Grant County young people bound for college are better prepared than many in the state, according to a recently released study.

The Ready for College 2007 study conducted by the state’s Higher Education Department, reported the number of high school graduates attending in-state universities that needed remedial classes before enrolling in college level studies.

The report focused on the areas of math and reading and only targeted high school graduates attending in-state institutions. According to the report, some 49 percent of the state’s high school graduates in 2006 needed remedial work before enrolling in college classes. The study sampled 7,687 New Mexico students attending in-state institutions.

The percentage is down slightly from the past four years where the number was as high as 50.8 percent in 2004 and 50.4 percent in 2005. Prior to that the percentage was as low as 46.2 percent in 2000.

The average, per high school, of students needing remedial classes ranged from just under 18 percent to nearly 86 percent of students studied.

According to the report, many students from Grant County schools are beating the state average. Students at Cliff High School needing remedial classes in both math and reading was just over 18 percent of 11 students studied. The combined average for Cliff High was just over 36 percent, down nearly two points from 38 percent in 2005.

At Silver High School the average from 118 students was just over 31 percent in math and just below 17 percent in reading. The combined average was 35.6 percent also a drop from 43 percent in 2005.

Over a six-year average Silver High students needing remediation was just over 45 percent, while the six-year average at Cliff High was 40 percent.

The report puts Silver High School the eighth lowest of the top 66 schools in the state, Superintendent Dick Pool said.

“This study is just one indicator to how well a school is doing,” he said. “There are other tests that we can use that also show how a school is doing.”

Pool said the study shows a direct correlation between the number of students requiring remediation and the Standards-Based Assessment test taken at the high school level.

“If you are going to go to college you need to prepare yourself,” he said. “It begins in elementary and middle school.”

He said the study also shows that students who take college-level classes while in high school are also less likely to need remediation when they attend college.

“This is a clear indicator that students need to take advantage of concurrent enrollment,” he said. “Parents should be pushing their kids to take these advanced classes.”

Pool said of the 2006 graduating class of Silver High only 64 percent went on to a college or university, of those, many were out-of-state universities and those students were not included in the study.

He added that the district has noticed the disparity between students needing remediation in math and reading and a new districtwide math curriculum will be put into effect this school year.

“We are developing a K-12 math curriculum,” he said. “We hope to see results within the next couple years.”

The county’s one high school that did not beat out the state average was Cobre High. According to the report, more than 55 percent of 36 Cobre graduates studied needed remediation in math and reading. The percentage, however, is a vast decline from 2005 where some 64 percent of 56 students studied needed remedial courses and an even further drop from 2004 where 86 percent needed remedial work.

Cobre school officials did not immediately return phone calls Friday.

Pool said an interesting indicator in the study was the percent of ethnic students needing remedial course work. According to the study, the number of Native American students in remedial work climbed from 67 percent in 2000 to 71 percent in 2006.

The number of Hispanic students in remedial work also climbed from 55 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2006 and Black students climbed from 53 to 54 percent over the six-year period.

Asian students, who represented the group least in need of remedial work, also climbed from 30 to 43 percent over the course of the study.

White students were the only subgroup to decrease — dropping from 36 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2006.

Levi Hill can be reached at lhill@scsun-news.com

By the numbers

Number of Students needing remedial work

School Students studied Percent

Cliff High 11 18.2
Silver High 118 35.6
Cobre High 36 55.6

Source

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Saturday, July 7, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under College Loans, Education News. Tags: College, Education News, Grant, Student, Study, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.