There’s an article in Inside Higher Ed today on the problem of college readiness:
We must come together in postsecondary education on many of these points if we are to prepare far greater numbers of students for college. ACT Inc. estimates that 60 percent to 70 percent of its test takers are not well-prepared for college study. Considering that only about half of students who enroll in college actually earn a degree or certificate, we must find ways to confront this problem. Research shows that most future job opportunities in the U.S. will require some level of college study or career training after high school.
The article goes on to make some fairly specific recommendations on how to improve college readiness.
As a college professor teaching introductory physics, I have to say that I see a lot of students who are not properly prepared for the classes they’re in. Personally, I blame the Advanced Placement test program.
OK, that sounds really counter-intuitive, which is why I left it as a teaser before the cut…
To clarify a bit, the issues I’m talking about with our introductory students is not the same issue that Dave Spence is talking about in Inside Higher Ed. He’s talking about a global problem of students who are flatly unprepared to be in college at all– students who have trouble with basic reading and writing, and simple math. That is a real societal problem, and afflicts post-secondary education as a whole.
I’m writing from the perspective of a faculty member at a relatively elite private liberal arts college, where we don’t really grapple directly with that issue. For all we complain about the deficiencies in some of our students’ education, they can all read and write just fine. They might not read the way we want them to, or write as well as we’d like, but they’re at least competent.
The preparedness issue I see is much narrower: I see lots of students in calculus-based physics classes who are not well prepared to deal with calculus based physics. The funny thing is, the problem isn’t with calculus– most of them have actually had a little calculus, and can happily take derivatives of polynomial functions. Many of them can even do derivatives of trig functions, and anti-derivatives of polynomials.
The problem is, they can’t do algebra worth a damn.
Every year, our introductory classes are full of students who know the rudiments of calculus, and can happily plug numbers into formulae, but who go into vapor lock when asked to do symbolic manipulation. They can mostly handle “Solve for x” when given a simple equation like “x2 – 2x + 1 = 0″, but if you give them an equation with a square root or an “x” in the denominator (“3x + 1/x = 1”), it’s an absolute train wreck. And solving two equations to find two unknown quantities is pretty much hopeless.
This is where I blame the Advanced Placement program, or, rather, the parents and admissions counselors who have overemphasized AP tests to the point where they’re considered almost a prerequisite for admission, rather than a nice bonus for those who can handle advanced material. As a result, college-bound students are rushed through algebra, trigonometry, and geometry so they can get to AP calculus, and don’t get enough practice with the basics.
Frankly, these students would be better served by passing up calculus in high school to spend more time on the basics. The calculus you need for introductory mechanics is really pretty minimal, and can pretty much be picked up on the fly. An inability to handle symbolic manipulation, though, is absolutely crippling.
The problem is, there’s no way to put “I’m really good at algebra” on a college transcript and have it stand out. Particularly when huge numbers of students are taking AP classes. In terms of trying to get into good schools, taking AP calculus boosts your application, even if you don’t really have the basic grounding in algebra and trigonometry that you should have. So that’s what students do, and rather than getting students who are good at algebra, but haven’t seen calculus, we get students who have a really superficial knowledge of calculus, and also a really superficial knowledge of algebra. Which is much worse in terms of being prepared to deal with college-level physics, but better in terms of puffing up a college application.
This sort of circles back around to the random admissions idea. What that is intended to do is to address the same sort of problem with respect to extra-curricular activities– parents and students aren’t content to just have excellent grades, and now are trying to pile on dozens of service activities, making life miserable for, well, everybody involved. I don’t really think random admissions would fix the problem, but is sort of interesting as a suggestion for a way to attempt to address the problem.
Of course, really fixing the problem on the academic side would require everyone to agree to back off a bit on the admissions arms race, and I’m not sure that’s really possible. On the college side, AP tests are a convenient way to distinguish strong applicants, so it’s natural that students and parents are going to push for more AP tests. It would require unusual willpower on all sides to keep AP tests from becoming a de facto prerequisite for admission, as they have. It’s a natural progression, and almost unavoidable.
Returning to the broader college readiness issue, there’s a case to be made that the same sort of thing has already happened with high school and college diplomas– we’ve evolved into a system where college degrees are required for jobs that don’t actually need college degrees, forcing students who quite likely don’t belong in college to try to get those degrees in order to get a job. There is a serious point to be made along those lines, but this position has been pretty thoroughly poisoned by goobers like “Uncle Al,” and I don’t really have the time or energy to try to navigate that particular minefield right now.
For the moment, then, let’s just leave it at this: I blame Advanced Placement calculus for the fact that so many intro students aren’t really ready for college physics.