Dunce ex Machina

U.S. high schools fail to prepare grads for college
According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the United States boasts 17 out of the top 20 world universities, and 35 of the top 50. But the general strength of America’s universities shouldn’t lead us to overlook the low level of preparedness of many of its high school graduates. As President Barack Obama pointed out in his 2009 State of the Union, “Half of the students who begin college never finish.”
For many high school graduates, the transition from high school to college is overwhelming. Although there are many possible explanations for the missing connection between high schools and colleges, the simplest and most compelling is the failure of high schools to adequately prepare their students for the rigors of college. Better communication between high schools and colleges when it comes to setting standards and evaluating student performance is needed in order to ensure that students are prepared for college, and that they ultimately benefit from it and can put their skills to use in the real world.
High Schools Don’t Make the Grade
Experts agree that preparation for college involves a variety of factors. As Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and the former governor of West Virginia, told the HPR, college preparedness boils down to the Three A’s: academic preparation, attitude, and assets. Wise defines the first as basic reading, writing, researching, and critical thinking skills; the second means appreciating the importance of college; the third means ensuring an adequate college funding plan. While Wise considers all the A’s to be prerequisites for higher education, most public policy has only focused on the first.
Even with the focus on academic preparation, however, high schools deserve a low grade. A 2006 study by Jay Greene and Marcus Winters revealed that, of the 70 percent of high school students who graduate, only half are academically prepared for post-secondary education. Indeed, experts estimate that 20 to 40 percent of traditional undergraduates take at least one remedial course upon entering college. The cost of remedial college education, estimated at $1.4 billion annually, is borne not only by the student, but also by society. As Wise explained, “The student and the taxpayer are paying twice for the same education he or she should have gotten in high school.”

Middle Missing?

The causes of poor academic preparation are numerous. The simplest explanation involves what Wise terms the “missing middle.” Historically, federal funding for education has targeted the early childhood and post-secondary years and neglected the seventh to twelfth grades. Jason Amos, also at the Alliance for Education, estimated that some $25 billion is dedicated to specific programs for elementary schools and higher education, but just $2.4 billion and $3.3 billion for middle and high school programs, respectively.
Still, funding is neither the only nor the most significant factor at work. As expectations that high school students will go to college have increased, so have the number of matriculants lacking the necessary skills for post-secondary education. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1970, about 25 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in a degree-granting institution. Today, one in three are. Colleges are receiving a growing influx of ill-prepared high school graduates. Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard University, told the HPR that the lack of preparation for post-secondary education “is a sort of natural result of moving from a more elite system of higher education to a more mass education.”
Aggravating this issue, colleges have offered secondary schools few clues as to the skills students need for success in college. Indeed, the disconnect between the priorities of high schools and colleges has proven to be a significant hurdle for education reform. According to Wise, high schools remain focused on simply graduating their students, while colleges have traditionally not worked closely with high schools to ensure that incoming students are prepared for college. “Historically, there has not been the alignment that there needed to be,” said Wise.
Digging Out of the Hole

Current law offers few panaceas. Joni Finney, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, told the HPR that educational reform efforts, specifically the No Child Left Behind Act, have done little to address the connection between college and high school. Finney argued that education reformers should offer “some kind of incentives to make sure they are setting high standards” for what constitutes college preparedness. Finney cited the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a state-led effort to “provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college,” as an example of a better pathway to college preparation than present ad-hoc standards.
Other educational reforms have sought to ensure that high schools are held accountable for college graduation rates. For example, after a longitudinal study by Andrew Sum on the Boston Public Schools class of 2000 revealed that only 35.5 percent of college attendees graduated from college within seven years, Mayor Thomas Menino issued a community-wide challenge to ensure that more BPS graduates earned college degrees. Boston Public Schools superintendent Carol Johnson told the HPR that BPS now has a “Getting Ready, Getting In, and Getting Through” initiative which sets college graduation as the final metric of success.
The most important steps may be the most basic. A 2006 paper issued by the National Center for Higher Education and Public Policy recommended some key changes to the current system that should take place within states: require secondary and post-secondary schools to align their assessments, and increase funding for high school and college collaboration. Finney, who worked on the paper, explained that “incentives are really critical in raising standards,” and can produce big improvements at minimal cost.
America’s New Goal

This is more necessary now than ever before. A study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce predicts that by 2018, the post-secondary system will have produced three million fewer college graduates than demanded by the labor market. That same year, it is expected that about two-thirds of all jobs will require at least some form of college education. The costs of a botched college-high school connection will only increase.
To anticipate the need for a better-educated workforce, high schools must aim to produce college-ready graduates. “It will be the goal of this administration,” said President Obama in 2009, “to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education.” As his presidential term approaches its halfway mark, this “promise… to the children of America” will be a large part of his, and his nation’s, legacy. If he manages to hold both colleges and high schools more accountable, then that promise may be fulfilled.
Caroline Cox ’14 and Kaiyang Huang ’14 are Contributing Writers.
Photo Credit: Flickr (gadgetdude)