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<p>Who do you think requires the most remediation? The kids from the well funded school districts in the county? or the kids from the less well funded school districts?</p>
<p>"but why does this come after they are enrolled in a degree program? I hope it’s not coming at the same time the student is enrolled in English 101 or History 101. As I also said, there are some real issues with this in my area. It also affects our flagship. </p>
<p>Iow: instead of letting anyone into a degree program and then elevating prepared kids to honors, why not offer a remedial pre-college?"</p>
<p>You do understand, that someone enrolled in English 101 or History 101, college level courses, has passed the necessary tests and is qualified to be in those classes? Who cares if those students are also enrolled in remedial math? I don’t see how this would even be an issue or affact your flagship. </p>
<p>Students in CC, are in a “degree program” for planning purposes, so they know what classes they need to take to get the degree that they are pursuing. They are not taking college level courses in the subjects in which they have tested below college level or have not met the necessary prerequisites.</p>
<p>Arabarab, never said cc isn’t the venue for remedial. In many respects, it’s ideal- it extracts people from the structure of the 9-12 scenario, focuses on core academic skills, can be stepped down (or up) to match a (remedial) class’s skills- and it’s great for returning students who need to brush up, people motivated to bring up skills that are rusty, etc. In my grandparents’ day, there was “night school” at the hs. In the absence of that, cc is probably all there is. I am fine with that.</p>
<p>I want to stay away, at this point, from the politics or sentimentality. Some kids simply are not ready. Why can’t there be a pre-college program (I never said track- this would encompass a range of needed courses- a buffet; more only if needed.)</p>
<p>whatdid you- where do you get the idea kids test in to these freshman classes? Not in my world. They get into the school (C- average minimum in hs) and register.</p>
<p>I think it’s important we look thru the telescope through both ends. Yes, cc is an opp for some kids, who may still be growing. Some catch fire and do well. But, when classes are held back, the group suffers. If profs cannot assign x level of work because some large enough % of the class can’t understand that book or produce that analysis-- what do you think happens?</p>
<p>Poetgrl – the study on CC costs is reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education at
[Community</a> Colleges May Cost States More Than Some 4-Year Universities - Government - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Community Colleges May Cost States More Than Some 4-Year Universities”>Community Colleges May Cost States More Than Some 4-Year Universities)</p>
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<p>This varies by state, of course, but here in Illinois, no surprises at all.</p>
<p>Revenue sources in the current FY12 budget for our local CC:</p>
<p>Local Sources (ie. property taxes); 43.9%
State Sources (ie, state taxes) 6.6%
Federal Sources (ie, federal taxes) 16.5%
Tuition & Fees 21.2%
Sales & Service Fees 10.8%
Other Sources 1.0%</p>
<p>By my quick math, that shows 2/3 of the cost is taxpayer-funded.</p>
<p>“don’t think they should give up and do nothing. I am advocating a remedial program. You say, well it exists. I say, it should be separate from a degree track. Classes, courses, practice, tutoring, whatever.”</p>
<p>30 years ago, I used to teach at the Community College of Philadelphia. It had open enrollment to all high school graduates of the city. There were two parts of my job:</p>
<p>The first part of my job was to read 5,000 entrance writing samples every term, required of every student for placement purposes. The reasons for this, primarily, were to make sure we could help students improve their skills, and second, that students who eventually went on to a four-year degree would have the skills and tools needed to succeed. The average student came in at what we called the “seventh grade” level. We went as low as the second grade. We hoped to get everyone to the “eleventh grade”. We had many, many levels of remediation - and they often worked!</p>
<p>The second part of my job - I taught the very last course in critical writing/thinking that was required before students could pass on to the university level. My students at the time were usually older than I was. Many lacked the preparation that I had experienced in my UChicago students, obviously. But every year we would pass two, sometimes three, students on to the Ivy League. Usually a couple at Penn. They were exciting, exciting students - some of whom finished summa cum laude. Clearly their early education had failed them, and life had intervened. And, as Poetgrl correctly notes, courses in basic writing are now often required at even the very top universities. </p>
<p>I thought the community college did a GREAT job, both in remediation and in four-year college prep. But I do know things have changed; the college population is even older than when I was there, community needs are much greater, and funding is much poorer. </p>
<p>Perhaps I’m missing the problem? From what I can see, the main problem is lack of funding. We need many, many more nurses, and the nursing program at my local cc is very small, and, seriously, more difficult to get into than Harvard. The basic bookkeeping classes have waiting lists. Most of the voc. ed programs are oversubscribed. Vets are being turned away. The writing teachers with Ph.Ds are paid a bare pittance, and have huge classes. Science lab space is at a premium. It is still a wonderful, wonderful place, a treasured community resource - I just wish we’d give it the respect (and the funding) it deserves.</p>
<p>I think that CCs need the respect and the funding, and the two are intertwined. As long as that is where too many kids go because they were academically deficient for other choices (and yes, cost is often an issue here too) it becomes a catch phrase for insults. The problem is that such insults are often true. Some community colleges are run terribly, the standards in academic is low and there is no concerted effort to make it a truly good alternative to other colleges, but a last ditch alternative.</p>
<p>[Illinois</a> Community College Board :: The System](<a href=“http://www.iccb.org/facts.html]Illinois”>http://www.iccb.org/facts.html)</p>
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<p>One of the other issues with respect to community colleges is their frequent slowness to adapt to changing demands, in part because they have staffing issues. As was mentioned upthread, nursing programs are terribly undersized, and from what one of the clinical instructors told me when MIL was in a hospital where students do clinical work, the great shortage was on nursing instructors, and that the CC pay rates were too low to attract enough instructors. From the time a student finishes the prereqs for nursing (which sounded pretty stiff) they’re faced with a nearly two year wait to gain admission to the formal nursing program. </p>
<p>But on the remedial front, I just don’t think students belong in college who can’t do college work, even at the incredibly low levels required by CCs. Using up their financial aid capacity doesn’t help these students either.</p>
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Personally, I think community college is exactly the place for remedial work. Students can work on areas where they need to get up to speed while also possibly moving ahead in other areas. But not only community colleges, most of the other public and private schools in our area offer courses at the “remedial” level to get students up to speed in math and writing. And community colleges are utilized by adults of all ages throughout the community.</p>
<p>The local school district offers community ed courses in everything from yoga to using the internet, but they are not the ones who do the remediation for college readiness.</p>
<p>Having come through such an unconventional path myself, I always chafe at suggestions which would further limit the options available to the non-traditional student.</p>
<p>In several California school districts, including LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district, adult education is about to get the axe. The district needs the money for K-!2. The educational options for non-traditional students such as recent immigrants, dropouts, etc, are quickly disappearing.</p>
<p>Well, California, due to the way it funds itself is more abysmally run than any other state in the country, and anyone can see that the educational funding issues are the worst of all.</p>
<p>However, in my state, right now, which is almost as bad as yours, there is no such thing going on, though there is pressure on the funding, obviously, the truth is that voters vote yes on the bond measures in our areas over and over again. It’s one thing we do do right.</p>
<p>As for those who believe remediation for specific learning gaps left by poor k-12 education should take place somewhere besides the community college, I would say, great, invent that place. In the meantime, in our area the remediation classes are being passed at a 70% rate, and AS and AA articulated transfers have risen by 14% in the past two years.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any reason to end a program that successful for some other nebulous fantasy program you have come up with in your head because “remediation should take place somewhere else.” </p>
<p>WHERE else? And WHY?</p>
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Comments like this tend to bother me. Despite the “incredibly low levels” of education I received at the community college I attended, I now have a BS in engineering, an MA in math, and a PhD in physics. I’m glad no one told me in the course of those first 2 years how inadequate my instruction was :)</p>
<p>If our D had not had CC to go to after having to leave HS after JR year, I have grave doubts that she would be graduating from her dream U later this month, WITH her HS buddies around her, also getting their degrees. The only thing “low level” D got from her CC was a low pricetag! She and we are incredibly blessed that she had that wonderful resource that I find one of the brightest gems in our state and nation.</p>
<p>Sorry, I was not at all intending to suggest that community college classes were at incredibly low levels – what I was trying to reference was that the standards for “adequate preparation” that allows you to skip remedial English, math, or writing are incredibly low. </p>
<p>CC can be a great route for a lot of kids or adults to get a degree. But the student – especially the low income student – who starts CC needing to take a lot of remedial courses is highly unlikely to complete an AA degree, and is still likely to emerge from college with debt and no degree. A University of Chicago Urban Education Institute blog post had a pretty good summary:“84% of those enrolling in California Community Colleges were required to take remedial English.” “Only 17% of those required to take a remedial reading course graduate from college within 8 years.” " As a nation, we spend $1.4 billion/year on remedial college classes." Are these numbers a convincing argument that the community college approach to remediation is working? I don’t think so. And these numbers have been terrible long before we started this recession.</p>
<p>Full blog at: <a href=“https://blogs.uchicago.edu/uei/learning/remedial_college_courses_a_poi.shtml[/url]”>https://blogs.uchicago.edu/uei/learning/remedial_college_courses_a_poi.shtml</a></p>
<p>“Statistics from the Riverside Community College District show that it’s even worse here.
Almost 96 percent of first-time freshmen must take remedial math, and 82 percent must take remedial English. It’s not just precalculus or even algebra that students haven’t mastered. Some high school graduates need remedial arithmetic, according to the community colleges.”</p>
<p>[More</a> college students require remedial courses | Breaking News | PE.com - Press-Enterprise](<a href=“http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/corona/corona-headlines-index/20110210-more-college-students-require-remedial-courses.ece]More”>http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/corona/corona-headlines-index/20110210-more-college-students-require-remedial-courses.ece)</p>