Community Colleges and Remedial needs

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

Isn't it the responsibility of the high schools to get kids ready for college?

Isn't it the responsibility of the jr. high schools to get kids ready for high school?

Isn't it the responsibility of the elementary schools to get kids ready for jr. high school?

Isn't it the responsibility of the parents to get kids ready for life, of which school is a subset?

[Shawnee123]

:applause:

[skysidhe]

Don't stop your circular list there foot. Let's add the responsibility of birth control, since 65% of the nations parents don't have the deep insight you do.

[footfootfoot]

Trust me Sky, a walk through the ocean of my insights wouldn't get your feet wet. But, I am homeschooling...

[skysidhe]

Begging the question, irony, slight of hand.( or is that foot ) I know. You are all that and so much more. Just a fun guy. It's all good.

[monster]

I'm with footie. It is your responsibility as a parent to make sure your offspring is ready for life. Schools are an excellent tool, but they are no more than that. Parents need to make responsible schooling choices and monitor their children's development as learning, functioning human beans. You don't expect a car to get you from A to B without you putting anything in to the operation. Why would you expect a school to do that for your kid?

I do not homeschool (for everyone's sanity) but I picked a school that emphasised learning skills and human bean development rather than learning facts by rote. And I got involved and made sure it was performing the way I wanted, and where I saw gaps, I picked up the slack. That's my responsibility. It's every parent's responsibility. But sadly too many see school as this great gadget that's there to make their lives easier and take away the responsibility. Like the urban legend about the guy who set his winnebago to cruise and then went in the back to sleep/make coffee and was surprised when it crashed and he sued the manufacturers. no-one expects the cars to get the passengers from a to b without careful guidance and lots of input. Some cars are stick shift and require more input, some cars cost a lot of money and do almost everything for you. But none work without a driver.

Not everyone has the same school choices, but there are always choices. School is not a childminder. You have a kid, the local school is crap, there are no other schools, you need to go to work, you find a way to work and homeschool or you move. If you can't do that, you need to hand the child over to someone who can.

[skysidhe]

Birth control would be easier, but since their kids can't read, probably the parents can't either, so scratch that idea...and we'll just go the adoption route. Like you said. They'll only need to be able to make a huge X when social services come to take the kids away.

[Cloud]

there is no perfect educational system. Remedial courses in community college respond to a wide variety of needs. Maybe your hormones went beserko as a teenager and you couldn't concentrate on algebra. Maybe there were domestic difficulties in your homelife (abusive parents, alcoholism, yadda) that you can surmount as an adult ready to learn. Maybe you are gonzo with language skills, but never paid attention in math 'cause you sucked at it, and now need to pass a course for breadth requirements. These days, community colleges really respond to their communities by offering a wide range of vocational and lifestyle courses, in addition to the type of "junior college" prep courses traditionally offered. Perfectly acceptable and appropriate imo, for them to offer remedial courses.

[skysidhe]

Perfectly acceptable and appropriate imo, for them to offer remedial courses.

Nicely said cloud, and they are. I just wonder if it will be a continuing and expanding trend?

[Cloud]

maybe, but . . . colleges have always offered a variety of remedial classes for those who need them. Hell, I went to Berkeley 35 years ago, and it offered remedial classes then.

I do think high school and elementary school students should actually learn what they're supposed to. There was an article in our local paper saying that something like 60% of our police officers failed the written entrance exam the first time. Pretty scary.

[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.