there for, to provide a bridge between HS and University. (among other things: comunity colleges serve several roles).
Now, the day they start giving credit for remedial classes I’ll get angry. But as of right now, remedial classes are the only alternitive to telling these kids to take a hike. Mind you, for some kids the problem is not a poor public education but an inability to do college-level work. For them, remedial classes serve as a filter.
Do a lot of students take only remedial courses? Until I read this, I was under the impression that a student would take one remedial course to catch up in a specific area, but wouldn’t rely on remedial courses to supplement or make up for a poor high school education.
Take me, for example. I was required by my high school (a good one in a wealthy area) to take at least two years of math. I took three, and the highest grade I got was a C in Geometry. I barely passed Trigonometry, and so avoided math my senior year. When I got to college, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I would survive a college-level math course. Naturally I am brilliant in all other areas (ha ha), but math is just a terrible and condfidence-shattering struggle for me. My major was in liberal arts, so I was able to simply avoid math for another four years and still get a college degree.
So, in my case, a remedial math course could have been the only way for me to eventually graduate college, even though I got A’s and B’s in everything else. Remedial courses allow otherwise good students to become well-rounded, well-educated people. If people like me were only allowed to enter college after demonstrating complete proficiency in all areas, I’d have been stuck for at least one year after high school taking only one class. With remedials in college, students can pursue a full education without wasting time between high school and college.
It aint affirmative action, babe. Plenty of lilly white kids from affluent backrounds in my college couldn’t write an essay to save their life. This problem is by no means limited to race/class background and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with affirmative action, whoes students go one to suceed at the same levels as other students.
Anyway, I guess my beef with remedial classes is that I know people who just barely did not get into decent colleges. Why should we spend the resourses on a kid who honestly isn’t prepared for college when there are plenty who are? Writing essays is the number one most important thing to know how to do well in a liberal arts cirriculum. If you can’t do it, you really can’t do anything.
I think the whole college-prestige thing is out of wack. Why should one college be more prestigious than another and therefor not let people in. I think that colleges should be picked by environment and interest, and everyone who is willing to attempt the work should be allowed to.
If everyone had equal access to a decent education, remedial classes wouldn’t bother me so much.
Not to get into some of the horrible spelling and grammar errors here…(and I realize that I’m setting myself up by saying this)
But, remedial education is part of the reason that a college degree has become cheapened in our times. When my father was younger (he’s almost 53, I’m almost 33), a high school diploma was evidence of education. He went on the job market a couple of years ago, and was hampered by his lack of a college degree.
The current trend of letting anyone with either basic literacy or athletic ability into college has made a bachelor’s degree the equivalent of a high school diploma.
I have to come down on the “no” side of remediation. Let’s stop grade inflation in the public and private secondary schools, and make a college degree worth something.
Hear, hear, stofsky.
Nobody is entitled to a college degree. I don’t care how much they pay for it or how well they play basketball, if they can’t grasp basic academic skills without somebody holding their hand, they probably don’t deserve to have one. In all honesty, they would probably have a happier life if they spend those four years doing something they’re cut out for, instead of trying to stuff themselves into square holes.
Of course, as long as we persist in treating the BA as an essential middle-class accessory, like a car or a VCR, there will be a great many kids who believe they are entitled. (And even a few who believe they deserve all As and Bs – for “effort.” Especially spoiled, dishonest brats on the track team who can’t write a coherent paragraph to save their lives. Sorry, this is degenerating into the personal, isn’t it? Ignore me, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m really pissed off in case you can’t tell…)
Even: the minute that college administrators around the country figure out that math really doesn’t apply to certain majors, general math requirements will be dropped, and remedial math requirements will be restructured to include only students who are considering pursuing a math related career. That kind of response would also solve part of vival’s OP. (Of course, I’m probably wrong.)
Just to clarify, which schools offer remedial courses? Is it just community colleges?
I don’t think the college prestige thing is out of wack at all. Let’s face it. Not every student has the same ability. You need a certain level of academic skill to get into a top school like Harvard or Princeton. A student with that kind of academic ability wouldn’t be challanged at all in a community college.
The diference between Harvard, Boston College, and Cape Cod Community College is the students. You don’t have remedial classes at Harvard because the students are often valadictorians and Rhodes Scholars. BC and BU are somewhere in the middle. And the community college kids, well, lets just say they would probably be challenged in a more difficult program.
You have the college-prestige thing because some colleges are more prestigeous than others and attract smarter students.
msmith537:
I have seen a lot of people go to schools for “prestige” when thoses schools don’t have particularly good programs in their major and do not have a good environment for them.
Likewise, I have seen people denied access to schools that have excellent programs in their major and would provide a perfect environment for them.
I think that is out of wack. Why do we have people chooseing their schools based on a rather intangible concept instead of on very real ones? Every school has different strong departments (mine, even though it is one of middling prestige, has strong astrophysics, RNA microbiology, film, and the top lingustic program in the nation) and different “feels” (mine is laid back and full of hippy-intellectuals). These seem like the best critera to pick schools from.
You say that students have different abilities. You are absolutely right. A not-so-hot student that chooses to go to Harvard will soon fail out. But why don’t we give them that chance? Why don’t we allow anyone that is willing to handle the workload do it? There is a lot of time and money investment to loose by failing out; and I don’t think anyone would make the decision lightly. Of course we can’t really do that in private schools, but in public school systems there is definately room for change. Let students choose the level of academic rigor they are up to, and let them reap the consequences.
In the end, it is the student, and nobody but the student, that chooses how much they “get” out of a class. In one class you may have one student that writes the essays, passes the test, goes to class occassionally and still manages to get an “A” without ever really learning anything. You may have another student that does loads of outside research, attends class regularly and gets every bit of wisdom the teacher has to offer, and really takes in and applies the knowledge they get from the class. That student will end up with the same “A”, even though they got lightyears more from the class. It is easy to slack in college, but it is also easy to do way more than neccesary. Sadly, our way of quantifying this is with single letter grades, prestige and even numbers (GPA).
To clarify you beginning question, in California at least, all levels of the public school system offer remedial classes. In the UC system (the most prestigious level) there are non-credit remedial math classes, which you can use to get into a class with a math prerequsite if you cannot do well enough on the math placement exam. You are required to do one class that deals with “quantative thinking”, but which does not neccesarily have to be math. I fulfilled mine with a math-free science class. With writing we are required to pass a writing test before we enroll. If you do not pass, you take a special course where they have intensive tutoring in writing skills. At some point later in your career, you are required to take a writing course (if you do not “pass out” of it by getting a high writing AP test score) and at least on class in any major that is “writing intensive”.
California students have been taking huge amounts of remedial courses in the CSU system (the one between community colleges and UCs) something like 30% of students are coming in without the skills needed for college.
This really points to a sad lack in high schools. Remedial classes do work. Often a student just needs on class on how to write an essay, and then they go on to a successful college career. How can we deny an education to people that simply never got the skills, but could easily pick them up with the help of one remedial course? Why are our high schools failing to teach people who are obviously willing to put commitment in their eduation? Lots of high schools out there simply do not teach bright willing students the things they need to know to go on to college. This is not the kids’ fault.
Its a sad place. There is so much wrong with our secondary and post-secondary education that I can’t see a way to fix it.
stofsky said:
In thory, I agree with you–I think the reason the HS dropout rate is so high is because the HS diploma means nothing, so realy, why get one? However, many college-able kids don’t have college skills as a direct result of secondary school inadequacies. Having already been failed once by the public education system, refusing to offer them the chance to make up for that failure seems horribly unfair. It is all well and good to talk about ending grade inflation on the secondary level, but Universities can’t really change that: they have to find a way to teach what the secondary schools produce.
So until secondary ed cleans itself up, we are stuck with remedial courses. These can come in two forms: either we stick a big “remedial” sign on them and don’t give credit, or we can turn English 101 into a de facto remedial course (which it arguably already is). I prefer the former approach, because it allows Universities to deal with the failure of public school (and continue to draw attention to it) and keep thier own standards high (not that they do–grade inflation is a creeping problem at University as well).
I would be open to the idea of restricting remedial classes to the community college level (why pay University prices anyway?) which would return the idea that attending University was something that had to be earned. And these community college classes would hopefuly filter out the students who are not able to do college work.
Gambit:
This is a matter for another thread, but math has EVERYTHING to do with every major. Any school without at least an algebra requirement is selling its students short.
even sven:
Because there are only so many slots and those should go to hte students most likely to suceed. And in the case of public ed, everyone’s tuition is subsidized by the stae–why should the state spend money educating someone who is extremely unlikely to be able to master the material?
A student is a pretty poor judge of there own capabilities–never having been to any school, they have no basis of comparison.
Bottom line is that the more prestigious the school, the better (as in higher paying and more prestigious) the job after school. This is not always the case, but on average it usually works out this way.
As you advance in your education, the more important ‘prestige’ becomes. For example, kids in private high schools may have a slight advantage over public school kids when getting into college. This can be overcome with a little extra effort. However, if you do not go to the top 25 MBA or law schools, many of the most prestigious (high paying) firms won’t even consider you. Some only look at the top 5 schools.
I agree that at some point, the whole ‘prestige’ thing becomes a little much. There are plenty of very smart people who don’t go to Harvard for one reason or another. The business programs taught by HBS, NYU Stern and Boston University don’t differ that much (after all, finance is finance, economics is economics).
Let’s compare two business schools (from http://www.businessweek.com). I’m using grad schools because the prestige factor at that level is more noticeable:
Wharton (#1)
Average GMAT score: 700
Median starting salary on graduation: $90,000
Top 5 hiring companies
McKinsey & Company (management consulting)
Goldman Sachs & Co. (investment banking)
Bain & Co. (management consulting)
Boston Consulting Group (management consulting)
Merrill Lynch (investment banking)
Boston College(Third Tier - ranked >51)
Average GMAT score: 640
Median starting salary on graduation: $75,000
FleetBoston (commercial bank)
State Street Corporation (commercial bank)
Digitas (ecommerce consulting)
CommerceTV.com
PricewaterhouseCoopers (big-5 prof services/accounting)
Cambridge Technology Part (ecommerce consulting)
Arthur Andersen (big-5 prof services/accounting)
IBM
Deloitte & Touche (big-5 prof services/accounting)
The stats also don’t give the entire story. After several years, an analyst at Goldman Sachs can make a HIGH six figure salary. McKinsey and Bain consultants often go on to become CEOs and other executive officers in Fortune 500 companies.
So the answer to your question is that people choose schools based on prestige because there are very tangible results.
Just confirming even sven’s info:
Yes, I am in CA, and there are LOTS of college students taking remedial courses at community colleges and at CSUs.
I am assuming that the situation is comparable in other states, but I do not know for sure.
I don’t think this is logical, unless you can tell me what part math played in my major/degree: English-teaching. I assure you, the only numbers I ever dealt with in my English classes were page numbers; that’s hardly “EVERYTHING.” I did suffer through a math class, per university requirements, though.
I think it’s very difficult to explain why mathematics are important to anyone who has already made up his or her mind that they are not. But I’ll give it a little bit of a go.
Mathematics provide a way of seeing the world (and thus relating to it) that no other discipline provides. Number theory, algebra, and geometry serve to broaden one’s understanding of how and why things work. They provide another framework upon which to hang understanding.
I consider math to be as important as poetry, music, and history for the educated and literate individual. Any discipline which adds layers to understanding is to be encouraged and lauded.
And I was an English major, too.
I agree with you, andros, and I, too, am an English major.
Mathematics requires a way of using one’s brain that is different from the way one uses it to write, or compose music, or speak, or…you get the idea.
elfkin477: Didn’t you ever have to calculate grade points or percentages at the end of a semester? Or teach poetry, which is related to music, which is also related to math? And don’t we all have to balance our checkbooks?
And now for a real kicker:
I took the CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test) a few years ago while thinking of becoming a K-12 sub. I refreshed myself on the math portion and managed to pass it, though just barely. This I could understand, not having specialized in math. But they made me take the reading and writing portions too, even though I *already[i/] had a Master’s in English.
Ain’t that a kick in the head?
Ooooh, I said AIN’T!
And apparently I also need a refresher course in VB codes…
One of my favorite moments as a college English instructor was when the bureaucracy sent me a letter informing me that I had been deemed qualified to speak English in front of my students. Apparently, that wasn’t always the case over in teh Physics and Math departments.
I spent my first few semesters absolutely amazed at how poorly prepared a lot of my freshmen students were for writing even a simple paragraph. Yeah, some of the quasi-literates were basically doofuses. But quite a few of them were bright kids who had just never been forced to string together words and phrases to express an idea. For those people, remedial courses, teaching the bare-minimum basics of writing an essay, could be quite effective.
On the other hand, I spent a semester teaching a remedial writing course, which was designed to help students pass a state-mandated competency test. Roughly half of the thirty students in there had zero chance of ever earning a college degree. For those students, who were mostly unmotivated twerps who were only in college at all because their parents expected it or who couldn’t think of anything better to do, the remedial course was a total waste of time and money.
Considering how little they paid me, though, it wasn’t that big a waste of resources. :mad:
OK, less embittered now:
I think it’s a good idea for students who had genuinely inadequate high school courses, but in real life, it doesn’t seem to work that way. The kids who end up in remedial classes are not the ones who went to poor high schools (many of them wouldn’t be in college in the first place if they weren’t from an upper-middle-class background) but the ones who failed the subject the first time around. And frankly, taking an extra course doesn’t seem to help. A year later, it’s STILL blindingly obvious which students took remedial courses at the college level and which placed into the advanced class directly out of high school.
I like the theory, and I believe everybody deserves a second chance at education, but in practice the ones who are going to do well usually do well the first time.