An "Extreme Makeover" for U.S. Education -- Can We? Should We?

Beverly Eakman:

A front-page August 16 Washington Times' headline screamed: "Scores show students aren't ready for college -- 75% may need remedial classes."

Seventy-five percent is a number that gets people's attention. It isn't the usual trifling stuff the U.S. Department of Education puts out about math or reading scores being up by two percent one year and down by three percent the next. Add to that another finding reported in the same article: "A 2008 report by the education advocacy group Strong American Schools found that 80 percent of college students taking remedial classes had a high school GPA of 3.0 or better."

So are we saying that even when students score well, they don't know much? Apparently. Readers who have been following this series (see links to other articles below) may recall U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics' Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., Ph.D., who famously admitted in a speech, "Our idea of 'advanced' is clearly below international standards."

According to the news article, "75 percent [of college freshmen] likely will spend part of their [first] year brushing up on high-school-level course work."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 20, 2011 2:20 AM
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