Should We Rate High Schools Using College Remediation Rates?
There’s an interesting article in today’s Columbus Dispatch. Reporter Charlie Boss takes a closer look at the disconnect between grades earned in high school, school ratings and college readiness of some Ohio graduates.
Do good grades mean a high-school graduate has mastered the material and is ready for the next level?
That’s hard to determine, experts say. One place to look for clues is in college-entrance exams, such as the ACT.
Ohio’s seniors outperformed their peers nationally this year on the ACT’s English, math, reading and science tests.
Yet, 52 percent were not ready for college-level math, based on ACT benchmarks.
About 66 percent were unprepared for college-level biology, 42 percent were ill-equipped for social studies and 28 percent were not ready for college English.
Many of those students most likely received As and Bs in high school, college counselors say.
Mabel Freeman, who oversees undergraduate admissions at Ohio State University, said she has noticed fewer Cs and Ds on applicants’ records.
“C is viewed as a truly disturbing grade by many parents and students,” Freeman said. “I talk to my colleagues around the country and they say the same thing: You don’t see the same percentage of average grades than what you saw 20 years ago.”
In Dublin, half the graduates from the three high schools had a cumulative GPA of 3.3 or better last school year. That’s right at the B-plus line.
The grade-point average is high because teachers encourage students to master the material before moving on, said Tracey Miller, who oversees secondary education in the district.
Dublin students also can retake classes to improve their grades. So if a student who received an F repeated the class and earned a B, the higher grade replaces the F in the GPA.
“If a student learned a B’s worth of material, the grade should reflect what is learned,” Miller said.
If you’ve read this blog before, you know we are underwhelmed and unimpressed by Ohio’s performance standards and rating system for schools and districts. Because Ohio’s ratings are based primarily on meeting minimum standards, the real performance of excellent schools and districts varies widely.
Student preparation for success after high school varies widely as well.
Take a look at the inset comparison between central Ohio high schools. Not all ‘A’ rated high schools are created equal.
For example, let’s look at Columbus City Schools’ Centennial High School. The school is rated excellent based on Ohio’s accountability standards, but the average ACT and SAT scores are below the state average and remediation rates for students in mathematics and English are 51% and 25% respectively.
Want an even louder wake-up call? Look at the ‘B’ rated schools. Remediation rates for mathematics falls in the 50-60+ percent range. (Remember, these are not the students who dropped out or those that graduated but did not enroll in college. These are high school graduates that enrolled in college.)
I’m not even going to talk about the C, D, and F schools. Talk about grade inflation!
Let’s take a long, hard look at the accountability system and make the changes necessary to provide students, parents and taxpayers an honest performance appraisal. Including more relevant performance measures such as college remediation rates may, no doubt, be a bitter pill to swallow for some districts, but pretending the “kids are all right” helps no one.
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