Grade inflation article

[rebcoola]

You guys are making me really glad that Pre -calc and up at our high school are college classes not AP they are taught to the sponsoring colleges syllabus and the teacher has to have special certification to teach it.  The first trimester of pre-calc is actually review and their is a test if you don't get a high enough score you are moved to a different class.

[Shoeless]

1 hour ago, rebcoola said:

You guys are making me really glad that Pre -calc and up at our high school are college classes not AP they are taught to the sponsoring colleges syllabus and the teacher has to have special certification to teach it.  The first trimester of pre-calc is actually review and their is a test if you don't get a high enough score you are moved to a different class.

I'm actually not sure I am glad pre-calc is college level only. This used to be a class commonly taught at the high school level by high school teachers, and taught well. I don't think students should be earning college credit for high school-level classes. 

I'm open to having my mind changed on this, however. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Shoeless

[EKS]

11 minutes ago, Shoeless said:

I'm actually not sure I am glad pre-calc is college level only. This used to be a class commonly taught at the high school level by high school teachers, and taught well. I don't think students should be earning college credit for high school-level classes. 

I'm open to having my mind changed on this, however. 

I agree with this. 

I think that precalculus is remedial at the college level, and because of this, it has the potential to be dumbed down.  Strong math students will have taken precalculus in high school, so what is left are the weaker ones in the college classes.  In other words, it is extremely unlikely that precalculus classes taught in college will be anything like the honors precalculus my son took at the local high school, which was excellent. 

That there is an AP precalculus course is laughable.  What's next, an AP arithmetic course?

[Shoeless]

5 minutes ago, EKS said:

I agree with this. 

I think that precalculus is remedial at the college level, and because of this, it has the potential to be dumbed down.  Strong math students will have taken precalculus in high school, so what is left are the weaker ones in the college classes.  In other words, it is extremely unlikely that precalculus classes taught in college will be anything like the honors precalculus my son took at the local high school, which was excellent. 

That there is an AP precalculus course is laughable.  What's next, an AP arithmetic course?

I've seen a few schools around here offer "pre-AP" courses, like pre-AP algebra 1. 

I don't really understand what those classes are accomplishing. There is no AP Algebra, so no how can you have a pre-AP version of it? 

[Frances]

8 hours ago, EKS said:

My father (who was a STEM professor at UCLA until 1998) tells me that even back then it was a known thing that the vast majority of Phi Beta Kappa members were in the social sciences and humanities because it was almost impossible to maintain a 4.0 in the STEM fields.

It’s sad that selection was so based on GPA. At my son’s college, students had to take at least two 300 level classes in each of the three main areas (science, humanities, and social sciences) to even be considered for Phi Beta Kappa. So it usually ended up being dominated by STEM majors and humanities/social science majors in the honors college because the honors college required upper level courses across all three areas.

[regentrude]

College administrators are pressuring faculty to lower the rates of students who fail a course, because students are paying customers who must be kept happy, academic standards be damned.

The availability of online courses makes this worse. Students can take difficult classes remotely at another institution that is known for handing out easy A's but whose credit transfers because the class has been declared equivalent, based on the list of topics covered. (Merely comparing syllabi doesn't allow an *actual* evaluation of equivalence, since it doesn't contain information about the actual assignments,  the complexity of exams, whether the exam problems have been drilled beforehand, how much extra credit is handed out.)

Then the administration at the college where the students are actually getting their degrees will pressure faculty to dumb down their courses to recoup the tuition dollars. It's ugly. And because of the intrinsic difficulty of STEM courses, it totally happens in STEM.

Now do we have thousands of totally unqualified engineers? Probably not. But do we have engineers who received a less rigorous foundation than graduates from their institution used to have, because they opted to take the hard math and physics at an easier school? Absolutely. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by regentrude

[regentrude]

4 hours ago, Shoeless said:

What resonated for me I this talk was his comment on test, AP classes. He said he'd seen kids with great scores, AP this and that, excellent gpa.  They get to Princeton and for the first time ever, see problems they have NO idea how to solve. They don't know what to do and bomb, and Princeton is not where you want to make the realization that you really don't know what you're doing.

The kids are great at memorization and can plug and chug, but can't problem solve.  They memorize and dump for the next test, wash, rinse, repeat for all of high school.

This.

DS noticed that his classmates didn't know what to do with a problem they haven't drilled. They never learned in school to think about a hard problem, make a sketch, try a few approaches, play around to find a solution. They don't recognize the type of problem and sit there stumped. 

In my physics classes, I observe similar: they try to learn by memorization and pattern matching, not conceptual understanding. I blame their K-12 education. 

[Melissa Louise]

29 minutes ago, regentrude said:

College administrators are pressuring faculty to lower the rates of students who fail a course, because students are paying customers who must be kept happy, academic standards be damned.

The availability of online courses makes this worse. Students can take difficult classes remotely at another institution that is known for handing out easy A's but whose credit transfers because the class has been declared equivalent, based on the list of topics covered. (Merely comparing syllabi doesn't allow an *actual* evaluation of equivalence, since it doesn't contain information about the actual assignments,  the complexity of exams, whether the exam problems have been drilled beforehand, how much extra credit is handed out.)

Then the administration at the college where the students are actually getting their degrees will pressure faculty to dumb down their courses to recoup the tuition dollars. It's ugly. And because of the intrinsic difficulty of STEM courses, it totally happens in STEM.

Now do we have thousands of totally unqualified engineers? Probably not. But do we have engineers who received a less rigorous foundation than graduates from their institution used to have, because they opted to take the hard math and physics at an easier school? Absolutely. 

This happens here as well, with pressure particularly brought to bear on passing full fee paying international students.

The people I know who teach in universities are in humanities, though, so perhaps the downstream consequences to this profit-first approach are less immediately troubling.

 

[Shoeless]

17 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

If you think this is CB paying for articles like this, you probably need to go to Teachers Reddit and read post after post from real teachers all across the US who are very worried about the lack of accountability and how they are required to grade- unlimited retakes, minimum 50%, steep curves.  Then go to Professor Reddit and you can see the results.... and college professors being asked to do the same. 

Teacher reddit is disheartening. 

And here I am, agonizing over how to grade my kid's work and whether or not I can call his astronomy course "honors" with a straight face.  I might as well slap whatever grade and label I want on his coursework. 

Who's School Is It Anyway? Where the grades are made up and the standards don't matter!

[Mama Geek]

This thread reminds me of the poem title Pretty Good by Charles Osgood.  I came across it a month or 2 ago.  My guess is I can't post it due to copyright but here is a link.  It really makes a statement on the current system of education in this country http://holyjoe.org/poetry/osgood1.htm

[Kidlit]

I haven't read the article.

 

I will say that the hardest thing for me when I returned to the elementary and high school classrooms from homeschooling was grading.  Period.  It stinks.  It became harder and harder for me to see the purpose of it in the current system if actual education is what we're after. 
 

I taught adjunct at a community college for years while homeschooling and didn't actually feel much (any?) pressure about grades.  I had students fail regularly.  What was most shocking to me was the attrition rate of students. 
 

My own kids make super high grades.  I'm always a little disappointed because I'd like for them to have the challenge of learning and improving.  My kids are "smart," so because I'm not in their classrooms, it's hard for me to tell how much is inflation.  

[Carrie12345]

My CC experience is kind of all over the place. In my sort-of-third semester, I have my first two classes that I might not get my full 4pts in. I consider myself smart, but not so smart that acing all of my other classes makes perfect sense.

HOWEVER, I’m looking at 2 different things, especially as an… eclectic homeschooler. Have I learned the material well? Yes. Has my output been stellar? Not always.  
Then there’s a 3rd question- could other students be learning poorly yet pass because there are open book tests, multiple retakes, dropped lowest scores, and weak rubrics? Probably. (Examples from multiple classes, each professor has completely different expectations.)

My ENGLISH professor has graded work twice this semester. Twice. So work is going in for weeks without getting feedback on previous work.  
Other professors set us up with interactive textbooks and we never hear from them.  
One has us buried in work, but grades ridiculously easy (if the work gets in.). 
Another gives us mostly Ted Talks to watch, and primarily ones I’ve already seen, lol.

I joined an honors society that’s trying to lower its GPA requirement to get more members, so students actually aren’t doing as fantastic as all that. Given what I’ve seen, I almost have to assume their high school education really stank. Then again, homeschooling my daughter was like pulling teeth, but SHE got As in DE. So I don’t know!

I know it’s not the same as giving As to failing high schoolers. But it IS crazy.

[Carrie12345]

3 hours ago, Shoeless said:

Teacher reddit is disheartening. 

And here I am, agonizing over how to grade my kid's work and whether or not I can call his astronomy course "honors" with a straight face.  I might as well slap whatever grade and label I want on his coursework. 

Who's School Is It Anyway? Where the grades are made up and the standards don't matter!

I almost didn’t graduate one of my dds, but her DE grades were so good, how could I not??? I was worried she wouldn’t even pass the Accuplacer based on home performance!

I didn’t graduate my other dd (who didn’t DE.) I can’t count how many times I’ve felt like I did her dirty. (Based on everyone else’s standards, not mine.)

Your Whose Line reference is on point! 

[pitterpatter]

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the stress of constant competition. I just wanted to get an decent education and enjoy my studies. That's what DD wants too. She wants to learn, enjoy, and have a life. She doesn't want to sit in a pool of anxiety worrying about tests and grades. The older I get, the more I understand the value of good mental health. The stress of constantly having to perform and be perfect sets you up for a very nice midlife crisis. At the same time, I get it. I don't think others should get passed through when they don't meet my definition of working hard. But who knows, maybe they are working hard for them. I don't know the state of a typical teen's mental health these days. (I do know that my cousin's son who is from an affluent household that values high achievement and went to a very good private high school developed an eating disorder his junior/senior year, lost a ton of weight, and had to enter therapy to deal with the stress of getting into an acceptable college. And, he was a good student, not a slacker at all.) Only have I recently learned how difficult it is to intellectually function on a brain that is full-up with personal worries and depression. So, my judgement of what's right in regard to fair grading and academic performance is way different than it used to be.

My DD is really into chemistry right now. She's taking biochem/organic chemistry, and she loves it. She can't stop talking about it. Is she acing the tests, no. However, she has no real-life instructor to ask questions of. When she misses something, she has to figure it out on her own, and she does. This takes a goodly amount of time and effort sometimes. Do I give her credit for getting it right the second time. Yup, I totally do. A big difference I see between our homeschool and my public education is that DD can't hide behind other students. She can't not read her textbooks or copy other students' answers to math problems right before class. She pretty much has to get every question, every math problem correct before moving on. I personally think there's a lot of value in that versus learning how to work the system in a traditional school. Then again, I suppose there's some value in that too. 🤷‍♀️ Lol.

Edited October 24, 2023 by pitterpatter

[catz]

My kid was inducted to his chapter of Phi Beta Kappa this spring.  Their requirements were

• Approx ~ 3.80+ GPA and ~3.80 GPA in major (GPAs are adjusted by year)
• College level math credits
• At least 3 higher level breadth non-major classes with at least the threshold GPA
• Foreign language requirement
• Clean record - academically and otherwise.

Around 200 of 7550 students were inducted.  

What is funny about my kid is he should have graduated with multiple honors cords.  He didn't bother to pick up any of them.  LOL.  He said "I'm so glad to graduate so I can go back to learning and reading whatever I want"  🤣  He got a great job, but I won't be surprised if he ends up in grad school in a couple years.  

[EKS]

5 hours ago, Shoeless said:

And here I am, agonizing over how to grade my kid's work and whether or not I can call his astronomy course "honors" with a straight face.  I might as well slap whatever grade and label I want on his coursework. 

It was definitely eye opening for me when my older son attended a "rigorous" private school for a year in high school.  I was more prepared for it when the younger one took classes at the public high school.  Between those experiences and my own experiences in (at that point) graduate school in two different disciplines, I had no qualms about giving an "advanced" label (defined as using college-level resources) to essentially all of the younger one's courses after that.

1 hour ago, pitterpatter said:

Do I give her credit for getting it right the second time. Yup, I totally do.

Me too.  And in my counselor documents I told them that the reason that the kids had uniformly high grades was that they worked to mastery.

1 hour ago, pitterpatter said:

A big difference I see between our homeschool and my public education is that DD can't hid behind other students. She can't not read her textbooks or copy other students' answers to math problems right before class. She pretty much has to get every question, every math problem correct before moving on.

And right here is one of the biggest benefits of homeschooling.

[EKS]

With regard to Phi Beta Kappa requiring students to have a breadth of classes to be inducted, it is very possible that that is a new(ish) requirement.  My father's knowledge of the subject dates back several decades.

[catz]

And I have no idea if the Phi Beta Kappa requirements are specific to his university's chapter?  They clearly are trying to keep it an honor society and not a participation trophy.

After seeing how things work around here at even fancy private schools in Lake Wobegon, I had no issue teaching to mastery or labeling things honors when expectations were very high for output.  Both my kids had a college GPA from DE anyway, so I think if you have good supporting data however your track your homeschoolers academics is likely fine.  

[Katy]

10 hours ago, regentrude said:

College administrators are pressuring faculty to lower the rates of students who fail a course, because students are paying customers who must be kept happy, academic standards be damned.

The availability of online courses makes this worse. Students can take difficult classes remotely at another institution that is known for handing out easy A's but whose credit transfers because the class has been declared equivalent, based on the list of topics covered. (Merely comparing syllabi doesn't allow an *actual* evaluation of equivalence, since it doesn't contain information about the actual assignments,  the complexity of exams, whether the exam problems have been drilled beforehand, how much extra credit is handed out.)

Then the administration at the college where the students are actually getting their degrees will pressure faculty to dumb down their courses to recoup the tuition dollars. It's ugly. And because of the intrinsic difficulty of STEM courses, it totally happens in STEM.

Now do we have thousands of totally unqualified engineers? Probably not. But do we have engineers who received a less rigorous foundation than graduates from their institution used to have, because they opted to take the hard math and physics at an easier school? Absolutely. 

I’m not sure this is true for engineering programs. I know DH took some classes at a community college and some of his gen-ed classes transferred for credit. But the engineering and computer science classes he took only transferred as electives because they weren’t taken at a school with some specific engineering accreditation. The name escapes me at the moment. Anyway he had to retake some of those classes and they were much harder at the university than the community college. 

[pitterpatter]

In our state, we have a set of core classes that are deemed equivalent and transfer between all institutions within the state that have bought into the program. I'm sure there were some state funds tied to its implementation, so the big state schools are part of it. DD is taking her first DE community college course this semester. Now that I know she can handle the work, which actually feels easier/more doable than a lot of homeschool curriculum, I am hoping to take advantage of this. One three credit-hour class at the community college (with the DE discount) costs less than one credit-hour at the state flagship. I feel so much more confident that our money and her time won't be a waste. It also feels as though it equalizes rural vs. suburban opportunity to enter college with some credit already under one's belt, not to mention homeschool vs. traditional school opportunity.
 

28 minutes ago, Katy said:

I’m not sure this is true for engineering programs. I know DH took some classes at a community college and some of his gen-ed classes transferred for credit. But the engineering and computer science classes he took only transferred as electives because they weren’t taken at a school with some specific engineering accreditation. The name escapes me at the moment. Anyway he had to retake some of those classes and they were much harder at the university than the community college. 

 

[EKS]

14 minutes ago, catz said:

Both my kids had a college GPA from DE anyway, so I think if you have good supporting data however your track your homeschoolers academics is likely fine. 

This is why I think the test optional movement (and the possible demise of the tests themselves eventually) is a serious problem, particularly for rigorous academic homeschoolers.  The tests are one way to provide confirmation of mommy grades (and already the SAT subject tests are no longer an option for this).  But just as important, to us at least, the test score range of accepted applicants provided a more objective means of understanding whether a college would be a good academic fit for a particular student (as GPA is meaningless).  Test optional means that those scores are skewed upward.  And test blind means no score range at all.

[Bambam]

23 hours ago, catz said:

I haven't seen data this is an overwhelming issue in college settings.  But I am more than willing to be convinced.  I mean it certainly seems easier for students to  have a good GPA than back when I graduated from an engineering program.  Are thousands of uprepared engineers being launched out in the world though?  I don't doubt some teachers feel pressured to push through some students.  At both my kids colleges, parents regularly post about kids failing classes, needing tutoring, switching major due to hitting a roadblock with a class, etc as well though.

 

As an engineer this is my fear. At one college, many of the beginning engineering students are flunking calculus courses and taking them over 2-4 times before they can pass. IMHO, if it takes that long, I think this might not be the correct major. No shame in that. 

My science major reported her favorite professor did basically written narration tests - tell me everything you remember about this subject, explain how it fits in with this concept - that sort of thing. You had to understand the material. She loved those tests and always did well, but most of the student hated those tests. Eventually the professor changed them to open book due to students complaining. I don't know if the average grade improved or not. To me the professor had to dumb down his testing due to complaining students. The professor had been doing it this way for years with little issue, but now he has to change to an easier test. That tells me the issue is not with the professor/testing method, but with the incoming students and their preparation (or lack of) for the upper level coursework. 

[catz]

2 hours ago, EKS said:

This is why I think the test optional movement (and the possible demise of the tests themselves eventually) is a serious problem, particularly for rigorous academic homeschoolers.  The tests are one way to provide confirmation of mommy grades (and already the SAT subject tests are no longer an option for this).  But just as important, to us at least, the test score range of accepted applicants provided a more objective means of understanding whether a college would be a good academic fit for a particular student (as GPA is meaningless).  Test optional means that those scores are skewed upward.  And test blind means no score range at all.

I have one kid that had test scores to apply anywhere.  I had another kid that applied test optional but who was in some ways more ready for college responsbility and rigor.   She had a couple ACTs cancelled during covid so didn't get as much experience with in person testing and was auditioning for music programs anyway.  We ran out of time.   But she was not applying to conservatories, she applied to all regular universities and colleges where she had to clear academic admissions on her own.   In her case she had 45 college credits, was dual enrolling at our 4 year flagship and had a 3.8 college GPA.  She actually did very similarly to my apply anywhere kid in terms of merit and acceptances.  Though because we were shooting for merit, we had a smarter list for her

The longer I'm around watching this process, the less I think of test scores and ranges.  It correlates strongly to wealth.  My high stat apply anywhere kid ended up at a state flagship with a 27-32 range ACT when he entered.  And test optional was not possible.  Yes, he was an honors student there but he had no problem finding academic peers or having a great social experience there.  I mean to be fair, there were probably approaching 2000 students in his class that had over an ACT 32.  The average income of a student there was a lot lower than the average student of the privates he was looking at though with higher scores.  I also know homeschoolers (unschooly types) who spent many months+ just focusing on testing and padded their transcripts.  That isn't a good education.  But you know what, I know one that got into a T20 and is doing just fine and is probably filling some educational holes.   That said, not every kid with a high test score in a highly rejective school walks on water and breathes education.

I'm not sure those test ranges are as informative as schools like to advertise and need to be looked at in context.  And I'm not really sure test optional has changed how admissions looks at individual applications that much having watched admissions out of our metro closely for the last many years.  But again, if test optional doesn't work, it will be dropped.  I do think a couple competitive tech schools added it back in primiarly to see that math score.  Which they will require a placement test for anyway, so they don't overly trust those scores either. 

The good thing is it still is an option that can be submitted if you think it tells something about you and fills out your application.  Testing is required of homeschoolers here yearly, so we always did something.  I actually thought that was a good requirement and I didn't mind it.  But I never wanted it to be more than a passing thought for us.  So many better ways for a teen to be educating themselves and spending their time.

At my kid's school and my own engineering program, Calc 2 was often the bottleneck for pre-engineering.  A few students would drop and retake once they learned how to keep up on college work.  I personally can't imagine as a parent paying for the same classes more than twice.  Even a full fail, I'm not sure.  That F stays on a transcript.  But I do know plenty of students who started pre-engineering and ended up on a completely different path or deciding college wasn't for them.  ABET accredited engineering programs do have very particular requirements.  I actually think it is a good thing there is more tutoring available for students who may be struggling.  But you can't force a kid to show up for that. 

This was actually an interesting blurb about engineering.  My kid is employed at a company now that hires a lot of new grads out of a lot of majors.  Including engineering majors that then do some STEM related, but non-engineering jobs.  It pays well and it's a well paid, professionally job.   So I don't necessarily think getting an engineering degree and not working in engineering is "losing".  But it does say half of engineering students drop out or switch major.

https://www.degreechoices.com/blog/is-engineering-a-good-major/#:~:text=Just over half (52%),overflow of unemployed engineering graduates.

Edited October 24, 2023 by catz

[rebcoola]

13 hours ago, Shoeless said:

I'm actually not sure I am glad pre-calc is college level only. This used to be a class commonly taught at the high school level by high school teachers, and taught well. I don't think students should be earning college credit for high school-level classes. 

I'm open to having my mind changed on this, however. 

Idk if it is regular pre-calc thats how the 1st trimester where they dont get college credit is called then. its listed as Math-152 & 153, the others are math 172, & 173 and finally 272 and 273

Edited October 24, 2023 by rebcoola

[El...]

I've been talking to my Dad about this. He and Mom homeschooled me starting back before it was cool (or maybe quite legally defined, cough).

He says he took the AP Calculus offered at his high school, graduating in the early 1970s, but when he got to RPI, they made him take it again "their way," and he was glad they did because it was a lot better and harder.

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, Katy said:

I’m not sure this is true for engineering programs. I know DH took some classes at a community college and some of his gen-ed classes transferred for credit. But the engineering and computer science classes he took only transferred as electives because they weren’t taken at a school with some specific engineering accreditation. The name escapes me at the moment. Anyway he had to retake some of those classes and they were much harder at the university than the community college. 

Probably ABET was the certification that was missing.

ABET schools tend to be more rigorous in their engineering department because they are reviewed regularly for accreditation, and it is much tougher to maintain ABET than general.college accreditation. My youngest is an electrical engineer, and except for about four gen ed courses from a handful of community colleges, they accept NO other coursework from ABET accredited schools. His friend, whose parents bought a song and dance from admissions at a local CC "You will save so much money if your son does two years here and then transfers", found out the hard way. 

Friend graduated from a CC with an Associates of Science,  two or three semester of physics, calc 1 & 2, intro to chem, a couple of " electrical engineering classes" (not even close to the scope and sequence of ABET curriculum), all the gen eds, etc. 70 credits. Then he applied to four different universities for electrical engineering. He not only missed out on the good first year scholarships, but he was back to square one. They gave him credit for US History, College Comp, Intro to Psych, and World History as required gen eds, 12 credits, out of 70. On top of which he got smacked down big time in tuition costs because all of these universities charge a higher rate per credit hour for junior level standing. So they awarded him 48 credits of "electives", and then declared him a junior, and he paid the higher rate for freshmen and sophomore level work that he had to take over again. He will end up being in school for 6-7 years, and it is going to cost nearly double the tuition of what it would have if he had applied and entered as a traditional 18 year old first year. He did not get credit for Calc 1 and 2. He took the placement exam that is required of all students, and tested ready for Calc 1. The CC had done a pathetic job of teaching math, and hadn't covered all the required topics. Thankfully, being ready for Calc 1 again at least put him the in the calendar rotation for staying on schedule for math and science courses.

[EKS]

1 hour ago, catz said:

The longer I'm around watching this process, the less I think of test scores and ranges.  It correlates strongly to wealth.

Just because something correlates to something else doesn't mean that one thing is causing the other.  It could be a third thing (or a group of things) causing both things.  At the population level, I mean.

1 hour ago, catz said:

My high stat apply anywhere kid ended up at a state flagship with a 27-32 range ACT when he entered.  And test optional was not possible.  Yes, he was an honors student there but he had no problem finding academic peers or having a great social experience there. 

This doesn't surprise me.  A full quarter of the students had ACT scores above 32.  Which is something like the 97th percentile.

1 hour ago, catz said:

That F stays on a transcript.

My son's engineering school didn't record Ds and Fs on the transcript.  Their reasoning is that they expected students to fail courses.  They actually said this.  They even suggested that if a student knew they were going to fail a course, that they keep trying anyway until the end of the term because that work would pay off the next time they took it.  And if a student had to retake a failed course, the tuition for that course was half off.  I am in full support of this way of doing things.  It keeps courses rigorous.  It gives students permission to struggle and to fail because something is hard.  And it generates a transcript that shows what a student learned in the end.  This should be what is important.

[catz]

One of our local CCs has a partnership with an ABET engineering program at a public university.  In fact, they have faculty running back and forth to teach pre-engineering at this CC.  So there are CC programs that can set you up for a good 4 year engineering transfer (though it isn't super uncommon for engineering to take up to 5 if you aren't coming in with some credits).  And we have DE kids that do that program for free, I know several who have taken advantage of it.  

But you certainly need to do your homework if you are really hoping for that 4 year transfer to work out and are looking at the path to save money.  It seems really irresponsible for a CC not to be advising well for a kid interested in a transfer program?  Both my kids did some DE through our local CCs and those advisors knew the ins and outs of instate public transfer for sure.  Even their out of state schools took most their credits.  

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, catz said:

One of our local CCs has a partnership with an ABET engineering program at a public university.  In fact, they have faculty running back and forth to teach pre-engineering at this CC.  So there are CC programs that can set you up for a good 4 year engineering transfer (though it isn't super uncommon for engineering to take up to 5 if you aren't coming in with some credits).  And we have DE kids that do that program for free, I know several who have taken advantage of it.  

But you certainly need to do your homework if you are really hoping for that 4 year transfer to work out and are looking at the path to save money.  It seems really irresponsible for a CC not to be advising well for a kid interested in a transfer program?  Both my kids did some DE through our local CCs and those advisors knew the ins and outs of instate public transfer for sure.  Even their out of state schools took most their credits.  

A lot of CC administrators in our state are crooked. It is all about money, and they lie through their teeth about what can and can not transfer in order to get those federal and state dollars because CCs are so well subsidized compared to state universities. Their enrollment numbers would drop a lot if they were honest. My state does not regulate CC like some states do, California being one that comes to mind as doing a good job.

[Heartstrings]

5 minutes ago, catz said:

But you certainly need to do your homework if you are really hoping for that 4 year transfer to work out and are looking at the path to save money.  It seems really irresponsible for a CC not to be advising well for a kid interested in a transfer program?  Both my kids did some DE through our local CCs and those advisors knew the ins and outs of instate public transfer for sure.  Even their out of state schools took most their credits

My son sat down with the transfer specialist at our local CC before enrolling and she told him that he wasn’t a good candidate for transferring because of his major.  She said he’d be better if starting at the 4 year from the get go, so he did.  I’m glad I’ve read enough here to know to talk to the transfer person, and I’m glad she was honest with him.  

Edited October 24, 2023 by Heartstrings

[Bootsie]

9 minutes ago, EKS said:

My son's engineering school didn't record Ds and Fs on the transcript.  Their reasoning is that they expected students to fail courses.  They actually said this.  They even suggested that if a student knew they were going to fail a course, that they keep trying anyway until the end of the term because that work would pay off the next time they took it.  And if a student had to retake a failed course, the tuition for that course was half off.  I am in full support of this way of doing things.  It keeps courses rigorous.  It gives students permission to struggle and to fail because something is hard.  And it generates a transcript that shows what a student learned in the end.  This should be what is important.

I think there are many merits to this approach.  One thing I see with college students is that they have not been given the permission to try, struggle, and fail--which can be a great learning experience.  To do this effectively, however, the university has to be able to control admissions and really allow for failure.  I taught a junior-level course at a state university that many students found rigorous.  I had 300-student sections and invariably I would have 10% of the class drop a month into the semester after never stepping foot in the classroom, taking a quiz, or turning in a homework. In order to increase graduation rates and lower costs of higher education, students were charged MORE tuition if they enrolled in a class a third time.  A large problem is that the admissions, grading, and graduation expectations need to be aligned--you can't run a university where everyone is admitted, everyone gets good grades, and everyone graduates and have any meaningful education occuring.  

[Katy]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

Probably ABET was the certification that was missing.

ABET schools tend to be more rigorous in their engineering department because they are reviewed regularly for accreditation, and it is much tougher to maintain ABET than general.college accreditation. My youngest is an electrical engineer, and except for about four gen ed courses from a handful of community colleges, they accept NO other coursework from ABET accredited schools. His friend, whose parents bought a song and dance from admissions at a local CC "You will save so much money if your son does two years here and then transfers", found out the hard way. 

Friend graduated from a CC with an Associates of Science,  two or three semester of physics, calc 1 & 2, intro to chem, a couple of " electrical engineering classes" (not even close to the scope and sequence of ABET curriculum), all the gen eds, etc. 70 credits. Then he applied to four different universities for electrical engineering. He not only missed out on the good first year scholarships, but he was back to square one. They gave him credit for US History, College Comp, Intro to Psych, and World History as required gen eds, 12 credits, out of 70. On top of which he got smacked down big time in tuition costs because all of these universities charge a higher rate per credit hour for junior level standing. So they awarded him 48 credits of "electives", and then declared him a junior, and he paid the higher rate for freshmen and sophomore level work that he had to take over again. He will end up being in school for 6-7 years, and it is going to cost nearly double the tuition of what it would have if he had applied and entered as a traditional 18 year old first year. He did not get credit for Calc 1 and 2. He took the placement exam that is required of all students, and tested ready for Calc 1. The CC had done a pathetic job of teaching math, and hadn't covered all the required topics. Thankfully, being ready for Calc 1 again at least put him the in the calendar rotation for staying on schedule for math and science courses.

Yes, I think you’re right. 

[SanDiegoMom]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

Just because something correlates to something else doesn't mean that one thing is causing the other.  It could be a third thing (or a group of things) causing both things.  At the population level, I mean.

 

This is exactly what my husband and I were arguing about last night.  The New York Times had an article about the SAT correlating strongly with wealth and his takeaway was that it was a bad test and should be gotten rid of.  My argument was that it revealed information which could be interpreted many different ways (my biggest concern is the inequities of K-12 education based on zip code) and that doing away with the test doesn't change anything.

I also feel that it is the best of what we have at the moment, as nothing else has really risen to take it's place.  If grade inflation is rampant (which I do believe it is, based on what I have seen) then how else can you cheaply measure academic potential? 

[fairfarmhand]

Here's what I've explained to my kids about GPA and Test scores. The college that they attend uses both metrics for their scholarship awards (GPA of 3.5  ACT score of 31). The GPA says that often the kid has learned to work hard, do homework, have good study skills, and stay consistent over the course of their high school education. The ACT score says that they've learned some things and can take a test. Both metrics help the college determine how likely the student is going to be successful in the program. A high GPA and low ACT score often means that the student went to a poorly performing school and they have experienced grade inflation. The kid looks good on paper for his high school career but he missed something somewhere. A high ACT score and low GPA may say that the student is bright but may not have the skills to be successful in school. That's why both metrics are employed for scholarships. 

[Sneezyone]

10 hours ago, Shoeless said:

Teacher reddit is disheartening. 

And here I am, agonizing over how to grade my kid's work and whether or not I can call his astronomy course "honors" with a straight face.  I might as well slap whatever grade and label I want on his coursework. 

Who's School Is It Anyway? Where the grades are made up and the standards don't matter!

There are states with more robust standards that allow you to assess knowledge vs grades. They do exist. As more educated/knowledgeable parents, we can identify a discrepancy between good grades and passing scores (high proficiency-advanced) on state assessments because the assessments are based on content-rich standards. That’s not true everywhere but it’s a LOCAL issue and parent engagement/knowledge issue. Too many parents think grades=content mastery.

[Sneezyone]

3 hours ago, Bambam said:

As an engineer this is my fear. At one college, many of the beginning engineering students are flunking calculus courses and taking them over 2-4 times before they can pass. IMHO, if it takes that long, I think this might not be the correct major. No shame in that. 

My science major reported her favorite professor did basically written narration tests - tell me everything you remember about this subject, explain how it fits in with this concept - that sort of thing. You had to understand the material. She loved those tests and always did well, but most of the student hated those tests. Eventually the professor changed them to open book due to students complaining. I don't know if the average grade improved or not. To me the professor had to dumb down his testing due to complaining students. The professor had been doing it this way for years with little issue, but now he has to change to an easier test. That tells me the issue is not with the professor/testing method, but with the incoming students and their preparation (or lack of) for the upper level coursework. 

Or, some students aren’t good at oral narration? That’s a thing too. They may be able to SHOW but not TELL. There are multiple ways to demonstrate content mastery.

[Sneezyone]

2 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

Here's what I've explained to my kids about GPA and Test scores. The college that they attend uses both metrics for their scholarship awards (GPA of 3.5  ACT score of 31). The GPA says that often the kid has learned to work hard, do homework, have good study skills, and stay consistent over the course of their high school education. The ACT score says that they've learned some things and can take a test. Both metrics help the college determine how likely the student is going to be successful in the program. A high GPA and low ACT score often means that the student went to a poorly performing school and they have experienced grade inflation. The kid looks good on paper for his high school career but he missed something somewhere. A high ACT score and low GPA may say that the student is bright but may not have the skills to be successful in school. That's why both metrics are employed for scholarships. 

Except that’s not what the test score means anymore, or ever? That high test score can also represent under-challenged students who are tired of busy work (low GPA), it can be kids with undiagnosed/remediated low processing speed (low ntl. Standardized test scores) with high GPAs and AP courses/tests as validators who just need more TIME than the SAT/ACT allows. It can be kids who’ve mastered everything their school threw at them (which wasn’t much) and could and will master much more if given the chance. We don’t have national curriculum. States’ standards are more/less strong, and student performance *is* often based on family income (to include tutoring/private instruction, which my son has)…more support is a thing. It’s not an equal or fair comparison. Some things, like study skills, are easily remediated. Some things, like commitment and drive, are not.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Clarita]

The longer I homeschool (my oldest is just in first grade), the more I think grades are dumb. I think the world would do much better if education could just be checklists of can you do this. Then we just look at people's checklists of they're capable of and decide their merits that way.

Even some of the stuff in this conversation really doesn't matter in the job world. When I worked with people at engineering jobs, it doesn't matter if it took them multiple times to complete calculus course or just once (most engineers have to take more than one course of calculus and then later take even more to apply that calculus to whatever their specialty is). What matters is they know the material before working with me. some of the best coworkers were people who had to work hard for their degrees/certifications. Some of the worst coworkers were people who found the schooling to be easy (too fearful of failing, isn't someone who can bring out the best in their teammates, having trouble relating to people who don't know as much as they do). 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Clarita
Clearly I'm incapable of spelling.

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

This is exactly what my husband and I were arguing about last night.  The New York Times had an article about the SAT correlating strongly with wealth and his takeaway was that it was a bad test and should be gotten rid of.  My argument was that it revealed information which could be interpreted many different ways (my biggest concern is the inequities of K-12 education based on zip code) and that doing away with the test doesn't change anything.

 

We are hiaving this discussion at my university right now.  We went "test optional" during COVID and there is discussion of whether it should be continued.  The university is committed to increassing diversity and enrolling more students from under-represented populations.  The argument is that the standardized tests favor those from wealther families.  However, we have over 7000 applicants for 3000 slots--some process will need to be made to choose those who are accepted.  High school reputation, curriculum, and GPA are alos title toward those from wealthier families.  If we take those out to look at "holistic" evaluations--it ends up being who volunteered in Africa, who had a great summer internship, who started a business in high school (with mom and dad's contacts)... all opportunities that are disproportionately available to students from higher sociaeconomic groups.  It isn't clear that other measures of choosing aren't more biased. 

 

[Sneezyone]

I am completely in favor of having guaranteed admissions pathways for those who prove themselves at less selective institutions and want more exclusive careers. I think small, liberal arts colleges are uniquely positioned to provide the notional and academic supports students need. Again, per Gladwell, all those exclusive colleges hemorrhaging undergrads in exclusive majors need to fill their hollow ranks with students prepped to succeed. Those options are available and should be expanded.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Sneezyone

[catz]

54 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

 If we take those out to look at "holistic" evaluations--it ends up being who volunteered in Africa, who had a great summer internship, who started a business in high school (with mom and dad's contacts)... all opportunities that are disproportionately available to students from higher sociaeconomic groups.  It isn't clear that other measures of choosing aren't more biased. 

I am the last person who is going to try and claim college admissions is "fair'.  At the end of the day, college admissions skews to the wealthy.  No question.  ~14% of students in the US attend a private high school.  But it isn't unusual for ~40% of students from high end private colleges to have attended a private high school.

That said, admissions offices do have the ability to decide the kid watching siblings, starting stuff from scratch at the local public school, working a menial job while maintaining strong grades and having good references, volunteering in the community, etc. is more than worthy of admissions and will be a productive member of campus as well.   They know generally who the wealthier families are by the applications who come through the table.  The have all sorts of predictive data now on who can be successful on campus, who is likely to attend, etc.  If they chose not to do that, it's not like a single test score is going to change their model or how they look at students.   

I just don't really think that single test score changes much in the admission offices, especially with all the data and analytics they have at the ready now.  These admission offices know how to skew the right amount of money through the door while getting a student body that will be likely to finish their degree and participate in meaningful ways on campus.  

[Shelydon]

I have two kids in college, one is about to graduate. They are sailing through their classes both lower level and upper level. They said everything we have done as homeschoolers or at our homeschool co-op with significantly more rigorous than what they have encountered in college. When I look at some of the papers they have turned in for classes, I would have given them a c and made them rewrite, but they got high A's and their professors comment that they are some of the best students they've had in years. Their roommates, while very sweet struggle profusely with even the most basic of courses and they had straight A's or A's and B's in high school. They literally cannot pass remedial math even though they've taken it three times. It is truly alarming to me and I'm so glad I home schooled. 

[EKS]

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

The university is committed to increassing diversity and enrolling more students from under-represented populations.  The argument is that the standardized tests favor those from wealther families.

What's interesting is that the tests were developed in an effort to cast a wider net--that is to find students from underrepresented populations that would do well in college.

Frankly, the effort to make the tests less like IQ tests and more like achievement tests has undermined this goal.

Edited October 24, 2023 by EKS

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

What's interesting is that the tests were developed in an effort to cast a wider net--that is to find students from underrepresented populations that would do well in college.

Frankly, the effort to make the tests less like IQ tests and more like achievement tests has undermined this goal.

The wage/wealth gap when the tests were developed was significantly smaller, so too were the academic/facility disparities among institutions. That is no longer the case and hasn’t been for some time. There’s no surprise that the lack of social investment in communities, people, and schools yields disparate outcomes nationwide. Every state isn’t suffering behind poor academic outcomes and underprepared/undereducated students. NAEP points us toward those states with undereducated masses (albeit not adjusted for homogeneity). Is anyone paying attention? I think not. Homogeneity is its own hamstring. https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/fixing-bias-current-state-k-12-education-rankings#introduction

Edited October 25, 2023 by Sneezyone

[catz]

The SAT specifically has some pretty ugly history.  The guy who started the SAT was part of a Eugenics organization.  I don't even want to quote some of the nonsense he was spewing.  

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2020/08/17/history-sat-reflects-systemic-racism-opinion

[EKS]

14 hours ago, EKS said:

What's interesting is that the tests were developed in an effort to cast a wider net--that is to find students from underrepresented populations that would do well in college.

11 hours ago, catz said:

The SAT specifically has some pretty ugly history.  The guy who started the SAT was part of a Eugenics organization.  I don't even want to quote some of the nonsense he was spewing.  

These two facts are not mutually exclusive.

[catz]

17 minutes ago, EKS said:

These two facts are not mutually exclusive.

I didn’t say they were 

[whitestavern]

A related article 

https://www.thefp.com/p/i-was-fired-for-setting-academic-standards/comments

[Clarita]

4 hours ago, whitestavern said:

A related article 

https://www.thefp.com/p/i-was-fired-for-setting-academic-standards/comments

The worst part of that article was the school just decided to increase all the student's grades, and cancel test scores, etc. The students may have had a point about the professor not being a good teacher. Then shouldn't the administrations job be to look at if those claims are valid and work towards getting them better teaching, not just better grades.

Overall I just hate that as a society we make students believe that grades and their rankings are the most important thing. 

[kbutton]

On 10/23/2023 at 10:50 AM, BusyMom5 said:

Reading textbooks requires reading comprehension skills, note-taking skills, and an attention span! 

What’s a text book? Sarcasm alert.

Haven’t gotten far into the thread yet, but how many high schoolers have see a text book?