Thursday, December 29, 2011

New effort to make kids college-ready

This from The Columbus Dispatch

Teachers in elementary, middle and high school often team up to help students prepare for the next level.

In a new twist, some high-school teachers in Columbus City Schools will be paired with local college professors to ensure that more students are college-ready.

“Over the long term, we hope to reduce the number of our graduates who start college but don’t finish because they weren’t prepared,” Superintendent Gene Harris said.

Starting in January, 10 teachers from East, Eastmoor and North high schools will begin working with professors from Columbus State Community College, DeVry University and Ohio State University.

Together, they will plan and co-teach about 200 sophomores and juniors in English and math, two subjects that give many students trouble. The focus, at least initially, will be on standard English and math classes in those grades.

Students would not receive college credit, but they would be spared the cost and time of remedial classes after high school.

By partnering, the college professors will get a better idea of what is being taught in the high schools. The teachers will gain a better understanding of what is expected of college freshmen...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

With all due respect to university folks, we also need to look at market need in terms of stability. I see a lot of college educated folks looking for work associated with their education/degrees and at the same time note a consistent need for high skill trades folks (not nessesarily high tech oriented)who we need in order to serve us in our daily needs. HVAC, plumbing, electrician, automotive repair etc. are increasingly becoming both more needed and more financially lucrative to folks in our current work force. They can't be electronically out sourced to India or China, and they serve a very important role to the communities for whom they serve.

Its unrealistic to think we are going to raise our sub 20% college graduate population to 80% in Kentucky just because of a new test, program or emphasis in communication of the message. We are currently sending a lot of folks to college but the colleges aren't keeping. Instead of engaging in a chicken - egg argument about who isn't doing their job for the student at the K-12 or college level, maybe we need to do a better job of getting these students to go down the track they are best suited for instead of trying in to push round pegs into square holes by whitling the ends or greasing the one hole we want more to conform.