State to redesign more college courses - Sun 11/27/09

Today's Sun reports that the Lumina Foundation is giving a million dollars to Maryland to support the State's efforts to improve college success rates. The paper reports that Nancy Shapiro, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the University System of Maryland feels that improvement in community colleges' remedial math courses are needed as they support the students' path to higher math and science courses. She is quoted as saying "That's where we think we can get the biggest bang for our buck... That's why students drop out of college, because they're paying for courses they don't even get credit for."

The Lumina Foundation is to be applauded for their efforts both here and in other states. Ms. Shapiro, however, needs to broaden her perspective to include some other factors. First, remedial courses exist in four-year institutions, supporting about the same percentage of the college population. Second, remedial math courses are only part of the "remedial sequence" that many students need to complete. Most students taking one remedial course typically need one or two of the others, i.e. remedial reading, remedial English, or remedial math course. Lastly, given the "open door" policy and related missions of the community colleges and the fact that this issue is not new to those instituions, Ms. Shapiro might want to devote greater efforts to improving the success of students in the University System of Maryland's remedial courses. Certainly, if the cost of courses for which students "don't even get get credit for" is an issue, the University's higher priced courses will deter completion more quickly.

Given all of this, I do not believe that the cost of remedial courses is the major culprit. For 12 years, students have been given, free of charge, these same courses and have obviously not achieve the levels needed for college. (For the non-traditional student there may be other issues.) Paying for them in college creates a "vested interest." If they don't succeed, all other things being equal, they are wasting their own money. How much more motivation is needed to move a student in the right direction who will not accept the goods for which he or she is paying.?

Rather, students do not succeed for many reasons (and I have seen them all). In no particular order, these include:

1. insufficient finances causing students to carry two jobs - college and work - even when they do not need to work, they do because they want the money and after all, they only have a couple of day classes. They totally underestimate the efforts needed to succeed.

2. peer pressure - fun, games, dating - I am constantly amazed at the pressures of adolescence. The "dances of the sexes" is still amazing.

3. family pressures - including unplanned children, day care/supervision, single parenting, etc. One recent student had children problems in Florida and a miscarriage in Maryland coupled with the death of her father. All in one semester. How can students study with these pressures? (She managed to do well on top of all this!)

4. poor scholastic skills - requiring remedial work and resulting in general poor course performance. Poor achievement and minimal study skills in high school are not instantly replaced by entering college.

5. failure to seek or follow counseling and advice - resulting in too many or the wrong courses. The idea that others might help has been thwarted throughout many students' history, and they tend to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

6. minimal scheduling flexibility - for these students, course schedules are still based upon the old "standards." The advantages of distance learning or self-paced courses are not typically advisable for them as they do not have the self-motivating skill set to persevere.

7. immaturity, unreasonable expectations and lack of reality or minimal real world experience - while the desire to move forward exists, the clouds are in the way. They simply don't "have a clue" when it comes to their future.

9. baggage from previous poor decisions - including everything from financial to criminal problems. The pressures of the past impede progress dramatically.

10. attitude - result of years of "success" without accomplishments and self-esteem activities. This results in failure to associate performance level with desired outcomes.

11. technology ineffectiveness - failure to understand, from first-hand experience, the simple basics of the operations of today's mechanical and electronic world. While perhaps not a problem for all students, this deficiency is a problem for students entering the science, engineering, and technical programs.