http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i39/39remedial.htm
Obama Administration Joins Efforts to Fix Remedial Education
By ASHLEY C. KILLOUGH
The Obama administration has thrown its weight behind a growing
movement to fix remedial education - one of the main barriers between
millions of students and college degrees.
The U.S. Department of Education indicated this new focus in its
guidelines for how states can use education-related funds provided
through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. While the
department does not specify ways to allocate the money, it instructs
states to raise standards consistent with the 2007 America Competes
Act, which set a goal to reduce, and even eliminate, the need for
remediation.
Remedial education "is such a drain on state dollars," says Julie
Davis Bell, education-program director for the National Conference of
State Legislatures. "The number is so awful in terms of students
going into remedial ed who don't graduate."
According to a study by the Education Department, 61 percent of
students who attended two-year public colleges from 1992 to 2000, and
a quarter of those enrolled in four-year institutions, needed
remediation. And studies show that students taking developmental
classes are far less likely to complete their degrees, with only 30
percent to 57 percent d oing so, depending on how many remedial
courses they must take.
Most of the stimulus money will go
toward <http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i39/39a02501.htm>plugging
holes in state budgets, but Ms. Bell says reforming remedial
education is a top priority for many states.
The need for remediation among recent high-school graduates has been
a national dilemma for years. The debate centers on which
institutions should be responsible for bridging the gap between
secondary and postsecondary curricula: the high schools that graduate
students, or the colleges that accept them?
In many states, both seem to be stepping up to the plate. Experts
highlight growing cooperation between community colleges and their
surrounding school districts to make students more prepared for
college. Also taking part are nonprofit projects like Achieving the
Dream: Community Colleges Count, and Achieve Inc.'s American Diploma
Project. The College Board's National Office of Community College
Initiatives also began looking into the issue about a year ago.
"The government's on the right track thinking about alignment," says
Stephen J. Handel, national director of the College Board's
community-college office. "It's the right thing to do."
Working Together
El Paso Community College and the University of Texas at El Paso work
closely with their area's 12 school districts to reduce the number of
students enrollin g in remedial courses. Using the College Board's
Accuplacer test, the colleges evaluate high-school students for
college readiness in their junior and senior years. Those with low
scores can take short intervention tutorials, offered jointly by the
high schools and colleges, in reading, writing, and mathematics.
The tutorials have produced results: The percentage of new graduates
ready for college-level English and reading has increased
significantly, and far fewer of them are placing into the lowest
levels of remedial math.
"Sometimes students need only a few hours of refresher lessons to
test into college-level work - not an entire semester," says Richard
M. Rhodes, president of the community college.
This year the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board called for
the Legislature to provide $30-million to offer those short classes
statewide. Because of tight economic conditions, the state built in
only $5-million to get the project started. "We're glad that it got
the state's attention," Mr. Rhodes says. "But our stance is that
we're beyond piloting. We're ready for implementation."
Raymund A. Paredes, the state's commissioner of higher education,
says the project would not have received any money had the federal
stimulus dollars not freed state funds.
As Texas works to overhaul remedial education, Mr. Paredes says, the
early data on community-college and high-school partnerships have
prove d promising. "We'll probably encourage other community colleges
to do the same, but it's not the only solution," he says. "It's not
the magic bullet."
Other plans include providing better curricular training, and hiring
more permanent faculty members, rather than adjuncts, to teach
remedial courses. Texas also intends to experiment with developmental
curricula by combining courses in reading, writing, and English - a
method it hopes will be both innovative and cost-effective.
"There is nothing more important in higher education than
developmental education. These students have high potential, but they
aren't ready," Mr. Paredes says. "Every teacher at every level has a
responsibility for these students."
In Florida, where 55 percent of students who entered public colleges
in 2003-4 needed remedial courses in math, reading, or writing, the
Legislature passed a law in 2008 requiring high schools to work with
colleges to provide remedial instruction to seniors who test below
the state's standards on the SAT, ACT, or the Florida College
Entry-Level Placement Test.
In California, private foundations and the state's Department of
Education have worked with the California Community Colleges and
California State University to improve precollege education.
Some experts cite the America Diploma Project, started in 2005 by
Achieve Inc., a nonprofit education-reform organization, as a leader
in the momentum to advance college re adiness. The project
coordinates governors, state education officials, college leaders,
and business executives from 35 states in aligning high-school
curricula with college demands.
Remedial education could get another boost from the Obama
administration through the proposed College Access and Completion
Fund, which would allocate $500-million annually over five years for
student retention.
The program would encourage grants for college readiness, says Daniel
J. Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis at the
American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "There is
potential that states and institutions will use some of the resources
to facilitate college completion for students who are underprepared
academically," he says.
No Adult Left Behind
As policy makers work to increase college readiness, they must focus
on improving remedial education, not just eliminating the need for
it, says Bruce Vandal, director of the Postsecondary and Workforce
Development Institute at the Education Commission of the States. "It
is often seen as a redundancy, a failure in the system. And they hate
investing money in a failure." Instead, he says, remedial education
should be seen as an economic-development investment.
That's particularly true when it comes to adults returning to college
after years - or decades - out of school, he says. Improving the
high-school curriculum will not necessarily reduce=2 0the need for
remedial education among those students.
Mr. Vandal suggests that states tap into the federal Broadband
Technology Opportunities Program, which awards competitive grants
totaling $4.35-billion from stimulus funds to promote educational and
employment opportunities. At least $200-million will be designated
for upgrades in technology at public computing centers, including
community colleges.
That money could be used, in part, to pay for technology-based
remedial courses. For example, Cleveland State Community College, in
Tennessee, and the National Center for Academic
Transformation <http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i38/38carey.htm>have
seen success with a project that replaces traditional lectures in
basic math, elementary algebra, and intermediate algebra with
self-paced work in computer labs.
The stimulus package has also directed $3.95-billion toward Workforce
Investment Act programs, which the Department of Labor expects
work-force-investment boards to use to help postsecondary
institutions, particularly community colleges, provide retraining for
adults seeking to improve their occupational skills. Mr. Vandal says
some of that money could be used to improve remedial education for
returning students.
Colleges will need to make such improvements, he says, for the
country to reach President Obama's ambitious goal of making the
United States the nation with the highest proportion of college
graduates by 2020.
"We can't get the re from here if we rely on the number of
high-school students alone," Mr. Vandal says. "We have to work with
adult re-entering higher education."
http://chronicle.com
Section: Students
--
Norman A. Stahl, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Literacy Education
Past President, National Reading Conference
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