A recent study draws the conclusion that community college students coming out of US high schools don’t have the English skills necessary to complete college-level work and that they have a surface-level understanding of mathematics needed to pursue a four-year degree but don’t know much about the applied math needed in their chosen careers.
The study comes from the National Center on Education and the Economy and is entitled “What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready: The English and Mathematics Required by First Year Community College Students.” The center was founded in 1988 in Rochester, N.Y., “with the goal of restructuring American education and making the country’s work force more competitive with foreign workers.”
The center’s two-year study examined the skills and knowledge in mathematics and English literacy that high school graduates need to succeed in the first year of their community college programs.
“We were surprised how little math is used in first-year community college courses, and what is used is mostly middle school math,” said Phil Daro, co-chair of the study’s Mathematics Panel and co-director in the development of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. “Our system makes no sense for these students: even though so many students have a shaky understanding of the middle school mathematics they really need, high school courses spend most of these students’ time on topics not needed for their college programs.”
At least one Illinois district has noticed the same trend and has created a new senior math course to get community college-bound seniors at its two high schools closer to their goal of being prepared for course programs offered through community colleges. Rachel Kinder, who serves as assistant superintendent for middle and high school in Romeoville-based Valley View School District 365U, described the new course, which will begin in the 2013-14 school year:
The first semester of the course provides a thorough study of algebraic topics and will prepare students for college placement tests and/or trade school exams. Students will develop skills in simplifying and evaluating polynomial and rational expressions, as well as solve linear equations and inequalities, quadratic equations and systems of linear equations. Emphasis will be placed on applying these skills in solving real-world problems. The second semester of the course focuses on trigonometric functions and important concepts of statistics and probability applied to real-world examples.
