The Times has an editorial on these studies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/a-better-chance-to-succeed.htmlA Better Chance to Succeed
New York Times
March 2, 2012
The Obama administration is rightly pushing colleges to raise graduation rates and to make sure that more students graduate on time. To help achieve those goals, the community college systems that enroll about 11 million students need to end the practice of shunting students who are prepared for college into non-credit remedial classes that chew up financial aid while making it far less likely that they will ever graduate.
This problem is underscored in two new studies from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College that examine remedial education policies at two unnamed systems: one large urban community college system and one statewide community college system. The studies, which look at tens of thousands of students over several years, found that more than a quarter of those assigned to remedial classes based solely on standardized test scores could have passed college-level classes with a grade of B or better.
What makes this especially disturbing is the fact that remedial courses are often a dead end. According to federal statistics, less than a quarter of students who start out there go on to earn two-year degrees or transfer to four-year colleges. This is sometimes because of poor skills, but frustration likely plays a significant role.
Some discussion at Inside Higher Education is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...re-placing-remedial-classes-studies-find .
The papers are at http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=1030 and http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=1026 .
Colleges are being pressured to improve graduation rates, but if most people are not college material, as I believe, the only way to greatly increase graduation rates is to lower standards.
