Community Colleges and Remedial needs

[skysidhe]

holey!

[Pico and ME]

I took remedial algebra/trig at Purdue my first semester at Purdue. My verbals were much higher than my maths.

[ZenGum]

An Indonesian student I am working with told me that half of their practising teachers fail the teacher qualification test - and are still practising, because they don't have any others.

Very different situation, though.

[DanaC]

I hadn't thought about the differences in college/uni here and over there.

When your kids go and do an undergraduate degree, they are expected to undertake a much broader education than over here.

I am appalling at maths. I have a barely respectable C grade at O-level (end of high school aged 16/17) but that wasn't a problem when I enrolled on my degree course: as long as I was literate and had good grades in relevant subjects (History and English) I could be innumerate and that wouldn't be a problem in a History degree.

We had some exchange students over from the US doing a year of their degree over here. When they talked about their studies in the US they said they were expected to do a much broader degree, with courses from across academic disciplines. At degree level, we are expected to specialise in our chosen subject right from the start: you can take 'elective modules' from other subjects, but they are a very small part of the course.

Had there been any requirement to show competence across other subjects (maths, languages, sciences, philosophy, statistics etc) I'd have had go and get remedial courses.

[Griff]

Lil' Pete is looking at degree programs now. There are a lot of course of study options depending on the profession you're looking at. She is into visual arts, design, architecture that sort of thing. She could go the straight professional route with little or no liberal arts study or flip it and pursue liberal arts first then focus on professional development. American education is very flexible at higher levels, which can mitigate the inflexible primary and secondary education, but only for the college bound.

NCLB is at it worst mandating that kids who should be in a construction program somewhere are repeatedly tested for things which they cannot do. The Special Ed kids I serve are particularly susceptible to getting beaten down by all the government testing. I do assessments on all my kids for placement purposes and to spot weaknesses to mitigate. A lot of them dislike it but it serves the purpose of guiding instruction. The government testing does not serve them at all.

[DanaC]

It's all very well saying it's the parents' responsibility...but what about when parents fail in that responsibility? Whose job is it to step into the gap?

[Griff]

It becomes the teachers' to the detriment of the other students. In an ideal world education would have a flexible option for the kid whose parents failed but schools that are failing actually get less funding because it feels good to certain Glenn Beck demographics. NCLB takes public education back to its totalitarian roots, but the need for cannon fodder isn't what it was so it doesn't even suit its original purpose.

[DanaC]

True dat, about the reading.

Reading as a skill is entirely unrelated to intelligence. I have taught highly intelligent adults who found the reading skill almost impossible to master. By the same token it is a proven fact that someone with profoundly low IQ levels (including children born with severe downs syndrome) may well be able to acquire the reading skill: they may not be able to interpret or understand what it is they're reading, but the mechanical act of associating the visual symbols with the appropriate sounds, and the technical understanding of how those sounds go together are things anybody might be able to learn. And anybody might find difficult.

[Sundae]

Disagree.
Just don't shout me down because of my lack of children; that was a choice.

Originally Posted by monster
Unfotunately, the most cost-effective way to ensure that no child is left behind is to make sure that none get too far ahead.

No. You've been reading too much Kurt Vonnegut. Or been in America too long. Okay I hold my hands up and say I don't know that system, but it's over-used as a clarion call by the right - who don't use the state system anyway.

Pete - crack babies are not part of this discussion. In the same way that children incapacitated by cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome and autism aren't. It's an interesting point, but not relevant.

Personally I am for mandatory birth control for underage girls. Shriek! Shriek! This is against religion and the law of free will! [not here, in the wider world]
Well if intercourse has an age limit, surely it is legal. It might not keep children in school, but such is human nature. Many girls were married before 16 in teh olden days.

I had a hundred things to say, but have been watching a documentary at the same time.
The way some people preach Jesus' message of peace, love and understanding makes me pretty sick. Too sick to carry on with this (no Dwellar was involved)

Abort all your children while they are still tadpoles. You will burn for all eternity, but the cells you loved before you even knew they existed will only be in Limbo. Serves you right for taking the Pill (technically an abortion as it rejects fertilised eggs) which is an abomination.

Then again having 13 children who go home to God via starvation and disease is much more worthy. God will then love you for the protracted suffering of each drawn, desperate face you send him. His will is done.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

No. You've been reading too much Kurt Vonnegut. Or been in America too long. Okay I hold my hands up and say I don't know that system, but it's over-used as a clarion call by the right - who don't use the state system anyway.

OR, I'm being overly cynical in a very Brit way.

That said, No Child Left Behind is the name of an act here which -imo- has very little to do with ensuring no child is left behind and a whole lot to do with seeing education as an exercise in passing age-specific standardised tests.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Pete - crack babies are not part of this discussion. In the same way that children incapacitated by cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome and autism aren't. It's an interesting point, but not relevant.

Not over here--in America the crack babies have to go through the same standardized testing rigamarole that the other kids do. That's the kind of situation that Griff was referring to with his own students. You can work to get certain concessions as part of their special ed status, but along with that comes the right to special education services themselves, which there is often not money to provide, so the concessions don't get made, unless the parents are pushing for it (and in the case of crack baby parents, they're not likely to push for anything other than a longer school day.) The crack babies are precisely the ones that "cannot be left behind," and yet there's no money to give them the separate classrooms with appropriate (lower) levels of skills expectations that they need.

[skysidhe]

The educational system is passing 65% of students who cannot pass a compass exam.
Yes it is the parents responsibility, but to say so, as if that is an excuse, in light of the huge percentage, is so laissez-faire. It's like saying the dog ate my homework.


ahwell

I was being facetious about the birth control. btw

It solves the problem as about as much as saying it's the parents fault.