Today’s article asks the question, "Are GHS students are actually prepared for college?" It really didn’t answer it. So I will give it a try.
Part of the same report (see page 12) contains information about the number of Greenwich High School graduates (class of 2010) who attended one of the Connecticut State Universities (Central, Eastern, Southern, or Western), or who attended one of the Connecticut Community College, and had to take a remedial or developmental math or English course.
The report says there were 672 graduates. Of these, 15 went to Connecticut State Universities (does not include UCONN, because UCONN technically does not have remedial courses), and 56 went to Connecticut Community Colleges.
So how did they do? Of the 15 university attendees, nine had to take developmental or remedial math. Of the 56 community college attendees, 29 had to take developmental or remedial math, and six were unaccounted for (did not take or complete the diagnostic test, or did take the test, but the results were not captured). So nine out of 15, and 29 out of 50. Looks like just short of 60% to me (I didn’t even need to use a calculator). For comparison, 60.9% of the all Community College goers (less unaccounted test takers) and 55.3% of all State University goers had to take remedial or developmental math. So Greenwich High School is about average, based on this ten percent of the class. Ouch!
So can we figure how the rest of the class did?
- Roughly 10% of the graduates didn’t enroll in college right after graduation, and I have to believe a large percentage of them never will, and probably would struggle if they did. So, figure 90% of the 10% who opted not to go to college probably could not do college level math without remediation (my guess).
- 60% of the group discussed above (another 10%) needed remediation, but I would venture that this group was closer to the bottom of the class.
- Based on my reading, about 30-40% of college enrollees need some sort of remedial math, across the range of quality for colleges and universities. If we figure that half the class went to the “average” college, let’s assume 30% of them were not prepared.
- For GHS class of 2011, about 30% went to a “Most Competitive College,” so this is probably true of the class of 2010. Let’s say that only 10% of this group needed remedial math.
Doing the math yields about 33% of the graduates who would need some remediation before doing college level math, a bit lower than my previous guess of 40% (but this calculation is conservative).
When the class of 2010 took the CAPT in 2008, they achieved the following results: 34.4% at Advanced level, 68.0% at Goal level, and 89.9% at Proficient level. Likewise, when they took the CMT Math test as eighth graders, they achieved: 46.7% at Advanced level, 81.4% at Goal level, and 92.3% at Proficient level. Of course the two tests are not directly comparable, but the trend is interesting, no?
To really extend the math, compare the CAPT Goal percentage (68.0%) to my estimate of how many would or did need remedial math (33%). HHHMMMMM.
DISCLAIMER: I made a lot of estimates and guesses to arrive at the figure above, so my 33% estimate should be viewed more as a range (25-40%) rather than an absolute.
But the range doesn’t include zero, and it certainly doesn’t include 10.1% (non-Proficient on the CAPT).
Conclusion: Proficient really isn’t proficient, if Proficient means you are ready for college math.
Could we really be failing one-third of our graduates? But wait, you say. You included the 10% of the class who didn’t want to go to college. That skews the numbers. Yes I did. Why? Because they need math for their job, at the same level as a starting college freshman.
Goal level may be more appropriate as a measure of potential college readiness. Who might agree with that? Arne Duncan, US secretary of education, who said, in reference to No Child Left Behind, “It created an artificial goal of proficiency that encouraged states to set low standards to make it easier for students to meet the goal.” But the federal Department of Education accepted the CT Proficient standard for adequate NCLB achievement. Go figure.
Note: CT State Universities and Community Colleges use Accuplacer as the diagnostic exam. You can take a practice exam on-line. The math questions are at the end (I got them all right). Many universities use ACT or SAT Math scores to determine if a new student needs to take remedial math. From a quick survey of colleges, many use cutoffs between 500 and 550 (one required a 600 SAT to get into engineering without taking an extra course, and another required a 610 SAT to take calculus instead of college algebra). The average (not median) SAT Math score for the class of 2010 was 577, so that would put a good chunk of the class at or below 550. Not conclusive, but lends more credence to the 33% figure above.
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