Most Students Unprepared for College

Study says fewer than 25 percent of high school kids will succeed in entry-level college courses

By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2007

Only one quarter of high school students who take the standard number of college prep courses are prepared for their first year of college or an entry-level job, says a recent study by ACT, providers of the college entrance exam.

The reason is twofold: more than half of the states in this country don’t require students to take specific core curriculum courses in math or science in order to graduate, and the quality of these courses is poor. “Ideally, state standards should delineate what students ought to know and be able to do in their high school courses in each subject area so that students have a solid foundation on which to begin the next course,” the report says.

Although “Rigor at Risk” doesn’t specifically address media specialists, they’re key players when it comes to supporting high school teachers’ lessons, says ACT’s Ed Colby. “They play a crucial role in providing the books, the hardware, the software, and other materials that will help support the more rigorous courses that will hopefully be introduced into the curriculum,” Colby adds.

The study looked at students at nearly 400 high schools nationwide who took the ACT last year and found that high school graduates who took the basic core curriculum college prep courses—four years of English and three each of math, science, and social studies—were unprepared for college.

Those who took more than the recommended core classes were slightly more prepared. But only 75 percent of those who took “substantial numbers of additional courses” were ready for their first year of college.

As a result, the report says, not only do high school courses need to be more rigorous, but states need to specify the number and kinds of courses that students need to take—and those courses need to be aligned with state standards that are driven by the requirements of postsecondary schools and the workplace. “Rigorous content can be effectively taught and learned,” the report concludes.

And that’s where librarians come in. “It’s very important for [high school] media specialists to collaborate with teachers on the curriculum and with teachers in the classroom” to help reverse this negative trend, Colby emphasizes.

For a copy of the report, visit www.act.org.