Kids Not Prepared for College

Are high school kids prepared for college?

Jon Erickson, vice president of educational services for ACT, which administers the annual college entrance exam, says the numbers tell the story. “When we looked at our students’ overall readiness for college, we found that only 22 percent of the graduating class of 2004 were ready in English, math and science.” And that means 78 percent of seniors are not ready for college, according to an ACT study.

Erickson explains, “If students aren’t ready for college, especially as measured by the college readiness benchmarks, their odds of either not getting into college, of going into remediation or not doing well once in college or of not graduating are greatly increased.“

Twins Lauren and Stefanie Milligan are college freshman at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. Both of them say their high school wasn’t all that demanding. Lauren says: “I saw teachers who lacked willingness to really be there. Teachers who I thought didn’t really seem to care about preparing their students.” And she notes, “I didn’t see a lot of incentives in my school for students to be academically motivated. We didn’t really get any kind of rewards or anything like that for being motivated.”

Stefanie had a similar experience. “Most of my friends,” she says, “were in what was called on-level classes. And the on-level classes were not intense. (They) did not require much effort at all … didn’t require attendance, even.”

According to ACT, the way to get ready for college is for high school kids to take the toughest courses they can. “We found that when students take those upper-level courses beyond Algebra Two … the upper science courses like physics,” says Erickson, “it greatly increased their chances of being ready for college, regardless of how they do in high school.”

And he says parents can play a huge role in motivating their kids. “We find that if they help their students choose their four-year course plan very early in eighth-grade, that’s a great benefit to students.”

Stefanie and Lauren say they were encouraged to take those higher-level courses, and it’s paying off. Both are doing well in their first semester in college as they head into final exams.

“I’ve always been very into my education and wanting to push for success,” says Lauren, “and my parents always placed a big emphasis on my schoolwork.” Stefanie says, “I really feel that I was prepared, that I know what my teachers expect of me.”

Even with a diploma in hand, many high school graduates do not have all of the skills to succeed in college-level coursework or workforce training. Among the findings in a new report from ACT: Only 22 percent of the 1.2 million high school graduates who took the ACT Assessment in 2004 achieved scores that would deem them ready for college in all three basic academic areas — English, math and science.

Among the class of 2004, only 26 percent of ACT-tested high school graduates had scores indicating that they are ready to earn a “C” or higher in their first college biology course, and only 40 percent had scores indicating that they are ready to earn a “C” or higher in their first college algebra course. In addition, results from ACT’s assessments for eighth- and 10 th-graders have suggested that students who graduate from high school in 2006 and 2008 will be no better prepared for college than this year’s graduates.

• The ACT Assessment is published and administered by Iowa City-based ACT, formerly American College Testing. Similar to the SAT, the test measures college aptitude.
• “The fact is, American high school students are not ready for college, and they’re not ready for work,” said Cynthia B. Schmeiser, ACT’s vice president for development.
• Seventy-eight percent of students who took the ACT were not prepared for college-level biology, algebra or English-composition classes.
• Eighth-, ninth-, and 10 th-graders fared just as poorly on ACT-sponsored tests of their college readiness as 2004 graduates.
• Of these younger students only 12 percent were prepared for postsecondary lessons in biology, 34 percent for algebra and 63 percent for English composition.
• Curriculum changes may not bring quick results.

ACT’s report urges schools to strengthen the high school core curriculum to help improve students’ readiness for college and the workforce. Students in K-8 who are not learning the foundational skills for rigorous high school coursework should be identified earlier and provided with supportive interventions, thus preparing them for higher-level math and science courses such as trigonometry, pre-calculus, chemistry and physics.

To increase the number of students ready for college and work, ACT is launching “Ready to Succeed,” a national demonstration project that will focus on course quality and rigor. Selected school districts will work with a team of specialists to evaluate the rigor of their courses, to provide the resources and training necessary to improve them, and to measure improvements in student achievement.

• Recent research indicates that the skills required for workforce training beyond high school are the same as those expected of a first-year college student.
• Students at all levels of achievement can benefit from taking rigorous courses.
• Too few high school students enroll in challenging classes, and the quality of those courses, which may look rigorous on paper, varies greatly by school.
• The traditional core high school curriculum of four years of English and three years of mathematics and science may not be sufficient for students to be prepared for college. Students who took more than that minimum were far more likely to succeed in college, the study found.

ACT, Inc.
Education Week
Simple Things You Can Do To Help All Children Read Well