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College Stuns Grads

A front page article in the Dallas Morning News announces that most high school gradsare lucky to have a C average the first semester in college.   That would be what one would expect from a normal distribution but apparently that is not a topic covered in journalism school. Not surprisingly students do better at community colleges. Alarmingly one dim bulb administrator remarks that high school which gives students a pass on final exams does not prepare them to cram for finals. Good grief, no one ever learned anything cramming for finals.  NO wonder we are in trouble.

Still this is a topic among accounting teachers at every meeting I attend. How bad is it?  UT Arlington and UTSA now require all students including their own grads to take an exam to enter intermediate accounting I.

There is really nothing new in all this, indeed it was this way when I entered UT Austin way back in 1966.  Two years later it was revealed that one half  the entire college of business was on scholastic probation. This means they had less than a C average, well duh. I am still grappling with the realization that then and now students will not read their textbooks, well what outcome would one expect?  A gifted student may not be, they just read the book.

The article goes on to point out that many students are in remedial writing and math. They five paragraph essay in high school is not adequate for college. The reality I suspect is that the student never wrote a good five paragraph essay in high school, and cannot write one in college.

We will be discussing success strategies the first day of class…..

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5 responses to “College Stuns Grads”

  1. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Takes a lot of audacity to make a critical argument in a post so riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Maybe you wrote this on your Blackberry or something, but it’s an embarrassment. That “most high school grads are lucky to have a C average the first semester in collegte [sic]” is not an accurate summary of the article’s point. The piece implies that half the students from some of the weaker high schools have a below a C average in their first college semester. It doesn’t say the majority of all college-bound high school grads. Yet you use next sentence to take what appears to be a shot at the innumeracy of journalism education that seems irrelevant to the article and foolhardy given the complete lack of rhetorical and logical competence displayed in this post. It seems likely that you are among the group that “never wrote a good five paragraph essay in high school.”

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Typos, I am continuing to have difficulty with my eyesight due to fluid and floaters in my eye, still post retinal detachment surgery time.
    Will run thru the spell check next time.
    But the fact remains that most grade profiles conform to a normal distribution, and there will be low scores abundant in such a distribution.
    Join the discussion, let’s talk about the message not the messenger, Texas high schools are not producing college ready students in fat too many cases. Texas longs to equal Ny and CA 5-6% coallege grads. Half of Hispanic males drop out of high school, that alone makes it tough to elevate the population to a higher level.

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  3. Tina C Avatar
    Tina C

    As a wife of a high school teacher (16+ years) and as a professional in public accounting and as a mother of two children in the public education system, I can safely say from my viewpoint that SOMETHING is lacking in education. We have kids being taught in high school only what they need to pass the TAKS test. It doesn’t matter if they can’t reconcile their checkbook or make change at the local store, they are being trained for The Test. My firm has begun using interns on a frequent basis. This provides us with a trial period to see if they have actually learned anything from their time in college. Too many times we see college graduates who have no ability or knowledge in the areas they just received a degree in (accounting students SHOULD know how to reconcile a checkbook and also the difference between a debit and credit). It’s way past due for our society to realize that all the “educating” in the world isn’t worth a hill of beans if the children aren’t being “taught” and taught to think.

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  4. Sylvia Amison Avatar
    Sylvia Amison

    Having one child in elementary and one in junior high the focus is the same as in high school. The school year is revolved around preparing our children for the tests that will determine whether or not our children have mastered the skills necessary to be promoted to the next grade level. What happened to the days in which we studied at home for history, math, science, and spent endless hours reading a book for a book report? I do agree with the article that regardless of what high school we come from, some students will not be ready for college. With college comes freedom and responsibilities. If every freshman student was paired up with a mentor it might help them stay focused. Through my own experience at a two year college and a four year university, (started out at a four year university then went to junior college) the transition from high school to a two year college is not as difficult. The course load at a two year college is not as overwhelming as a four year university. I agree with Tina C that our children need to be taught to think.

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  5. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Sylvia and Tina
    Thanks for your thoughts
    Dennis

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