Remedial Education

With a larger portion of high school graduates attending college than ever before, it probably doesnt come as a surprise that not all of those students are qualified for completing a college-level course load. An increasing number of students accepted to university are scoring poorly on placement exams, which means that they get placed in remedial education classesthat is, basic classes that help get them up to speed. There is a lot of controversy surrounding these classes, however. On this page, we are going to explore the issues that have sprung up, and provide a number of very helpful and interesting resources on the subject.

What is it?
The U.S. Has a High College Remedial Education Ratehigher than ever beforeprobably at least partially because the general student enrollment is so high. Just because a student has graduated from high school doesnt mean they are qualified for college work, or that they can handle it, and therein lies the problem. Many more prestigious colleges accept students based on their GPA or SAT scores, but then force them to take remedial classes in order to improve their chances at graduating from college. They do this because if students arent graduating from the college, but instead choosing to drop out, it reflects poorly on the college and they can lose funding. The blame for the sudden rise in remedial education has been directed many different places. Colleges blame high schools, arguing that students ought to be taught such basic skills before theyre allowed to even graduate. High schools, on the other hand, argue that colleges shouldnt accept students who dont have the prerequisite skills, and that they ought to be clearer about what students need to know going into the education process. There is a fundamental communication breakdown here, with high schools focusing on general education and colleges demanding specific knowledge. Community colleges are stuck somewhere in the middle, forced to make up the slack where both high schools and four-year colleges refuse to budge on the issue. Most students agree with the four-year colleges and Grade High School Down, and College Up, but unfortunately the problem persists and generally falls to community colleges to set straight. For more general information about remedial education, take a look at these resources:

A glossary of developmental education and learning assistance terms Ending college remediation: Consequences for access and opportunity

Getting Past Go handbook Remedial and Developmental Education Policy are at a Crossroads The Role and Effect of Remedial Education in Two-Year Colleges

The Numbers
As mentioned before, the number of college students required to take remedial classes is higher than ever before. According to the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges, in 2008, 54% of community college students in Washington State had to take them, with 48% enrolled in pre-college math. About half of all high school graduates take at least one remedial class within three years of graduation, with 1/3 of those taking them immediately. That means that many students who go directly to community college and dont have time to forget all they learned in high school still have to take refresher courses. The situation is occurring all across the united states. In Alabama in 2010, according to the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, half of high school graduates in some counties had to take both remedial math and English, while all counties had at least 10% of their students in need of additional school help before they were deemed qualified for college. The same trends have emerged in Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan and so onjust about everywhere else in the USA, as demonstrated in the State Reports on the Cost of Remedial Education. This additional education costs states money, because they are essentially paying to educate students on basic skills twice, particularly since most community colleges are funded at least in part by the state they exist in.

Stigma
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of remedial education, though, is not the material itself but the associations that go along with it. Many students are quite alarmed when they are labeled un-qualified for college, and think it means that they are stupid. Thus, a stigma has grown up around remedial education and those who need it, to the point where students would actually rather drop out or fail out of higher-level classes than take the remedial ones designed to help them. In an effort to Destigmatize Remedial Education, colleges have taken a number of steps. First, theyve changed the name from remedial education to developmental education, which theoretically has more of a partners-in-learning ring to it and doesnt imply that the student is the one with the deficit. Secondly, colleges have been trying to tailor remedial education programs to the needs of specific students rather than covering a broad range of topics the way high schools do.

Arguments Against
There are a lot of compelling arguments on both sides of the debate when it comes to remedial education: those in favor, and those against. The arguments against it are perhaps the more vocal of the two, so we are going to start here.

The first point often maid against remedial education is the cost of having such programs. As mentioned before, many college officials feel that it is the responsibility of the high schools to make sure that students are ready for college, and spending money to educate them in college is paying for the same education twice. In Texas, educating students who are not ready for college costs $200 million a yearmoney that could surely be better spent elsewhere, considering the current budget crisis in higher education. Instead, in 2006 that money went toward 28% of community college students and 24% of four-year-college students who had to take remedial classes. The Cost of Remedial Education is only making it harder for students to get a college education, because of the financial strain it puts on the states, the schools and the students. The second, and perhaps most persuasive, argument against remedial education is that it doesnt really help the students get that college education theyre after. In fact, remedial education is a logjam on the path to a degree. Partially because of the aforementioned stigma and partially because of the sheer difficulty of passing these classes or number that must be taken, some students give up on college altogether after enrolling in remedial classes. While its true that remedial programs increase the number of students sticking around for the first year or so, it doesnt improve graduation rates, as explained in The Impact of Postsecondary Remediation Using a Regression Discontinuity Approach (this is a highly academic article, so it may be a little hard to understand at first). In some studies, enrollment in remedial courses is actually inversely related to graduation ratesthe lower in the program a student starts, the less likely he or she is to finish out college. Is the cost of remedial education worth the souls lost to developmental education? Finally, theres some evidence that the students placed in remedial classes dont even need them in the first place. Because community colleges use standardized tests to determine where to place students, more often than not students end up in lower classes because they did poorly on one testnot because they actually lack the necessary skills. Even those who do need the courses often end up in the wrong ones, because the tests arent diagnosticthey dont identify the students specific need, and they dont differentiate between the under-educated and the learning disabled. The fact is, remedial education is not always necessary. Students who waive or skip out of them, even after getting identified as under-educated, dont do any worse than their remedial student peers. As long as this assessment system is in place, remedial education will just be spinning its wheels.

Arguments For
But the news isnt all bad for remedial education. In fact, in some areas remedial education is nothing short of miraculous. For example, there is quite a bit of evidence that remedial education helps black men improve their chances in college, partially through the material taught, but mostly through the academically-focused environment and peer group it provides. In fact, schools that allowed students to stick in groups while going through the program saw better graduation rates, because the students were holding one another accountable. Additionally, all the panic about how much money remedial education costs may be unfounded. In fact, doing remedial education right can mean more money, not less. In general, remedial programs pay for themselves through increased student retention and enrollment rates. For

example, De Anza Colleges intensive mathematics program costs $81,990 per year, but students in the program complete 36% more college hours than those who dont go into a remedial program, netting the college $213,357 in tuition. Thus, the program actually earns the college a profit that can be spent elsewhere. When you take a step back from the issue, its easy to see how many myths surround remedial education, which we have to address before we can solve the real problem. First of all, the 4-year colleges claim that remedial education is the responsibility of K-12 schools misses the point. Its not that high schools arent educating their students, but rather that theyre not giving them the exact skills colleges want. There is no universal standard for college-level skills, so high school education just has to take a shot in the dark and hope that students are prepared. Secondly, as mentioned in the arguments against, colleges arent the best at determining who needs remedial education and who doesnt. Because of this poor diagnostic process, students end up in the wrong classes, which dont address their actual needswhich results in the high dropout rates that are so often used to lampoon remedial programs. Finally, the argument that some students just arent cut out for college, and therefore colleges shouldnt waste time trying to prepare them, is essentially condemning them to economic struggles and a life of hardship. With college degrees on the rise, even vocational trades now often require a bachelors, and anyone lacking in the skills remedial courses teach couldnt hope to join the middle class. Thus, saying that some student arent cut out and washing hands of the whole ordeal is not only lazy, but from one perspective actually bordering on cruel.

Solutions
But the rising number of students who require remedial education is certainly evidence that there is a problem. In Alaska in 2010, over half of freshmen needed remedial education, and thats in the state system in generalnot just the community colleges. Of course, those states are inflated by the number of returning students whove been out of school long enough to have lost the necessary skills, but nevertheless numbers like this cant be ignored. Finding a solution falls to community colleges, who must Rethink Remedial Education if the problem is going to be fixed. Instead of focusing in on specific skills, teachers are turning to a more holistic education program, which allows students to see the big picture even as theyre working on individual projects. By approaching education this way, teachers are hoping to avoid the issue thats plagued remedial programsstudents who pass all of their assignments, and yet fail the course. This points to a problem not in student ability, but in sustainability: the students can do the work, but they lose focus and give up toward the end of the course load when they feel they arent learning or improving. To solve this problem, community colleges are getting creative with remedial education. In trying to find a solution, colleges have created free adult education programs to separate returning students from high school grads; instated dual-learning programs with high schools to make sure students are learning the right material; and turning to foundations and even legislation to gain support for improving remedial education. These efforts have been met with some success. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $110 million to transform remedial

education, and funding is coming in from several other sources as well, which indicates that the future looks hopeful for remedial education. An effort is being made to improve it, and thus help thousands of students get to where they want to go. Lots of resources exit on the subject of solving remediation issues. Here are just a couple:

Remediation in Higher Education: A Hopeful Solution Rethinking Developmental Education in Community College

Teacher Information
If remedial education is interesting to you, perhaps you should consider becoming a remedial education teacher. While most remedial education teachers only work part-time and dont get benefits, its actually a quite stable market, especially if you speak more than one language there are always more students in need of brushing up, and many of them need to learn English as a second language. Take a loot at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook for remedial education teachers, or browse through a few articles on the subject from the University of Wisconsin-Madisons library, which has a number of Special and Remedial Education Academic Articles. Because the world of remedial education is currently in flux, theres a lot of room for great teachers to have an impact on the way the system works and improve the lives of remedial students. The problem even reaches as far as Japan, so you might want to take a look at articles like The Key to Effective English Remedial Education: Intimation Derived From Multiple Regression, which addresses remediation education in Japan.

About
With most of the media attention favoring the traditional four year college education, the issues regarding community colleges is often pushed to the side of discussion. However many of the same talking points about higher education resonate well within the two year colleges. In fact community college administrators are dealing with funding problems, low student performance and similar concerns that you see normally associated with four year programs. Online Associates Degree serves to provide all the insight, data and debates surrounding the these smaller colleges. We act as a resource for administrators, professors and both prospective and current student

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