High school, meet college. College, meet high school.
More than half of Denver Public Schools students have to take at least one remedial class when they hit college, Jeremy Meyer of the Denver Post reports. I am sure that is a pretty typical stat, one worth lots of exploration. This is a good story, or stories, for both higher ed and K-12 reporters. You can always write about students who thought they were smart till they landed in “developmental,” non-credit, community college math, but even more important is the massive, gaping hole between what states expect of their high schoolers (as evidenced in standards and exams) and what various colleges want their students to know and do. I can’t imagine the various parties communicate much about this huge systemic problem, but if they do, I would love to know.
posted by Linda Perlstein at
12:21 PM
5 Comments:
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we have a charter school operator, Envision Schools, that boasts that it never gives any student a grade lower than C. This sounds good to those who don't think it through, but you can see the logical outcome when its graduates reach college. Anyway, Envision was peddling its charter-school-operation services in Denver, last I heard (with false claims about the achievement of its San Francisco schools, by the by).
Good evening.
My name is Miller, and I work for Prince George's County public schools as a high school chemistry teacher. Several years ago, the chemistry department of the University of Maryland at College Park held a meeting with high school chemistry teachers from the state of Maryland. The issues that they raised with us were varied, but the number one issue was the lack of preparation chemistry students had upon entering freshman chemistry.
It was noted by the chemistry staff of the University that students coming from Maryland were in not sufficiently educated in mathematics and chemistry or in the processes of chemistry, and were completely lacking in some of the basic concepts that were in chemistry. The university staff was understandably upset that the students they were receiving had not even seen some of the most basic chemistry curriculum that should have been offered by the state of Maryland. Sadly, we had to show the staff of the University of Maryland at College Park chemistry department that the material they wish to have talks at the high school level has been completely removed by the state department of education from a high.
Needless to say, they were shocked. They have never wanted to have another meeting with us again. Instead, the university staff began to talk into the state of Maryland Department of Education. They wanted the Department of Education to increase the rigor in and all of the material to the curriculum guides that had been previously removed from almost a decade earlier. The Department of Education refused their request.
The reason for the refusal by Department of Education was that the high school chemistry was not intended to prepare a student for college chemistry courses. Rather the curriculum guides reflected only the ability of a student to get a graduation degree from a Maryland high school. At no time did the curriculum guides consider, nor the staff that created the curriculum guide and determined its contents, what a student would need to be taught in order to qualify for freshman level chemistry courses. And that is the way it is now.
As for those readers of this commentary by myself may say, " well, the curriculum guide doesn't prevent you from teaching the things that the university desires of the students." To those people I respectfully say: yes it does. At no time may I ever grade a child down for any material that is not in the curriculum guide. A child is not allowed to fail chemistry if the reason for the failure is wholly or partly due to inability to perform mathematical functions. At no time am I allowed to create a child's paper based upon bad spelling. I cannot grade a child on their knowledge of the mole concept -- as the mole concept is not in the curriculum guide has published by the state of Maryland. I may not even grade the student under ability to perform stoichiometry.
Yes dear reader, you read that previous paragraph completely correctly. The mole concept and stoichiometry are not in the curriculum guide. I can teach it but I cannot grade it. Crazy, yes? Indeed it is. But then again, this is a political system not an education system, and it is designed to make the politicians who run it look good, not to make an educated populace.
How about we decided to get government out of education?
Amazed. And disgusted. Also quite curious as to what could be *in* a curriculum guide for high school chemistry, if moles and stoichiometry are out.
There are also MANY more students taking college level classes while in High School. At least in Maryland, the children have the opportunity to take many more AP classes than I had many years ago.
We live in interesting times... The harder classes cover much more material than they used to and the standard classes cover much less.
http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/science/index.html
This is.
--Rey
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