Timeline for Why do colleges attempt to teach students who lack prerequisite skills?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 11, 2021 at 20:02 | comment | added | user128581 | Allure, @AlexanderWoo, and DanielR.Collins In the chat that arose under my answer, I mentioned a mid-1990s study that detected that a particular entrance exam introduced gender bias into admissions due to its poor construct validity. The US SAT was that entrance exam, although I guess it could have changed in the last 26 years. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 17:13 | comment | added | Daniel R. Collins | @Allure: The SAT is entirely optional (and a service by a private testing company). Not in any way a requirement to graduate high school, or to enter U.S. community colleges (where most students go) or many other universities. | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 1:02 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | "What do we do? Put them on disability for the rest of their lives? It's not like there are lots of jobs out there that they can do." How exactly is sending them to college supposed to fix this problem? | |
| Dec 11, 2021 at 0:01 | comment | added | Alexander Woo | @Allure - Most US universities (and all US community colleges) will admit anyone with a high school diploma. Selective US universities will decide individually based on a number of factors who is admitted; one of those factors is usually (but not always) the SATs. Generally, only students who apply to a selective university will take the SAT. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 23:53 | comment | added | Allure | In the US, there is no secondary school final exam. What about the SATs? | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 11:40 | comment | added | Neil Meyer | Or some sort of corporate in-house training. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 11:39 | comment | added | Neil Meyer | The alternative to college has always been a tradeschool. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 8:56 | comment | added | Especially Lime | I was initially confused by this answer but then realised the question has since been edited to totally change what is being asked about. So I thought it would be worth commenting in case anyone else is similarly confused! | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 6:35 | comment | added | Alexander Woo | @VladimirF - In addition, the cultural attitude in the US is that everyone should be able to graduate from secondary school with a reasonable amount of effort. As evidence, our laws for people with disabilities require public schools to provide each person a course of study they are capable of completing that will lead to a secondary school diploma for them. This means people with moderate or severe intellectual disabilities can get a diploma by learning what they can, which in some cases is not much. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 6:33 | comment | added | Alexander Woo | @VladimirF - In the US, there is no secondary school final exam. The requirements for graduating from secondary school can be very low, particularly in schools that don't have enough resource to really educate their students. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 6:05 | comment | added | Vladimir F Героям слава | @AlexanderWoo That is true for regular full-time courses, but secondary schools often offer evening courses for employed people. At least here. But you also cannot apply to a university without the secondary school final state exam here. Likely a different system. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 3:34 | comment | added | Alexander Woo | @Allure: Secondary schools generally do not permit students over the age of 21. It's generally a bad idea to take remedial math classes in college rather than learning the same material in secondary school for several reasons. (1) You have to pay for college. (2) The other students in the college remedial class are worse at math than the other students in secondary school (evidence: they didn't learn it the first time) and so the teaching is at a lower level. (3) The college credit isn't actually worth anything, if any college credit is in fact given. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 3:25 | comment | added | shoover | @Allure Compulsory attendance requirements through age 18 (or 17 or 16 depending on state) or graduation from secondary school, whichever comes first. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 3:08 | comment | added | Allure | As for why these people are admitted to college, what's the alternative? Can one attend secondary school? Also, if college-level math classes are teaching secondary-school math, why don't secondary school students quit and go to college? | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 1:51 | comment | added | Alexander Woo | Taking an order over the headphones from one customer while simultaneously handling cash from a second customer and communicating with your coworkers about a third order, repeatedly and accurately over the course of several hours, is not an easy task. When the manager isn't careful to make sure one of the people scheduled on a busy shift can handle this task, it's quite noticeable. I certainly think the ability to succeed at this task is correlated with the ability to succeed in college math classes. | |
| Dec 10, 2021 at 1:01 | comment | added | Kevin Carlson | @Johan Obviously there is some number of spectacular novelists who never learned to add fractions. But there is a far, far larger number of people who never learned to add fractions, or much of anything else. All intellectual skills are very highly correlated. I wouldn't necessarily defend the drive-through line jibe myself, though; or at least, I'm doubtful whether college math classes make a person much more likely to succeed at such a job. | |
| Dec 9, 2021 at 17:46 | comment | added | Drake P | This is an important answer. Once people graduate high school, what choices do they have to pick up the skills they failed to gain when they were young (and perhaps less motivated or disciplined)? Self-study? That very rarely works for people. College seems to be the most obvious location where adults could remediate their knowledge, and they'd not have many options otherwise. There should be less shame in learning a subject later than the "normal" age. | |
| Dec 9, 2021 at 17:26 | comment | added | Johan | What a curious answer. How do you know they aren't particularly adept at something else? Let alone know that they could not handle a drive through line? | |
| Dec 9, 2021 at 3:21 | history | answered | Alexander Woo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |