Should Every Student Be Prepared for College?

I haven't broached the subject of teaching and education for awhile, so perhaps this is a good time to provide an update on some recent conversations relative to learning.

I have heard of a school that is currently in the process of eliminating their track of classes for students who do not plan to follow a post-secondary path. The logic of such a course is defensible, despite what many front line teachers think. After all, the purpose of the education system is to prepare young people for the rest of their lives. The current requisite skill set for adults who wish to be contributing citizens - read, gainfully employed - includes abilities that have not historically been part of the non-college-preparatory track.

For clarity, the 'general' track, which is also often called the 'applied' track, or the 'work-readiness' track remained focused on the three R's. Students in this track were presumed to need basic, lower level skills in reading, writing, and math. After all, the employment opportunities afforded this group of people was usually comprised of the established trades: cooks, mechanics, laborers, builders, as well as the service trades: gardeners, maids, custodians, retail sales clerks, and the like. However, now, if we are to believe the employment forecasts, even those jobs are soon to be rarer, less lucrative, and/or altered to the point where higher level skills are required to perform them.

Consequently, the idea to raise the bar for everyone is not necessarily a bad one. Yet the district in question has undertaken some strange methodologies for eliminating the track. For instnace, though a percnetage of the student population is adamantly disinclined to do the work necessary to acquire college readiness skills, these students are being placed in academic courses. Simultaneously, the courses themselves are being revised to accommodate the change in clientele.

The change in mission and objective in these courses is predicated on the belief that heterogenous grouping - that is, placing these students in courses with students who may pursue a college education - will encourage these students to acquire the knowledge and skills they may need to perform tasks that are growing increasingly more complex, but which do not require a four year matriculation at a college.

The problem is that the adjustment of mission and abjective has a side effect that hasn't been considered. In changing these courses to reflect a skill set that is challenging, but which may not lead to college, has displaced the students who do plan to go to college.

The math is simple. If I attempt to train a group of students motivated to prepare themselves for college, but I build in accommodations for students who might not want to go to college, I will be spending precious time on skills and knowledge that the college prep students do not need or want. Furthermore, since the clientele has been diminished in terms of motivation, capacity, and prior knowledge to begin with, I will be subjecting the college bound students to a slower pace, one that accommodates the learning styles and abilities of the former 'general' students.

So the former college prep students will be encouraged to enroll in Honors, IB, and AP courses. Some of these transplanted students will be similarly ill-equipped for their new placement, and the pace and depth of learning in these upper level courses will be compromised.

Eradicating the courses that served the non-college bound students may not be a bad idea, but forcing them into courses that do not meet their needs is not smart. Moreover, failing to account for the inevitable learning differences that accompany a change in clientele in the uppper level courses is really foolish.

I promise to propose a solution to the dilemma in a series of entries to follow. This is getting too long.