<p>"Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City Universitys community college system." ...</p>
<p>Headline hype or truth? NYC parents: Seeing or hearing any evidence of this?</p>
<p>Officials:</a> 80 Percent Of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read « CBS New York</p>
<p>I think the headline should have said (if true) that 80 Percent of Recent HS Grads Starting Community College Cannot Read Well Enough to Start College. Big difference. Of couse, wouldnt fit, but many times headlines do not tell the real story. In NYC, every HS grad is within commuting distance of a public 4 year school (the CUNYs), that typically charge very close to the same tuition as the community colleges (I think about 7K), so that people do not have to go to CCs to save money. Some of the 4 years are more selective than other of the 4 year CUNYS. So even forgetting about the kids graduating NYC HSs who will get sufficient finanical aid or whose parents can pay for them to go away to college, the CCs are not getting the same range of kids that CCs in many other parts of the country get. IMHO.</p>
<p>The headline seems misleading to me. There’s a big difference between “not having the skills to function at a college level” and “illiteracy.”</p>
<p>^this. </p>
<p>10char</p>
<p>So 80% of NYC graduates do not pass the Regent’s? 
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<p>As a product of the New York City public school system and a graduate of the City University of New York (CUNY) let me point out the following.</p>
<p>Read this quote: “nearly 80 percent of those who graduate from city high schools arrived at City University’s community college system without having mastered the skills to do college-level work”</p>
<p>That statement is grammatically and factually incorrect.
Sloppy writing.
Not all NYC high school graduates go to CUNY’s CCs.
Some graduates do go on to Harvard, Yale, etc.</p>
<p>Here is what the writer meant to say:</p>
<p>“Seventy-eight percent of CUNY’s incoming community college students do not possess adequate enough skills to perform successfully at the college level.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that statement is probably very close to the truth. But I also doubt that the situation would be very different at any other very large metropolitan school system.</p>
<p>I have a student in one of my classes from NYC who seems to barely have a grasp of the English language (and yes, he’s American). Another one has apparently no math background at all - didn’t recognize quadratic formula, simple trig functions, basic algebra. I can’t fix this stuff, I’m trying to teach physics. They are supposed to come to the table with something :(.</p>
<p>They didn’t even provide a byline for that story. Really sloppy inaccurate reporting and writing.</p>
<p>Sylvan–Sounds like community colleges shouldn’t admit students who can’t do the work. Not every HS graduate should go to college, and there is a crying need for skilled laborers in the trades. </p>
<p>Not that trades don’t need math and english, I hasten to add, but at a Vocational school these subjects would be taught as needed for the specialty at hand. Correct me if I am mistaken.</p>
<p>Even if it’s 80% of the kids that are going to this community college-that is a LOT of kids that can’t read…but someone on another thread is talking about how good the NY schools are—there seems to be a disconnect here…</p>
<p>mommusic–maybe things are different in NY but around here, the community colleges are where kids that go into trades start their training. They wouldn’t be able to work in the trades without these classes and then an apprenticeship. I’m also trying to think of a trade that doesn’t need basic math and English skills and I can’t come up with one.</p>
<p>Steve, NYC has vocational HSs (as does Westchester, north of the city). These schools are somewhat selective. I do not not know where most trade kids go. Yes, they combine apprenticeships.</p>
<p>“They didn’t even provide a byline for that story. Really sloppy inaccurate reporting and writing.”</p>
<p>Probably written by a NYC high school graduate.</p>
<p>Look: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing job in America over the next 10 years is Walmart clerk. Second is burger flipper. 18 of the top 20 don’t require a college degree. The schools are preparing the students for the jobs of tomorrow.</p>
<p>I used to read and grade the writing samples of all students entering the community college of Philadelphia. All students were high school grads. The average student came in at the 7th grade level. We had students with writing samples at the 2nd grade level. They couldn’t get out of the community college until we got them up to the 11th grade level. Most of teaching was undoing the damage done by 12 years in the dayjail. </p>
<p>I would love to have tested their teachers. I expect their writing was not much better.</p>
<p>Our daughter is taking the upper level Calc 2 section at her community college. There are about 5,000 students. There is only one section of this course per semester and it is arguably the hardest course at the school. 5 students passed the first exam (the class size is a lot bigger). The professor does not scale. The amount of work and difficulty accelerates with time in his course - it’s hard to catch up if you fall behind. A lot of parents here have kids that took Calc 2 in high-school - so it may be surprising that a ton of community college students can’t pass it in college. My daughter tells me about a lot of the students that she runs into and an 80% number for remedial doesn’t sound inaccurate. MA is supposed to have one of the best public school systems in the country and the toughest exit exam in the MCAS tests. I think that they are the toughest or among the toughest. But there are a lot of students that seem to lose a lot of what they learned; either that or they are managing to pass without learning the material in the first place.</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to imagine what the weaker states are like.</p>
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<p>Community colleges get taxpayer subsidies and students repeating courses that they don’t have the prerequisites for are a waste of taxpayer money.</p>
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<p>Community colleges include vocational education in the skilled trades. But remember that these skilled trades need to be able to read in order to learn the skills of their trades. Examples:</p>
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<p>Seems like you could have solved the overenrollment problem you mentioned in an earlier thread by giving a pretest of prerequisite math (with “word problems” to test the English skills) and telling students who fail the pretest that they have very little chance of passing the course and should drop and enroll in the math or English prerequisite first.</p>
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<p>At least here in WA, the community colleges do not deny anyone admission unless they are under 18 AND (not or) do not have a high school diploma. </p>
<p>All students must take Math and Reading tests before they enroll. The ones who are not ready to enroll in college courses in either area are placed into remedial classes.</p>
<p>However only English/ Math classes actually require you to pass the tests.
You can take a science class that doesnt require math or a psych course that doesnt require English 101.
I also wonder at how well the community college testing process serves students.
For example my older daughter who had taken pre calc & stats at a top private prep school did not test into college level math at the community college, using their computer test.
So she used her SAT scores & high school transcripts to attend Reed College instead, where calculus is the lowest level math course.</p>
<p>I think that most community colleges use the Accuplacer test. The math test is by levels. You take a test and you can move to the next level if you get a passing score on the current level. Community colleges will take you in but you have to start at the level that the test results determine. I believe that the English/Writing parts determine whether you take College-Level English or something below that.</p>