The short answer to whether most Texas students leave public schools prepared for college? No. Less than one in two students met the state’s “college readiness” standards in math and verbal skills on ACT, SAT and TAKS scores in 2010. Though average SAT scores in both verbal and math dropped between 2007 and 2010 — a trend that state education officials have attributed to an increase in students taking the test — more students in the same period of time have met the state’s standards for college ready graduates, largely because of improvements on their state standardized tests and the ACT.
Debates over lagging performance at community colleges and four-year institutions can devolve into finger-pointing between the higher education and K-12 camps, each blaming the other for students’ poor performance at the post-secondary level.
Because colleges are not good at gauging what remedial courses students need, some experts say, students fall through the cracks or give up because they are not progressing toward a degree. They cite the numbers who are “underplaced” in remediation because they did not take the placement exam seriously when they got to campus, or they have spent time out of school — and quit out of frustration or boredom.
Others point out that deficiencies in students’ secondary education are often the reason they are in remedial courses.
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