Community Colleges and Remedial needs

[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.