{"id":15283,"date":"2012-12-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=15283"},"modified":"2014-03-14T15:20:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T19:20:04","slug":"13th-grade-whats-causing-the-rising-need-for-remedial-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/12\/04\/13th-grade-whats-causing-the-rising-need-for-remedial-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"13th Grade: What’s Causing The Rising Need For Remedial Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sarah Gonzalez \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

English teacher Vallet Tucker teaches 10th grade honors students. She says she's not surprised that more than half the students who took Florida's college placement exam in the 2010-2011 school year failed at least one subject.<\/p><\/div>\n

Shakira Lockett was a pretty good student in elementary, middle and high school. The Miami-Dade County native says she typically earned As and Bs in English classes.<\/p>\n

Math was always something of a struggle for Lockett. Still, she got through her high school exit exam with a passing grade and went on to graduate from Coral Gables Senior High School in 2008.<\/p>\n

She went straight to Miami Dade College. Then, something unexpected happened: She flunked the college placement exams in all three subjects \u2013 reading, writing and math.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t mean she couldn\u2019t attend the school; all state and community colleges in Florida have an open-door policy, which means everyone is accepted. But it did mean she had to take remedial courses before she could start college-level work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they told me I had to start a Reading 2 and Reading 3 class, I was like, \u2018Serious?\u2019\u201d Lockett said. \u201cBecause I\u2019ve always been good at reading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Lockett, who is now 22, spent a year-and-a half taking remedial classes before she could start her first college-level class to count toward her degree in mass communication and journalism. The seven extra courses cost her $300 each.<\/p>\n

Lockett found having to take remedial classes discouraging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes you feel dumb,\u201d Lockett said. \u201cAnd you ask yourself, \u2018Is there something wrong with me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lockett\u2019s experience actually is quite normal in Florida. In 2010-11, 54 percent of students coming out of high school failed at least one subject on the Florida College System\u2019s placement test, according to an investigation by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and StateImpact Florida.<\/p>\n

That meant nearly 30,000 students \u2013 high school graduates \u2013 had to take at least one remedial course in college.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

13th Grade: How Florida Schools Are Failing To Prepare Graduates For College<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 1: Why one in two students taking a college placement exam wind up in remedial classes<\/a><\/p>\n

Sidebar: Adding up the cost of remedial education<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 2: What’s causing the rising need for remedial classes<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 3: Why math is a persistent problem<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 4: How the economy and financial aid are contributing to the need for remedial classes<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 5: What educators are doing to help students in remedial courses finish their studies<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 6: How new common education standards could make sure graduates are ready for college<\/a><\/p>\n

These stories are the result of a reporting partnership between StateImpact Florida<\/a> and the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Florida\u2019s remedial education needs are much greater than in many other states. Nationwide, about 40 percent of all first-year students need remedial education<\/a> before they can enroll in credit-bearing courses, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington, D.C.-based <\/strong>policy and advocacy group.<\/p>\n

The numbers are worse at Miami Dade College, Lockett\u2019s school. There, 63 percent of high school graduates take at least one remedial course upon enrollment. Many of them are, like Lockett, shocked to find out that they weren\u2019t ready for college despite having a high school diploma.<\/p>\n

The cost of being unprepared<\/strong><\/h4>\n

There\u2019s a price to all these students showing up at Florida\u2019s 28 community and state colleges unprepared. The students must pay for \u2013 and the state must subsidize \u2013 the remedial coursework. The costs of remedial education, shared by students and the state, have jumped from $118 million in 2004-05 to $168 million in 2010-11.<\/p>\n

Most of the state\u2019s cost is spent on non-traditional students \u2013 students who return to college after being out of school for a while. But according the Florida Department of Education, about one-third of the cost of remedial education is spent on students who are fresh out of Florida high schools.<\/p>\n

Education experts say part of the problem is that a high school diploma has never been the same thing as a certificate of college readiness. There\u2019s a curriculum gap between what high school students are taught and what they need to know going into college. And it\u2019s been an ongoing problem that state educators have not addressed until recently. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been a proponent of the state\u2019s high school exit exam \u2013 the FCAT. But now the conservative education advocate admits the test was never meant to determine whether students are prepared for college.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sagette Van Embden \/ Florida Center for Investigative Reporting<\/p>

Miami-Dade College graduate Shakira Lockett said required remedial courses stressed her, and took a toll on classmates. \u201cNone of my friends were behind me,\u201d Lockett said of graduation. \u201cNone of the people that I knew. It was just me. And I felt really, really accomplished.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a gateway to graduate from high school, not to be college ready,\u201d he told StateImpact Florida in an interview.<\/p>\n

Bush said it\u2019s evident the test is flawed since many high school students can\u2019t graduate because they can\u2019t pass the FCAT, which only tests 10th<\/sup>-grade level academic skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr worse yet, as you said, 50 percent of our students need remedial work to be able to take a college course,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lenore Rodicio is Vice Provost for Student Achievement Initiatives at Miami Dade College. She said until high school curriculum aligns with college curriculum, state and community colleges need to fill in the gaps by offering remedial courses, also known as \u201cdevelopmental education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the downfalls of developmental education,\u201d Rodicio said, \u201cis that students get stuck in a cycle where they don\u2019t pass their courses and have to take multiple semesters of the developmental courses before they go in to college-level work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remedial classes do not count toward a college degree. Each class runs an entire semester. And students cannot enroll in college classes until they pass all their remedial courses. But Rodicio said offering remedial courses allows Florida colleges to keep their doors open and give all students the opportunity to get a college education.<\/p>\n

A down side, Rodicio said, is that students who fail a remedial class are less likely to make it to the finish line of graduation.<\/p>\n

Inside a Remedial Class<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n

“I look at some of my students and say, \u2018I wish we could read this novel,\u2019 but they\u2019re not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

-Vallet Tucker, a 10th Grade Honors English teacher<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n

At Miami Dade College, the final project for students in most remedial writing classes is to write a single paragraph by the end of a semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking to see that students can focus a topic, maintain a main idea, develop that point, support that point, use transitions,\u201d said Associate Professor Michelle Riley. And she said it\u2019s very difficult for many of them.<\/p>\n

During a recent remedial reading class, Riley showed students a sentence on the white board.<\/p>\n

It read: \u201cThe bandage was wound around the wound.\u201d<\/p>\n

The professor asked students to read the sentence aloud. Many got stuck on the last word \u2013 pronouncing the word \u201cwound\u201d (sounds like \u201cboomed\u201d) the same way they pronounce \u201cwound\u201d (sounds like \u201cground\u201d).<\/p>\n

The course is one step above the lowest remedial reading level offered at Miami Dade College. Students study the difference between denotations and connotation \u2013 the difference between a word\u2019s dictionary definition and its cultural or emotional association.<\/p>\n

Miami high school teacher Vallet Tucker said she isn\u2019t surprised to hear what students are learning in remedial college courses. She teaches honors English at Miami Northwestern and said her average 10th<\/sup>-grade student reads at a 7th<\/sup>-grade reading level.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I have honors students,\u201d she pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is 10th<\/sup>-grade material and they\u2019re not there yet. The vocabulary is not where it should be \u2013the stamina for reading,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

FCAT Focus of Criticism<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

<\/p>

Miami-Dade school board member Raquel Regalado on the impact of FCAT: \u201cUnfortunately, life doesn\u2019t give you four options for which two or three can be easily eliminated. And that\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Standardized testing has been a big part of public education in Florida for more than a decade. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test \u2013 the FCAT \u2013 debuted in 1998. It\u2019s used as a tool to assess high school students, determine their class placement and decide whether they can graduate from high school.<\/p>\n

But over time, FCAT has also become a management tool. Students\u2019 scores on that test now determine school funding levels, teacher evaluations, and starting this year teacher pay. FCAT scores also help determine whether a school itself stays open or is shut down for poor performance. <\/em><\/p>\n

Critics of the FCAT say teachers, under pressure to help students achieve higher test scores, have emphasized test-taking skills over core subject lessons. Students are taught to memorize facts and eliminate answers on multiple-choice questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the time a child is in kindergarten, every option that a child is given has four answers for which two or three can be easy eliminated,\u201d said Raquel Regalado, a Miami-Dade school board member. \u201cUnfortunately, life doesn\u2019t give you four options for which two or three can be easily eliminated. And that\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FCAT has become more rigorous over the years in reading, writing and math. But the material doesn\u2019t align with what is tested on the college entrance exam.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Policy makers have understood this for a while. In 2006, the research arm of the Florida Legislature, widely known by its acronym OPPAGA, <\/em>studied remedial education in community colleges. The study concluded that the FCAT created a disconnect between the skills taught in public schools and those needed in college.<\/p>\n

Success on the FCAT, the state accountability office found, \u201cdoes not ensure students are prepared for college-level work.\u201d OPPAGA noted that despite previous reports pointing out the same problems, state education leaders and legislators had not reviewed the effectiveness of the FCAT.<\/p>\n

Matthew Ladner, a policy and research adviser for Jeb Bush\u2019s Foundation for Excellence in Education, is a defender of FCAT. He said the test, emphasized when Bush was governor, helped increase the high school graduation rate. In the 2010-2011 school year, Florida graduated the most students, and students of color, in the state\u2019s history. Lander sees it as not surprising that some of those students would struggle at the college level.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we should not view the fact that these students then go on to an institution of higher education and have to take a remedial course necessarily as a catastrophic failure,\u201d Ladner said. \u201cThis is sort of a process on the way to success in the sense that a lot of those students in Florida higher education institutions today would have dropped out of high school 15 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The increasing number of people entering college, he said, may be a factor in rising remedial education numbers.<\/p>\n

Damaging Illusion<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In Florida, the current situation has contributed to a damaging illusion among many students. Some who excel in public school and do well on the FCAT graduate thinking they are well prepared for higher education, only to find they\u2019re not ready at all.<\/p>\n

Shakira Lockett felt she was ready for college. The reality for her, though, was that she needed extensive remedial work at Miami Dade College. She finally completed her two-year journalism program in May \u2013 two years later than she\u2019d expected going in.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t easy. \u201cI had to push myself where I need to be to make my parents proud of me and to make myself proud,\u201d Lockett said. \u201cBecause I really want to be something in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many students can\u2019t make it all the way through. Research shows that students who require remedial education are less likely to earn a degree than students who don\u2019t require remediation.<\/p>\n

Lockett can attest to this. She still remembers when her first remedial class instructor challenged her classmates to continue to make it to the finish line. Many of her classmates went on to the next remedial course with her. But when Lockett finally got her degree, those students didn\u2019t share the stage with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of my friends were behind me,\u201d Lockett said. \u201cNone of the people that I knew. It was just me. And I felt really, really accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a series of stories this week and throughout December, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and StateImpact Florida will explore the growing need for remedial education among Florida\u2019s high school graduates and older students. We\u2019ll try to figure out how we got here and what the state can do to improve public education and provide students with the skills and tools they need to succeed in college and in the workforce.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida\u2019s remedial education needs are much greater than in many other states. Nationwide, about 40 percent of all first-year students need remedial education before they can enroll in credit-bearing courses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":15285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[778,1019,1026,1120,1160,1153],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15283"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21643,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15283\/revisions\/21643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}