OK. Get ready for colleges to make money off students who should not be in college.
Starting in 2018, California State University will give students college credit for courses that include remediation, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Get that? You take a remediation class (a high school class taken in college), and you get college credit for it.
In an executive order, Chancellor Timothy P. White told the system’s 23 campus 23 campus presidents to use high school grades and SAT/ACT scores to determine college readiness rather than placement exams and to let unprepared students take college-credit classes immediately with extra academic support.
Just because you got a “B” in Algebra 2 in high school does not mean you are ready for college math. High school grades are anything but standard and objective. But now CSU is taking them instead of the SAT/ACT (why? Because they can allow more students in that way. Cha-Ching!)
Only 19 percent of Cal State students earn a degree in four years. Cal State hopes to push that to 40 percent by 2025.
The universities have a high incentive not to want students to graduate in 4 years. The longer they can get students to hang around, the more money there is for the institution.
At Cal State Dominguez Hills near Los Angeles, more remedial students are earning credit for college algebra, reports Larry Gordon for EdSource.
For example, a traditional for-credit college algebra class usually meets three times a week for 50 minutes. In contrast, the co-requisite (Aida) Tseggai attended met for an hour and ten minutes three times a week for instructor Cassondra Lochard’s lectures; in addition, students had an extra group hour weekly with a teaching assistant plus one-on-one tutoring. In contrast to regular classroom protocol, the teaching assistant circulated among the desks during lectures, softly giving advice and reviewing students’ calculations and algebra formulations.
When I was in college, you only earned credit for college-level courses, not high-school level courses. Of course, you cannot do that any more.
After failing twice, Raquel Herrera switched her major from biochemistry to “liberal studies,” which doesn’t require algebra. She hopes to pass statistics in the fall. She wants to be a teacher.
Liberal studies doesn’t require high school math. So she may be able to get a degree. And teach our kids. Brilliant.
According to CBS News, an Education Major is the easiest college major is education, right? Education majors have the lowest SAT’s and the highest grade inflation in college.
New students who aren’t prepared for college work will be directed to a free Early Start summer program that offers remedial math and English prep. It’s not new, but now all campuses will offer Early Start remediation for college credit.
The high school grade point average of students needing remedial help in both English and math was 3.2 — a B plus — reports the San Diego Union-Tribune, which is worried Cal State’s campaign to raise the graduation rate will devalue its degrees.
You think?
Via Joanne Jacobs