Karina Gonzalez
With the recent accreditation visit still fresh on administrators’ minds, the topic of whether or not Pierce College students are academically prepared has been under much speculation.
From high school to college, student to professor and district to administration, opinions on the matter have run the gamut and the criteria by which a student is deemed “under-prepared” remain unclear.
March’s accreditation visit brought with it a number of statistics that were used as a defense for the argument that Pierce’s students are under-prepared for college.
In 2006, nearly a third of all Pierce course enrollments ended in a non-passing grade.
Fourteen percent ended in Ws. But as with any statistics, their implications are not definitive.
“Dropped classes are no indication that someone is struggling,” said Bridget King, a linguistics major with seven Ws on her transcript.
“To me, that’s ridiculous. It’s not like high school where you don’t have a job or other things to worry about… Personally, I’ve never dropped a class because I was failing.”
A recent USA Today study brought into question the relevance of high school curriculum to college preparedness.
In every state except Iowa, the government dictates what a high school student should know before graduating.
At Pierce, the rate of students testing into English 101 is among the lowest in the district, and older students have had higher success rates than those fresh out of high school. Professor Ybonne Torres, who teaches courses on U.S. government and international relations, agreed that the problem may lie in today’s exceedingly standardized high schools.
She also pointed to socioeconomic circumstances, the government and poor parenting as factors contributing to academia’s anemia.
“I understand that in schools, there’s a standardized way of doing things and, you know, teachers don’t get paid enough,” said Torres. “But I think there should be less emphasis on getting through the paperwork, and more on ‘Did they really get it?’
I’m noticing, the longer I teach, there are more and more students who are just apathetic,” she continued. “They just don’t care.”
According to writer and lecturer Alfie Kohn, American children today are tested to an extent that is unprecedented in the nation’s history and unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
“You’ve got kids sobbing, throwing up out of terror that they’re not going to pass,” Kohn said in 2001 on PBS’s NewsHour.
“You have teachers, including some of our very best educators, who are leaving the profession because they’re being turned into test prep technicians.”
Hannah Go, a sophomore at Granada Hills Charter High School, faces the same pressure to absorb condensed lessons and perform for the Scantron machines, but feels only “fairly prepared” for college.
“We’re always rushing through chapters just so we can be ready for the gosh darn test at the end of the year,” said Go.
“I feel a constant strain on my brain to pay attention and not zone out because they’re going too fast.”
Tips for success in college
Take English 101 before you take history, philosophy or social science classes.
Take a math class before taking physics or other science classes.
Take a personal development class. It will help you learn about college issues such as time management, test taking and preparing for your major courses.
Talk to a counsellor about organizing which classes compliment each other.