Most students are unprepared

A recent report from our state chancellor's office (http://scorecard.cccco.edu/scorecard.aspx) ranked the 113 community colleges on their incoming students' unpreparedness for college work.

We're Number One!

My campus has the LEAST prepared students -- 97% -- in the state. Glancing around at the other colleges in the report, the ones with the best reputations have unprepared students that hover at 65%. I'm not sure if they should be too proud of that.

These are our incoming students. We can't possibly be held responsible for their lack of day-one skills. There has been finger-pointing up and down the state. An interesting report from The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/CollegeReadiness.pdf) makes loads of recommendations. Obviously, we have a trickle-up problem. If K-12 drops the ball, it's up to us to pick it up -- and the students -- and deliver it to that shining goal at the other end of the court. Associate degree? Check. Certificate toward a career? Check. Transfer curriculum? Check.

We can't send them back to K-12 to get those critical skills. They are ours.

What about student responsibility? That plays a part, too. If a student is willing to work, can they acquire the necessary skills to succeed? I like to think so. A high school English teacher once told me that if a student is not a fluent reader by third grade, he/she never will be. I certainly hope he's wrong.

I flat-out tell my students that even if they don't have the skills, they CAN work to get them. Perhaps they went to _______ High School (I whisper the name, as though it's too horrid to mention aloud). They laugh.

And then they get to work.