For most students, high school is not the end of education but a stepping stone to college. Ideally, then, high school would prepare everyone for the academic challenge of the college they attend. This is the very goal of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which has been the subject of political controversy for years. Yet, according to a study by The Hechinger Report, over half a million students were enrolled in at least one remedial class in the last year alone. The study, titled “Most Colleges Enroll Many Students Who Aren’t Prepared for Higher Education,” found the majority of the colleges looked at accept students who need some form of remediation.
There are a number of factors at play here, but none of them completely excuse the failures of the U.S. primary and secondary education systems. For one, a number of first-time students are those not coming directly from high school, and thus it makes sense they may need refreshing. Still, this does not account for all of the students. The rates of remediation are higher at community colleges, so it may be tempting to write this off as a problem for lower-ranking colleges with open-door admission policies, but even in the various California State universities, “more than 40 percent of incoming freshman were deemed not ready for college-level work in at least one subject.” All in all, it points to a fundamental failure in a system that passes on its shortcomings to colleges and universities, which then have to catch up for students that were let down by their schools.
With Betsy DeVos, who is not a friend to the public school system, on track to become Secretary of Education, it is unlikely this situation will be repaired in the near future. Because of this, courses that promote professional writing and grammar are of utmost importance. Fortunately, the Center for Applied Liberal Arts has several offerings, including: