Op-Ed: Is Your Child College and Career Ready?

By: Jennifer Duggan

Families across New York State have been bombarded with information, and misinformation about the learning standards that guide instruction in our schools and classrooms.

Before picking sides in this controversial debate, I urge all parents to ask themselves these two questions: Can your child compete with a student in China? Can your child succeed in a college-level English or math class without remediation?

These two questions dig into the purpose of the Common Core Learning Standards, to prepare our children for college and careers. The standards are meant to help students be ready to compete and excel in the real world.

I have been a teacher in both charter and an alternative BOCES high schools for 5 years, mainly in high poverty, diverse communities. I have seen students struggle with basic reading, writing, and math skills. I have seen students give up in their first year of college because they have to take extra classes that they get no credit for, just to be able to understand and complete their work in other classes. I have seen students not even consider certain jobs because they feel they would never be successful.

I help students understand that they are capable of success. It may take work, but they will be able to be successful in any college and any career they choose. I help them and their parents understand the new standards by linking the standards to specific jobs and college courses:

Mathematics

Standard: CCSS.Math.Content.HSS.ID.A.2

Use statistics appropriate to the shape of the data distribution to compare center (median, mean) and spread

(interquartile range, standard deviation) of two or more different data sets.

Jobs: Marketing, Management, Teaching

College Classes: Business, Finance, Education

Standard: CCSS.Math.Content.HSS.ID.C.9

Distinguish between correlation and causation

Jobs: Researcher in all fields, Statistician, Psychiatrist

College Classes: Psychology, Educational Psychology, Physical Sciences, Mathematics

English Language Arts

Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.1.b

Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while

pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level,

concerns, values, and possible biases.

Jobs: Writer/Journalist, Teacher, Politician

College Classes: ALL!

Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.5

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach,

focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions

should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grades 11-12 here.)

Jobs: Writer/Journalist, Marketing

College Classes: ALL!

Can your children do this? Of course they can! They do, however, need the guidance of teachers and families in order to feel confident in their abilities to grow and learn. They need to feel comfortable taking a chance on themselves and taking the risk to step outside their comfort zone.

Jobs and colleges are coming to schools saying they are not getting the types of employees and students they need. Both companies and colleges are remediating incoming people in in order to progress.

“In two-year colleges, eligibility for enrollment typically requires only a high school diploma or equivalency. About one-quarter of incoming students to these institutions are fully prepared for college-level studies. The remaining 75% need remedial work in English, mathematics, or both...

Firm data on the portions of entering college students who need remediation in English and/or math are not available, but the proportions shown in figure 1 reflect national estimates. All told, asmany as 60% of incoming require some remedial instruction.

These national estimates may be conservative, since not all students who are underprepared for college are tested and placed in remedial courses. The California State University (CSU), a large public university system, for many years has applied placement or readiness standards in reading, writing, and mathematics that are linked to first-year college coursework... Despite system-wide admissions policy that requires a college-preparatory curriculum and a grade point average in high school of B or higher, 68% of the 50,000 entering freshmen at CSU campuses require remediation in English language arts, or math, or both”

-Beyond the Rhetoric: Improving College Readiness through Coherent State Policy, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

These statistics hit close to home for me as one of my former students ‘David’ had a tremendously hard time when he went to college. He thought since he did well in high school that he was prepared for college. However, when he got to the community college he was immediately placed in a remedial math and remedial English class, for which he had to pay tuition, but did not receive credit. David became frustrated and did not even finish his first semester. He also has not returned to college, instead opting for two minimum wage jobs in order to support himself and his daughter. If he were exposed to the College and Career Ready Standards earlier on in his education, he would not have needed remediation and possibly would be a college graduate now, working in a career that he loves.

I love what I do. I love to see my students move on to college and be successful. This is why I support and use the Common Core Learning Standards in my class, because without them our children will a fellow with Ed Voice, a fellowship for teachers helping to inform policy continue to fall behind.