Report: Many graduates not ready for college work

The report says 40 percent of high school grads need remedial classes before doing college work.

By STEPHEN HEGARTY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 28, 2002

As Florida strives to improve its schools and ensure that a diploma means something, a new state report says many high school graduates still are unprepared for college level work.

College readiness worsened for the first time in three years. Four in 10 recent high school graduates needed remedial work in reading, writing or math last year. The previous year, it was three in 10.

However, the change primarily is a result of a new rule that forced more students to take the test. Without that, "the scores would have been up again this year," said Betty Coxe, deputy education commissioner.

Historically, students who scored high enough on the ACT or SAT were exempt from the College Placement Test because they already met a higher standard. This past year, the score for an exemption was raised, and thousands more students took the test.

The result: Scores went down.

The annual readiness report has been cited by lawmakers and critics of Florida education as evidence that a student can graduate without learning much. Educators counter that there's a simple reason the numbers are so low: The College Readiness Report doesn't include their best and brightest.

The report involves students who graduated from a Florida public high school in 2000 and entered a Florida public college or university during the 2000-01 school year.

Students who do not take the test include those who attend college out of state, attend a private Florida college, take college courses in high school or whose SAT or ACT scores were so high they didn't have to take the College Placement Test.

"The kids who take this test are the ones who are not ready for college," said Charles Casciotta, secondary curriculum specialist for Hernando County schools. "A lot of the kids who are counted in this report are the ones who weren't planning to go to college and they thought, maybe at the last minute, "You know, maybe I'll go to college.' "

The readiness numbers for university-bound students remain high, more than 93 percent. The numbers for community college freshmen always have been low, and under the new rules they got lower.

The biggest problem area is math. Only 67.4 percent of all students passed the math section, while 74 percent passed the reading test and 80 percent passed writing.

Pinellas bucked the statewide trend, increasing readiness with or without the rule change. Catherine Fleeger, assistant superintendent in charge of high schools for Pinellas County, pointed to an emphasis since 1996 of getting students to take algebra courses and focusing on their goals after high school.

"We were trying to address this," Fleeger said. "We knew if they didn't take the right courses, they wouldn't be ready for the next step. What we're seeing now is what you would expect: slow gains year by year."

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