Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
Pell Grant recipients, who come from lower-income families, often start college in remedial classes and drop out before earning a degree. Requiring evidence of college readiness, such as SAT scores of at least 850 (verbal and math) and a 2.5 grade point average in high school, would boost success rates, but limit access.
California leads the nation in poorly educated adults and in low-income workers, not a coincidence. Should community colleges take over adult education?
The remediation rate was nearly 80 percent for graduates of New York City public high schools who enrolled in community college last year.
California may shift control of adult education from K-12 districts to community colleges.
Part-time adult education instructors at City Colleges of Chicago have agreed to link bonuses to student achievement. That just doesn’t happen at the college level.
State universities are pushing remedial classes to community colleges, and some community colleges are pushing low-level remediation to adult ed programs, I write in U.S. News.
A college degree is the “gateway to the middle class,” but more education doesn’t always mean more money.
Also on Community College Spotlight: Redesigning adult ed to combine basic skills with job training.
We can’t do everything, writes the chancellor of Pima Community College. In the future, low-level remedial students will be referred to adult education.
Also on Community College Spotlight: To help low-income students succeed in college, listen to students.
Some 60 percent of new community college students aren’t ready for college-level classes. Those placed in basic math or reading rarely make it out of the remedial sequence, much less to a degree. Do they belong in college?
Overwhelmed with students who need years of remediation, some Texas community colleges are sending very low-skilled students to adult education or vocational programs.
Also on Community College Spotlight: North Carolina will let community colleges bar “threatening” students, but identifying who’s dangerous and figuring out what to about it are huge challenges for college staffers.
On Community College Spotlight: Michigan tries to link adult education to community college job training classes. But the odds of success are long for adults who start in adult ed or GED programs.
At the age of 83, Frank Ganz has passed algebra — with an A — to earn his high school diploma. Ganz starting cutting school in eighth grade. It was the Depression and working was his priority. He dropped out in ninth grade and forged his birth certificate to enlist in the Navy at 16. When he got back from service, he got a job, married and fathered four children. From the San Jose Mercury News:
“I always told my grandchildren ‘Make sure you graduate high school,’ ” said Ganz, who ran an auto parts store in Los Gatos until his retirement. “But inside it always burned that I didn’t finish. I was always embarrassed. When my grandchildren started going off to college, I made up my mind. I said ‘I’m going to do it.’ “
Unwilling to settle for a GED, Ganz enrolled in an adult ed program that let him qualify for a diploma. It took him five years to earn the credits with help from a math tutor. Now Metropolitan Adult Ed — “It’s never too late” is the motto — wants Ganz to come back as an American history tutor. He knows it because he’s lived it.
Recent Comments