Brent Kennedy

College Composition 1
Mrs. Cramer
Period 6A
20 January 2017
Not Ready For The Future
Are you ready yet? Is the question that some parents and counselors now have to ask high

school graduates. That if they are ready and prepared for the rigorous courses in the classroom

that they will take at universities and colleges that they are attending. There are a lot of certain

reasons that students may not be prepared for college like policies and laws that are in place to

"help" students best get ready in high school but can actually hinder the preparedness of some

students. Also there are now remedial classes that are classes for students who are failing and not

ready for the college educational challenges. High school students are unprepared for college due

to educational policy and their curriculum.

In the past few years there has been a disappointing decrease in the amount of high

school students that are proficient or advanced in either reading or mathematics. To graduate

from many high schools, students have to take standardized tests that measure their knowledge in

most subjects like math, reading, science, and sometimes social studies topics. These

standardized tests are all apart of the No Child Left Behind program that has been in effect for

now fifteen years. It's part of a law that imposes that beginning in the third grade, students are

required to score in certain percentiles to pass grades and move on throughout schooling.

Sometimes these required tests are used as high schools assessments and can deter what courses

students may enter in to in the future. "With test scores serving as the primary if not the sole

measure of the student performance and, increasingly, teacher evaluation, anything not being
tested was given short shrift." (Strauss) Meaning that when schools are only looking at

standardized test scores it can disadvantage some students, because there is still the option of

cheating or copying, and some students that may be proficient or even advanced in the material

have a bad test day and dont do well at all and that can damage their persona as a very

knowledgeable student.

To add on to the issue of the multiple choice standardized tests to go along with these

there are free response questions that are graded based off of rubrics that are concerned almost

primarily on the content in the responses, and sometimes on an opinionated argument question it

is also solely based on the strength of that argument. If a student is given all of the points for the

rubric they are then granted that grade, these responses are not based on grammar. Also scores

are not reduced based on the format given if they make up an answer they can pass these with

ease and then when they arrive to college the students are not ready for the skill required in the

reading and writing. And eventually when these students arrive at college unprepared they are

going to need some help.

For instance, that help can be found for these students in remedial courses. Remedial

classes the savior to all that are not ready to enter college or to those who need help in a certain

topic. These clas-ses are necessities for some students who need to be taught sometimes basic

skills in certain subjects and then sometimes skills that are difficult and that peers may be at the

same level have mastered but some students need help. Some students also need tutoring to help

them develop the knowledge but this is a whole different situation, these courses are for the

students that took the administered exams and passed them but because of this before those tests

they studied and prepared for the tests like these that only require basic knowledge. So when

they arrive at college they dont always have the advanced knowledge they need in all of their
courses. When those graduates get to their schools a lot of them need these remedial courses.

"For example, a study by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education found that more

than a third of high school students who scored proficient on the state-required graduation test

and enrolled in a Massachusetts public university or college were unprepared enough to be have

to take at least one remedial course." (Ostashevsky) As that one third of students are not ready

for college the parents dont always know their kids are unprepared. "It may come as news to

students and their parents that passing state-required tests to graduate from high school doesnt

mean theyre prepared for college." (Ostashevsky) Once the students are notified it kind of hits

the parents at the same time that these tests that they are taking and the classes their children are

taking are not preparing them fully for their future ahead in the classroom at college. It's very

interesting that students go to school pass what they are required to but still are not ready for

college.

In conclusion, for the detailed reasons above of educational policy including the

department of educations laws and also the curriculum in schools, the readiness that high school

students have for college is decreasing at a rate that could hinder the future for the decades

ahead. With students not being ready for college it is delaying the time before they have a major

and can continue on with their career path. Hopefully there are changes made by the U.S.

department of education and by the schools of America to fix our curriculum and increase

dramatically how many students that are ready for the future.
 Works Cited

Camera, Lauren. "Only 37 Percent of Students Are Prepared for College-level Math and
Reading, According to Newly Released Data." Us News. N.p., 27 Apr. 2016. Web. 19 Jan.
2017.
Ostashevsky, Luba. "Many Who Pass State High School Graduation Tests Show up to College
Unprepared." The Hechinger Report. N.p., 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.
Strauss, Valerie. "A Warning to College Profs from a High School Teacher." The Washington
Post. WP Company, 9 Feb. 2013. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.