Lots more Kentucky students will need college remediation this fall

Tighter standards are coming

I commented earlier on the grim reality for recent Kentucky high school graduates who go on to our postsecondary system with inadequate preparation. Chances are low that they will ever win a coveted degree, especially for students entering two-year degree programs.

Because of the low odds, some stark realities are about to hit kids who just graduated from our high schools and will start college in the fall. About 1,595 more of them than last year will need remedial courses in math. That increases the already high remediation rate of 29 percent to 37 percent for this subject.

Furthermore, almost 2,000 more freshmen will have to get reading help before they can start credit-bearing college work. That will increase the reading remedial rate from 17 percent from last year to 28 percent.

The trigger for these sharp rises are new college standards for 2010 that determine who requires remediation. Tougher standards will better identify the students who need to repair their inadequate preparation in Kentucky’s public high schools.



The new facts of life about who will need remediation are brought home in this slide presented to the Kentucky legislature’s Interim Joint Education Committee on Monday by Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education president Robert L. King.


The minimum score to avoid remedial courses in math will rise by one point this fall, and the reading remedial cutoff will rise by two points from the standards used last year.

As a consequence, King projects that there will be notable increases in the percentages and numbers of entering freshmen who must take these non-credit bearing courses.

To avoid ending on an unhappy note, King also noted new programs are coming in response to Senate Bill 1 (2009 Regular Session) to help solve the enduring failure of KERA to prepare kids for college.

New programs include “Bridge Programming” to help with high school to college transitions, alerting kids to their deficiencies so they can get better prepared before they leave high school.

The university system also plans to take those students with lower needs for remediation and give them “Accelerated” opportunity to get up to speed for college in a shorter period of time.

King also plans better student support and intervention systems in our colleges, and more professional development for college faculty, as well. The last item is noteworthy, as college instructors traditionally have not spent much time on improving their teaching techniques.

Still, all of this is in the forecast, but the reality right now is far too many of our kids are not ready for college, and the situation isn’t going to look better in a few months when this year’s high school graduates matriculate. It’s sad that these kids will have to pay for KERA’s failure to come to grips with reality over the past 20 years.

But, it is laudable that Kentucky’s postsecondary system is finally working with our P to 12 educators to try to come to grips with this embarrassing problem in a proactive way. Let’s hope our legislators support this badly needed toughening of standards despite the embarrassment it creates for those who have been KERA’s unquestioning, status-quo supporters.