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Politicians at the GA appear to understand nothing about the state of education today.
For starters, graduation from CCRI is largely irrelevant since most student are not there for a "degree"- they're there to transfer to a 4 year school or to get specific job training or just to take a class. One of the main reasons community colleges were founded were to serve adults in the community who wanted to take a class simply to further their education.
Secondly, students in any state college should get the grades they earn and deserve, especially if they've failed. Insisting on higher "graduation rates" will only lower standards to an unacceptable level- ask anyone who teaches in college!!!
One of the biggest problems around is passing everyone out of HS, whether they're learning or not. The colleges all now have to deal with the failures.
If the state wants want more vocational schools- they should tailor their bills to vocational schools with high standards based on what employers require. Why would employers want someone who barely passed or who was given a degree so the college could retain funding??
Hollytree is quite right that if a college is told, "more graduates", it's not hard to make that happen. Reduce requirements, increase class sizes, make grading easier.
In a way it's the opposite direction of the state policy at the K-12 level , where the bottom line of high stakes testing was that we were willing to see graduation rates go down, potentially _way_ down, in order to show that a RI high school diploma actually meant something for those who got one.
Politicians at the GA appear to understand nothing about the state of education today.
For starters, graduation from CCRI is largely irrelevant since most student are not there for a "degree"- they're there to transfer to a 4 year school or to get specific job training or just to take a class. One of the main reasons community colleges were founded were to serve adults in the community who wanted to take a class simply to further their education.
Secondly, students in any state college should get the grades they earn and deserve, especially if they've failed. Insisting on higher "graduation rates" will only lower standards to an unacceptable level- ask anyone who teaches in college!!!
One of the biggest problems around is passing everyone out of HS, whether they're learning or not. The colleges all now have to deal with the failures.
If the state wants want more vocational schools- they should tailor their bills to vocational schools with high standards based on what employers require. Why would employers want someone who barely passed or who was given a degree so the college could retain funding??
to all of the above.
It's pretty absurd to think that giving colleges less money is going to result in improvement!
Whether or not students find jobs isn't necessarily related to how well the colleges did their job. Don't they have to factor the economy into that? And some things really can't be predicted by anyone - remember two years ago when it was boom times for American oil; who foresaw that they'd be laying off people this year?
In a way it's the opposite direction of the state policy at the K-12 level , where the bottom line of high stakes testing was that we were willing to see graduation rates go down, potentially _way_ down, in order to show that a RI high school diploma actually meant something for those who got one.
And they want to put to end to this testing to "graduate" more. With a few notable exceptions, graduation from a public high school in RI (and in a lot of other states) means little today in terms of student proficiency. From personal experience- and this is just a wild rough estimate- I'd say as many as 25% are illiterate.
Employers complain they need technically educated people who can do math, science and computer networking. The high schools are spewing out "graduates", and since "everyone should go to college" the colleges, even the better ones, now have to offer remedial programs. It's pathetic.
Sorry for the rant- but this proposed bill is so far off the mark- it makes me steam...
I'm torn on the K-12 issue. On the one hand -- and I know someone well who was an inside player in killing high stakes testing, so I've talked about this a lot -- there were a LOT of problems with the specific plan being pushed by Gist and others. Wrong test, wrong standards, not synched at all with other RI curriculum reforms, perverse incentives that the rules created, not enough thought to implementation mechanics (many schools didn't have the computer resources needed to administer it), and very problematic in its specifics for students not only with learning disabilities but physical disabilities (e.g., not able to work a mouse and keyboard). One could do much better -- MA did, for example, but in typical RI fashion we tried to do it on the quick, cheap, and ad hoc.
On the other, I'm totally with you that an RI diploma means very little. The issues I mention above were very real -- the problems with disabled kids alone would almost certainly have led to a successful federal lawsuit to block it eventually -- but what really killed it is when legislators woke up to just what a high % of kids were not going to graduate in their towns. Even putting aside disabled and ESL students, and even outside the most infamous schools, there would have been a lot of kids not graduating, all over the state. And that would be true even with a well designed testing requirement, because that many RI kids are that skill deficient. One the political elite realized this wasn't going to be ones and twos, but like 1/3 of the senior class not graduating in many towns, it was way more than people were willing to take.
On that note, my friend who was involved in this noted that at public meetings, it was surprising how many RI people had no idea that RI schools are so much worse than MA or CT schools, even when you compare towns of similar income. Even more surprising and dismaying was how many people weren't bothered by that when they learned -- "why does it matter what other states do; our town is proud of our school, most of us parents went there too; being part of the neighborhood is what matters, not test scores; most of our kids stay in RI anyway", etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollytree
And they want to put to end to this testing to "graduate" more. With a few notable exceptions, graduation from a public high school in RI (and in a lot of other states) means little today in terms of student proficiency. From personal experience- and this is just a wild rough estimate- I'd say as many as 25% are illiterate.
Employers complain they need technically educated people who can do math, science and computer networking. The high schools are spewing out "graduates", and since "everyone should go to college" the colleges, even the better ones, now have to offer remedial programs. It's pathetic.
Sorry for the rant- but this proposed bill is so far off the mark- it makes me steam...
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to all of the above.
