Who is responsible for making our children better prepared for college?

Thoughts By: B. Brown - BREG

When people start talking about education, it's amazing to me that a lot of them do not mention the importance of the parents in the equation.

They usually mention how bad teachers have gotten and that the schools have to do a better job. I am always for schools improving, but I do not agree with parents blaming teachers, administrators and the school itself for their children not being prepared for college.

The schools, the parents, and ultimately the students have to all do their parts to ensure that the students are prepared to enter college and actually do college-level work.

Accountability is the key! What I have observed is that many students are not putting forth the effort to learn how to study and prepare for their daily lessons in class, their homework and their tests. If this is the case, then it doesn't really matter what the school system puts in place because the students have to do the work and take the test. If the students refuse to prepare for the work and the test, what are the teachers and adminstrators supposed to do?

Parents, let's make sure that we start teaching our children as early in life as possible the importance of life long learning, developing positive study skills and preparation.

Let's hold our children accountable for their actions and emphasize to them that they must get the job done because it is their future that is in jeopardy when they do not do well on tests.

Read the article below and let me know what you think. One Love!


Georgia’s high schools soon will begin a major push to make students better prepared for college.

By Laura Diamond

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (November 1, 2010)

State leaders also are determining what college-readiness skills high school students must learn and how to assess this knowledge. If students haven't mastered the material, the goal is to give them extra lessons before they graduate so they won't need remedial courses in college.
These efforts from the Alliance of Education Agency Heads, which includes the Georgia Department of Education and the University System of Georgia, are designed to boost college graduation rates while decreasing the number of students who take remedial classes.
Less than 60 percent of the students enrolled in Georgia’s colleges will graduate within six years, according to the university system. About one in four freshmen took at least one remedial class last fall.
"We do have rigorous high school diploma requirements now, but kids have been playing catch-up and they are graduating with some issues on some level," said Martha Reichrath, deputy state school superintendent. "We have bounced around a lot of ideas and we're doing a lot of work so our students are ready to enter college without any remediation."
Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, said the K-12 community must take responsibility for some of the struggles students face in college. More than half of the high school graduates who receive the merit-based HOPE scholarship lose it after freshman year because they can't maintain high grades, said Ehrhart, who heads the General Assembly committee that oversees college budgets.
"College-level work is significantly harder than high school, but they're graduating students who are not prepared," he said.
Educators across the country are working on this issue.

Florida allows high schools to test students using the state's college-placement exams to determine where students are deficient academically. North Carolina is considering using ACT scores to determine if high school juniors are on track for college-level work, and if they're not the schools will develop programs to get them ready. Starting with next fall's high school freshman class, Texas will roll out end-of-course tests using college-readiness learning goals. Students who fail the exams will get extra help.
Georgia is developing an index of skills students should have to make sure they are ready for the workplace or college after graduation, Reichrath said.
The education alliance discussed giving students a test while in high school to measure their college-readiness skills. If they passed, they wouldn't need to take remedial classes in college. If they failed, they would spend part of their senior year working on the lessons, said Alan Jackson, interim vice president for academic affairs at Georgia Perimeter College, who is serving on one of the alliance's committees.
Georgia is also among 38 states that adopted the Common Core State Standards -- expectations for what students should learn and be able to do in every grade level and subject. The standards, which Georgia schools will begin using in fall 2012, are designed to make sure students graduate college-ready.
The state moved toward college-readiness standards when it adopted the Georgia Performance Standards, which have been phased in over the past six years. The university system helped develop those standards.
Because of those standards, the state's colleges should notice a better prepared freshman class in the next couple of years, said Virginia Michelich, associate vice chancellor for student achievement for Georgia's university system.
"This is not all the high schools’ fault and it is not all the colleges’ fault and it is not all the students' fault," Michelich said. "But the only way we will fix it is if we all work together."