{"id":17915,"date":"2013-04-11T10:48:53","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T14:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=17915"},"modified":"2013-04-11T10:48:53","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T14:48:53","slug":"why-the-florida-senate-wants-to-change-college-remedial-course-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/04\/11\/why-the-florida-senate-wants-to-change-college-remedial-course-requirements\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The Florida Senate Wants To Change College Remedial Course Requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

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

A bill approved by the Florida Senate might make remedial college courses less daunting for students like Shakira Lockett.<\/p><\/div>\n

Shakira Lockett always got pretty good grades in school. That’s why she was surprised to find out she had failed her college placement exam at Miami Dade College.<\/p>\n

Lockett spent a year a half taking remedial classes in reading, writing and math before she could start earning credits toward a degree. She finished her studies — but Lockett’s a rare case for students who end up in remedial courses.<\/p>\n

National statistics show just 1 in 10 community college students forced to take a remedial course finish their studies within three years.<\/p>\n

The Florida Senate is trying to address that problem, approving a bill that ends requiring students to take remedial classes for no credit<\/a>. Instead, students would take “co-requisite classes” — taking regular college work while receiving basic instruction at the same time. Those co-requisite courses might span two semesters or require lab work.<\/p>\n

The bill, SB 1720, also asks the State Board of Education and the State University System Board of Governors to group majors by shared skills or knowledge<\/a>, and then identify which courses should be required as a foundation for those majors.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A handful of Democrats voted against the bill, worried that it could make it more difficult for minorities or older students returning to school after a break.<\/p>\n

For more on the challenges of remedial education and what colleges and education leaders are doing to help more students finish college, check out “13th Grade,”<\/a> our series with the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shakira Lockett always got pretty good grades in school. That’s why she was surprised to find out she had failed her college placement exam at Miami Dade College. Lockett spent a year a half taking remedial classes in reading, writing and math before she could start earning credits toward a degree. She finished her studies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":15311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[778,785,1096,1160],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17915"}],"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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17918,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17915\/revisions\/17918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}