<p>We play God with whatever approach we take. If we don’t filter, then we subject some number of students to courses that they don’t need or want at taxpayer expense that can’t be used for other purposes. It is possible to self-study or take courses later in life - perhaps the money should follow the student for when the student is ready.</p>
<p>plansman, my concern is that for every student like you, there are 10 who recieve no vocational training and do not go to college. How do we deal with that?</p>
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plansman, my concern is that for every student like you, there are 10 who recieve no vocational training and do not go to college. How do we deal with that?
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<p>A student who doesn’t get vocational training in high school but wants to go into the trades still has options. Vocational courses are readily available at community colleges. Also, many trades can also be learned by completing an apprenticeship. In an apprenticeship, one is actually paid to learn the skills required to join the trade. It is simply not the case that failing to offer vocational training in high school prevents someone from entering the trades.</p>
<p>A student who doesn’t get a college-prep education in high school but wants to go to college is going to have extreme difficulty doing so. The skills one never learned but that one needs to succeed in college take a great deal of effort to acquire later. And if developmental (remedial) courses at the college level were eliminated, I’m not even sure how someone could learn the skills which are missing.</p>
<p>In any case, a college-prep education is worthwhile for its own sake even if one chooses a career which doesn’t inherently require it.</p>
<p>Yes of course the student can obtain vocational training elsewhere, but how many due? Hard to beleive in CC world, but there are kids who do not particularly like school, and if we don’t make the most of their HS experience, they may be left up the river without a paddle.</p>
<p>The Naval Academy has an interesting approach. It does not offer remedial classes. However, for those they see as developmental prospects, they send a recommendation and the application over to the Naval Academy Foundation. Selected applicants will be offered scholarships to a list of schools (small or community colleges, or Prep School PG year) where the applicants can get their academic house in order. They then reapply through a streamlined process, with near universal acceptance.</p>
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<p>First, I think the term “play God” is thrown around a bit loosely (and not just in this example). Unless we live passive lives and submit ourselves to fate, everything that we do is “playing God.”</p>
<p>That comment aside, I don’t think that it is too much to say that a student receiving a low SAT score should be excluded from college. A student receiving such a low score is not ready for college (as the score on the SAT measures college readiness) Perhaps I was unclear in stating that the exclusion was not permanent (students should be able to retake the SAT and enter college at any stage in their lives), but the core message remains the same: If we let students into college who then have to play catch up in order to understand the material properly, we are just wasting our time. In my opinion, these students are more well suited for vocational type jobs. Of course if they want to, they can simply learn more material and improve their ability to comprehend knowledge and try the academic route at any time.</p>
<p>On a last note, I wouldn’t say that the comments on this thread are elitist. In my case, I suggested setting an SAT bar near 1550 for students wishing to attend college. That’s a pretty low bar. An elitist would set the bar higher; for instance at 2100. That would be truly elitist as it would exclude most of the population.</p>
<p>BTW, IIRC, the 50-55% bar for the SAT is now right around 1500, give or take. Or rather, based on 2008 test figures.</p>
<p>I am not an elitist – I think that those that want to preserve college for everyone are. Because our present system just isnt working for the kids who dont go to college. They deserve better. Of course every child deserves an opportunity for a CP diploma – but at some point we have to offer alternatives to others. In NY all we will be offering is GED.</p>
<p>On college confidential the view of SAT scores is terribly skewed compared to most of the high school population. For example, according to college board, the high school class of 2008 had an average math score of 515, an average critical reading score of 502, and an average writing score of 494. Just looking at percentiles, a critical reading score of 500 was better than 49% of the nation. Add together the averages, and you get a 1511 (and those are just the students who consider themselves college-bound, so its already excluding those that have already decided to not to attend college). So theoretically, a student who scores just average on test would not be able to attend college. Theres something wrong with that. </p>
<p>You can say that someone can retake the test and enter college at any time, but as people grow older and start having families, this becomes more and more difficult. Its far easier to complete college at a younger age, especially when the knowledge from high school is still fresh. </p>
<p>Why would we use the SAT to decide anyway? I know many people disagree that the SAT can be taught, however, most agree that with practice, students could perform better. For example, imagine a student scores a 500 in each section and been unable to attend college. If a student could have done a few practice tests on their own and learned a few extra vocabulary words, maybe they could have scored a 550 in each section and are now eligible. In one instance the student is considered ready, and in the other, theyre not. Can you honestly say that the student is any more qualified though? Thats whats wrong with using the SAT as a cutoff.</p>
<p>“but as people grow older and start having families, this becomes more and more difficult. It’s far easier to complete college at a younger age, especially when the knowledge from high school is still fresh.”</p>
<p>I received my BA at 31 and MS at 35, almost all of that paid for by my employers over the years. In many cases, my life and work experience were a big advantage in classes over younger students. There isn’t as much support these days from employers as there was a few decades ago so it certainly is harder today.</p>
<p>There is a huge amount of waste in students that aren’t ready for college and the most efficient solution would be to fix K12.</p>
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Yes of course the student can obtain vocational training elsewhere, but how many due? Hard to beleive in CC world, but there are kids who do not particularly like school, and if we don’t make the most of their HS experience, they may be left up the river without a paddle.
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<p>At least these students have the option of obtaining vocational training.</p>
<p>Conversely, a student who is tracked into vocational classes for the wrong reasons doesn’t have a feasible way to obtain the skills they need to prepare for college.</p>
<p>A student who takes a college-prep curriculum can go to college or go into a vocational field. A student who does not has major barriers to ever attending college. As such, by tracking students into a vocational curriculum in which they fail to obtain a college-prep education, these students’ future career options are significantly limited.</p>
<p>The fact that some people will fail to pursue education and training which is available to them hardly seems like adequate justification for doing so.</p>
<p>Take 3, yes they have the option, but only if they want to go to school past HS. The regents program is so time consuming for the average or slightly below average student, it will not allow trade courses. So that student will have to go to school AFTER HS to learn a trade. Why is it OK by you for a student to have to go post HS to learn a trade, but not complete college prep?</p>
<p>What do you do with kids in high school with only elementary school skills?</p>
<p>“but as people grow older and start having families, this becomes more and more difficult. Its far easier to complete college at a younger age, especially when the knowledge from high school is still fresh.”</p>
<p>As a 30 something year old going through college, I really disagree.</p>
<p>There is not much of value a high school kid takes into college, but there is much value an older person can contribute.</p>
<p>High schoolers have little to no experience in anything other than just going to school, most never even had to support themselves. Whiel obtaining my degree in political science, it was humorous to hear the opinions of some of these students about issues, and I really loved their analysis of subjects they never had to experience directly (like medical insurance for family), or their opinions about places they have never been or was just a little kid when an event happened, like the 9/11 attacks.</p>
<p>Maybe I missed something, but it appears this thread seems to be aimed at high schoolers only, has it not occured to people that maybe someone who did not want to go to college after high school may want to go a few years later? The remedial courses would be essential for them to do so, if the college requires some sort of prerequisite for attending college that is.</p>
<p>For example, I recieved my GED years ago, went into the military, then started college. I had to take a placement test for reading a math. I did fine in the reading, but not the math (even though I was an electronic technician for 12 years, I never needed algebra or any other college type math course). So I had to take one remedial math course in order to satisfy the prerequisite for enrolling in a college level course.</p>
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Why is it OK by you for a student to have to go post HS to learn a trade, but not complete college prep?
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<p>That’s actually not my concern. My concern is that it’s unclear where someone would go to relearn the material from the college-prep high school coursework which never happened in the first place. It’s not as if a 25-year-old who decides to go to college after not having taken college-prep courses can just go enroll in their neighborhood high school. And colleges cannot be expected to offer enough developmental courses to make up for multiple missed years of the college-prep curriculum.</p>
<p>That’s actually not my concern. - yes, but it is mine.</p>
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<p>I disagree. In my opinion, college should be reserved for those actually able to take their learning to the next level. A score near 500 represents a student who is only capable of high school level work. By excluding these average students we are left with the above average and the exceptional. These are the people who are going to have the most influence on the world after college anyway.</p>
<p>Saying that that excluding the average is wrong is kind of like saying that people with IQs around 100 (the average) are not as intelligent as people with higher IQs (an I know there will be at least one person saying that IQ tests are wildly flawed). It might seem mean, but the truth can sometimes hurt a little.</p>
<p>Colleges, at least public ones, should be reserved for anyone who pays taxes. I be damned if my tax money should go towards an institution that I, or anyone else, cannot be a part of.</p>
<p>SOme of you are so hyped up on SAT scores that it is almost scary. SAT scores are in no way a predictor of how well someone does in college, to the point they do not even ask for them after age 21 at many universities. The SAT may be fien for seeing who gets a full ride and who gets into private universities, but a publically funded institution should be in no way setting these false barriers to education for anyone.</p>
<p>I think people on the SAT kick are afraid that by enrolling people who have not taken the SAT or have done poorly at it, will excel in college and make the SAT look even more useless. Lord forbid their “snowflake” sit beside some dirty kid who, gasp! never took the SAT. </p>
<p>How about this, remove all the barriers for college and just let everyone enroll who does. If they pass, then fine, if not, then flunk them out, I think it is really simple.</p>
<p>As far as the college prep classes, I think they are useless. College level classes teach the subject fine, I do not see the need for some special prerequisite classes to take beginning college level classes. The learning curve is quick and the classes, especially math, have little to do with one another.</p>
<p>“How about this, remove all the barriers for college and just let everyone enroll who does. If they pass, then fine, if not, then flunk them out, I think it is really simple.”</p>
<p>Public colleges and universities receive a public subsidy and state funds are limited as we are finding out. The result will be rationing in many states. If one cannot pass college level courses, then there is a waste of time for the student and the waste of public monies.</p>
<p>“As far as the college prep classes, I think they are useless. College level classes teach the subject fine, I do not see the need for some special prerequisite classes to take beginning college level classes. The learning curve is quick and the classes, especially math, have little to do with one another.”</p>
<p>I’d suggest taking a look at the rates of kids in engineering and science schools that flunk out or withdraw from weeders.</p>
<p>Not just engineering, BC. Physchology. At my Ds school, Statatics/Data Base required for PolySi. In additon to general requriements. This idea that everyone can do everything is just not true. We want to defer the date that kids are tracked, but not indefinitely. Otherwise the non-college kids end up with nothing.</p>