Barriers to Readiness

Although readiness refers to the preparation of all students for successful college-level learning, different sets of hurdles confront traditional age and older students. Eighteen to twenty-two-year-olds face:

Uneven preparation for independent, demanding college-level study. Despite nearly two decades of school reform triggered by the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, many high schools are unable to produce college-ready graduates. Reasons include poor quality teaching, low teacher and student expectations, large class size, weak curricula, and unconscionably poor resources. Some schools suffer from all these handicaps. Models for how to solve the problems of uneven preparation exist, but the will to replicate them broadly has not yet been mustered.

The continuing patterns of separation and discrimination. Students of color tend to be concentrated in schools with the poorest resources and lowest expectations. Their high school dropout rates exceed those of majority students, thereby limiting their potential for advanced study. This unfair situation jeopardizes the futures of minority students, as well as the country's ability to equitably produce a well-educated populace.

Limited interpretations of learning. Learning is more than the simple acquisition of discrete facts. As students progress through their education, the need for analysis and integration, as well as factual recall, increases. In high school and college, students need to know facts, but even more importantly how to interpret and what to do with those facts. Information is transformed into internal knowledge as students apply their understandings to new situations, new problems, and new environments, thereby using their previous learning in challenging ways.

Learning is also more than the completion of a fixed number of courses. Some states have tried to create uniform high school graduation standards by establishing a minimum number of years for study in core subjects. Such standards measure only time spent, not the work performed, level of instruction, or, ultimately, learning attained.

A "one-size-fits-all" approach to assessment and to learning. State-mandated assessments at various levels from kindergarten through grade twelve can be equally problematic. In many states, the standardized testing movement is reinforcing the interpretation of learning as mere acquisition of unconnected facts, rather than correcting this impoverished view. Multiple choice tests, in particular, provide little evidence of the analytical power, creativity, resourcefulness, empathy, and abilities to apply knowledge and transfer skills from one environment to another that students will need for college success.³⁹ Moreover, the obsession with testing is diverting attention from comprehensive reforms of the curriculum and teaching that should be the highest priorities. When tests carry high stakes—when they determine whether students advance or graduate—teachers find themselves pressed to produce good results and thus learn to "teach to the tests," even if classroom dynamics suggest a different pace or approach.

Today's primary and secondary school students bring diverse learning styles to the classroom. They learn at different rates, in different ways, starting from different points, and with different levels of parental involvement. Yet, by and large, educators assume they will all fit into one standard pattern. While excellent teachers employ a range of instructional methods to match their students' learning styles, such master teachers are not available in all schools. Schools also are organized so that a set quantity of learning is expected in a given time frame. In only a few exceptional schools are all students held to high standards by adjusting both the kind and amount of instruction to meet individual student learning needs.

The misalignment of high school work with college entry expectations. Most colleges do not share with secondary schools what they expect incoming first-year students to know and be able to do to succeed in college. Nor do they make clear to college-bound students why the expected preparation matters. There is also a growing disconnect between the superficial "coverage" of survey courses that still predominate in high schools and an emerging emphasis on in-depth, investigative learning as early as the first year of college.

This situation of unstated and mismatched expectations may be left over from the time when colleges could more realistically assume a common background and preparation among the smaller group of entering students. Since this homogeneity is no longer the case, clear language from colleges about what they expect could greatly assist students and their counselors in selecting appropriate college preparatory courses. Toward what level of accomplishment in core subjects and in the intellectual skills important to many fields (such as oral communication or numerical literacy) should college aspirants strive?

The chaotic borderland between school and college. A range of formal curricular structures sit at the interface between high school and college. So-called college-level courses in high school (advanced placement, dual high school/college enrollment) are designed to accelerate engagement with college material. Sometimes, the level of learning taking place in these courses is unclear beyond coverage of certain content. Do students discuss and analyze at a college level? Are their writing assignments challenging? Are they learning research skills? In some schools, the frantic accumulation of AP credits for college applications breeds cynicism about their value, even among the strongest, most successful students. Other structures—courses in college that teach high school-level content—remedy gaps in prior preparation.

While these arrangements on both sides of the high school-college border can serve students well, they tend to operate as isolated stepping stones, rather than as a true bridge between levels of learning. In the absence of clear and widely accepted educational principles about what counts as college-level learning, these borderland courses compound the confusion about college readiness.

The wasted senior year. The senior year of high school should ideally be a time for students to undertake work approaching, in nature and level, that expected in the first year of college. It should be a time to synthesize, integrate, and demonstrate the learning of the previous eleven years. For many students, however, the reality is quite different. For them, the senior year means rather a waste of time and a loss of educational momentum, since the culture of low expectations for the senior year induces both high- and low-achieving students alike to slack off.⁴¹ Many students, parents, and even some teachers view it as a time for students to relax and enjoy friends, before settling down to a job or to college. Meager state and district graduation requirements may allow seniors to carry a light course load if they have already met the minimum demands. High school exit exams, where they exist, may be taken as early as tenth grade in some regions, and can be passed with only ninth or tenth grade-level learning.

College admissions decisions largely rest on grades and SAT scores earned by the middle of senior year, and are rarely revoked even for lackluster second semester results. The early-decision option, recently more popular than ever, reinforces low senior year expectations for high achievers. By December, with college plans set, the top students have little incentive to work hard for the rest of the year. For all students, the damage done by the wasted senior year may be most evident in subjects like mathematics and foreign language, which are learned best through continuous study.

Interruption in the practice of being a student: Older adults starting or resuming college encounter some of the same barriers to readiness as do students straight from high school, but they may also need to readjust to the demands of formal study. These non-traditional students can find their prior academic learning out-of-date or forgotten. Entire fields previously studied may have mutated beyond recognition, or new ones arisen to take their place. Those students who stopped or dropped-out because of poor performance can face a crisis of confidence in their ability to succeed in learning. Adults may need transition courses to update their academic skills and connect their current goals with the expectations of their college or university.