posted by Joe Polk at 1:50 AM /
A Team 4 investigation found that one of every three high school graduates in Pennsylvania who attended a state-owned university or community college this year was not prepared for the most basic math and English courses.
In fact, those students were so unprepared for college that they had to take special remediation classes which cost taxpayers $26 million this year -- and wait until you see the numbers for the school district where you live.
And in Allegheny County, look at the numbers for these traditionally well-regarded districts:
Pine-Richland: 21 percent of last year's graduates now attending state-owned universities or community college were not ready for college. Mt. Lebanon: 23 percent. Fox Chapel: 30 percent. In Northgate School District, the number was 41 percent. In Penn Hills High School, it was 44 percent. In Wilkinsburg, it was 67 percent.
And 53 percent -- more than half -- of all graduating seniors in Pittsburgh Public Schools were not prepared for college.
Link: www.thepittsburghchannel.com/education/18873477/detail.html
In fact, those students were so unprepared for college that they had to take special remediation classes which cost taxpayers $26 million this year -- and wait until you see the numbers for the school district where you live.
And in Allegheny County, look at the numbers for these traditionally well-regarded districts:
Pine-Richland: 21 percent of last year's graduates now attending state-owned universities or community college were not ready for college. Mt. Lebanon: 23 percent. Fox Chapel: 30 percent. In Northgate School District, the number was 41 percent. In Penn Hills High School, it was 44 percent. In Wilkinsburg, it was 67 percent.
And 53 percent -- more than half -- of all graduating seniors in Pittsburgh Public Schools were not prepared for college.
Link: www.thepittsburghchannel.com/education/18873477/detail.html
Labels: high school, school district
7 Comments:
The remediation report is not sourced other than to PDE, but if you test the data it seems funky.
If you divide the total remediation cost by school district (and charter schools) and sort high-to-low, you find 100 school districts with 761 students receiving remediation in 1,046 course enrollments with an average cost of $1,071.83 (the highest average in the study).
100 districts out of more than 500 districts with the same high average cost to the penny? (Only one of these 100 is in Allegheny County.)
It does not seem plausible those 100 districts (20%) would have the EXACT same mix of cost per course enrollment across the Commonwealth, and that it would be at the MAX average. This is the single largest grouping and it is at the very top?
In the next +/- 400 districts, there is considerable variation in the costs (a penny here and a dime there) with the exception of two groups of nine districts with the exact same cost.
At the bottom of the list, there are 25 districts with an average cost of $642.00 for 567 course enrollments. So the second largest grouping (5%) is at the bottom?
This is a very strange distribution.
We best silence the alarm bells.
The data is funky. As a Mt. Lebanon Graduate who attended Penn State, I can tell you for certain that I was one of the most prepared students at the university. In fact the HUGE difference, particularly in English, between myself and kids from less well-to-do school districts was frankly, disappointing in what it says about "public" schools in this country. I am not particularly good in English class (there are probably mistakes in this comment) and I was a rockstar in entry English at Penn State because I already knew how to write 5 paragraph essays, shape intro paragraphs, analyze readings and other BASICS that seem to be missing from many other districts' curriculum. This is not just my experience, other people I graduated with who attended PSU had similar experiences.
So while I'm sure those around Lebo would love to point to this report and justify more money for the schools, if any of that money comes from state or federal governments I'll be very disappointed. I don't mind soccer moms in Lebo getting all bent out of shape and spending your (I don't live in Lebo) local taxes to widen the gap in education in this country, but we need to fix the programs the other 24 kids in my Freshman English class graduated from before we spend another dime on Lebo.
Jonathan Cavell
JonathanCavell@gmail.com
Note that those percentages are the percentage of each high school's students who attended a state-owned school or community college, not the percentage of the student body.
That said, the fact that many Lebo students are well prepared doesn't preclude many others being ill prepared.
In order to tease apart the strange distribution that Bill uncovered, you need to know what colleges the kids attended. Probably each college reports the same remedial cost per student. And possibly the entire State-owned school system reports the same cost per student?
Bill Matthews observations remind me of the Costing-Out Report where one base price was applied to all students then increments were added for gifted, disabled, and ESL students and some other factors were added to determine what subsidy increase each school district would get. However I would rather ask teaching and learning questions.
Doesn't anybody have a question about why we have ill-prepared students and what plans we have to correct the problem? Twenty-three percent is almost one of four and in Mt Lebanon that is not approaching expectations.
Does the school board superintendent search have a focus on correcting this learning-gap or is speed of hiring a new superintendent more important?
The first thing I noticed in the Report is Upper St. Clair has 17% ill-prepared students vs. Mt. Lebanon's 23%. Incentive pay for teachers is a big deal in other states so it can come to Pennsylvania; these results beg the question of Mt. Lebanon's salary scale vs. Upper St. Clair's salary scale.
Do we have proper standards for hiring principals and teachers? What are these standards? Are the standards written down where parents can see them?
Is there enough professional development money for staff training?
Consider the Board has low expectations this year for Program Change Proposals. Program Change Proposals are the wheels that yield continuous improvement in student learning. Are the costs of the Option 2 high school building misallocating resources needed to serve students?
Have learning standards slipped as far as our swimming and diving facilities?
If you count the number of courses in the Course Offering Booklet and add Parkway Offerings we list over 250 courses in a four-year high school. Students taking six courses a semester can take 12 courses per year and 48 courses in four years. Your child can take less than 20% of the courses listed in four years. Do too many course offerings in the high school to dilute students’ college preparation?
Would concentration on Core Courses aligned with the States new testing standards allow us to offer students better college preparation?
Could we reduce the building square footage and offer better student preparation at more affordable debt service by concentrating on fewer course offerings?
I’m not impressed by the argument that these are the State school kids and the community college kids because that argument assumes these children are less important than those who are accepted at the most competitive colleges. That is just not true and Mt. Lebanon’s Mission Statement in our Strategic Plan says we are here to provide the best education possible to each and every child. Why isn’t that happening for these children?
These results are not so startling when you look at MTL SHS's aggregate 11th grade PSSA scores. 14% of 11th graders scored below proficient in math and ~12% scored below proficient in reading. IMHO, that's not great.
What's surprising to me is the residual -
Assuming the "advanced" kids (56.4/math 62.4/reading) are not placed in remediation, what number or ratio of "proficient" kids (as defined by the state) are actually not proficient enough to warrant remediation? And what does it say about our state standards?
Mary Beth Sklar
Mr. Ewing, I think you might need a new hobby. From the looks of your last comment, there's apparently no need to sit and wait for the sky to start falling - so you'll likely have some free time.
Holy cow!
The number of courses offered at the high school is not the problem. The school actually has a system of what are known in college as "distribution requirements." Everyone has to take a certain number of math, science, history, and English classes before they can graduate - and one English class is required every semester at the high school, even if you have enough English credits. Until senior year, there is really only room for two electives per semester, and for most students one of those is a foreign language, and for a good portion more, the other is either orchestra or band.
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