This relates to Texas Community Colleges, but the situation is very similar to many campuses throughout the US and especially here in Calif. We have students graduating from high school that can barely read or do simple math. This is happening everywhere.
Help for community college students
Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes looks at a bottom line for community colleges that shows they are graduating just 30 percent of their students after six years. Keep in mind that community colleges specialize in two-year degree programs, and graduation figures for 2010 include full-time and part-time students. That means
that at least two of every three students who enroll drop out of community colleges before completing degree or certification programs.
Paredes says that is a colossal waste of public dollars[/B]. He is right. And he is offering a solution that might just stop the revolving door.
He told us this week that community colleges are losing large numbers of students every year because so many —
about 48 percent of students who enroll in Texas community colleges — come to those institutions without the reading, writing and mathematics skills needed to succeed in college.
They might be adults who have been out of school awhile and are returning to improve their job and academic skills; high school dropouts who earned GEDs; or high school graduates who are just not academically ready for college. In any case, the traditional developmental education programs that aim to bridge that academic gap are not working well enough to raise students' skills to a level at which they can be successful in college courses.
So many of those students tend to linger in developmental education (these are remedial classes, just to get some students up to even a middle school level)courses and eventually drop out.
Armed with statistics that illustrate the problem, Paredes is pushing for an initiative that would create different pathways for those students: One path would steer students to accelerated developmental education programs (to teach or reinforce reading, writing and mathematics skills) that lead to college-track or degree programs. Another path would direct students to certificate programs that also teach basic academic skills, but lead directly to the workforce. In other words, they would not pursue college degrees.
Last year, five community college districts received $5 million in grants from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to start up pilot programs to test those concepts. Officials at the Alamo College district in San Antonio say initial results are promising.
"Our preliminary numbers show we are doing so much better progressing students through the system," said Lisa Alcorta, director of Academic Student Success at Alamo Community College.
She said a [B]majority of students enrolling in Alamo's five campuses require developmental education instruction. But instead of steering them all to a one-size-fits-all program, students are placed according to their skills so those who come in reading and writing on a sixth-grade level are not placed in the same courses as those who come in at 10th- or 11th-grade levels. The latter group might need just a semester of developmental education instruction to progress on to regular college courses while those at a sixth-grade level typically need several semesters of college preparatory courses.
It is an improvement that is helping to keep students moving swiftly through the system so that fewer drop out, she said. A separate pathway allows students to skip the college track (along with developmental education) and go directly into a certificate program. Under that scenario, students receive basic instruction in reading, writing and mathematics along with job training skills.
When a student completes that certification track, which takes six months to a year, he or she can go directly to jobs such as a pharmacy technician, nurse's aide, dental or medical assistant, or a solar panel installer. That, too, is an improvement because some people are seeking decent-paying jobs when they enter community college and not necessarily a degree.
At this point, the Alamo, Tarrant, El Paso, San Jacinto and Lone Star College Montgomery community college districts are the only ones with such pilots, Paredes said. He hopes to take it statewide with data from the pilots, which are funded for two years. Unfortunately, his initiative is receiving lukewarm support from higher education officials, he said.
Looking at the data that show millions of dollars in public money is wasted each year on a revolving door, that should not be the case. Texas can and should get a better return on its investment and these kinds of initiatives can lead the way.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/hel...s-1696028.html