What is "college-ready" anyway?

The following story, also picked up by the Centre Daily Times, struck a nerve.

“An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn’t learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.”

This is what struck me: shouldn’t we expect students to have these skills by the time they graduate from high school?  Shouldn’t a high school graduate to be able to write a coherent paragraph? Should our education model really be that students are not exposed to “critical-thinking” until they get to college - assuming they get there at all?

While there are a handful of policy-makers who speak of education as a K-16 issue, most of the public conversation around education reform appears focused on the K-12 public school system, and specifically, whether or not students are prepared to go to college. 

But there hasn’t been much discussion about the intersection of high school and college, and what’s supposed to happen where. The two systems developed independently, seldom talk to one another, and the consequences are costly.

We already know that even a very good student from a low-performing school doesn’t have the foundation to succeed at an upper-tier university. It is not a question of whether a student is smart enough, or determined enough. While there will always be a few who defy the odds, students at poor schools are not exposed to an academic culture where critical-thinking and abstract reasoning is the norm. They’ve not been in a culture where the students push one another, not only to succeed academically, but to think.

For those fortunate enough to have gone to a good high school, however, the first year of college is often just more of the same.

This was born out in a recent study of State High graduates who went on to attend Penn State. Our ‘good’ students - those who typically had a lot of classroom exposure to these college-level skills - did very well. Our average students, however, sometimes struggle. Here was our conclusion: every student should graduate with the ability to “engage in complex thinking”; to “self-initiate, self-advocate, and organize time”; and to communicate effectively. The way to do this: the development of these skills must be integrated throughout the entire curriculum.

If this became the national standard, it might eliminate the need for the first year of college as it currently exists. It’s time to give this serious thought. Who can afford four years of college tuition anymore? And just suppose education reform ‘succeeds’: what are we going to do with all those “college-ready” students?

There’s a long-standing cultural myth that students go college to “broaden their minds” and “expand their horizons”; to learn to think, as it were. Under the mid-20th century model, college graduates would become the elite who would manage businesses and run the country. Perhaps this made sense when there were plenty of middle-class factory jobs available for high school graduates. Obviously, that’s no longer the case.

The public education system hasn’t failed as is commonly assumed; rather, it’s been slow to adapt to a changing world. Since we need to rethink high school, we ought to rethink college while we’re at it. Are we willing to do that?