Catching up at college

More than one in three Hamilton County Schools graduates who attend Chattanooga State Community College must take remedial courses.

Nearly 40 percent of UTC's local first-time freshmen need the same.

Those figures, provided by the colleges, have some education officials upset.

"What we're telling parents is that their kids are prepared for college and, in a lot of cases, that's just not the case," said Hamilton County Board of Education member Rhonda Thurman. "A lot of these kids are getting diplomas that aren't worth the paper it's printed on."

From 2007 to 2009, the number of Hamilton County graduates taking remedial courses at Chattanooga State increased more than 12 percent, or by about 100 students, school figures show.

In 2009, Ooltewah High School had the most students in remedial courses at the community college with 51, followed by Soddy-Daisy High at 42, Hixson High at 38 and Howard and Central highs, both with 35.

In each of the last three years, Ooltewah High has had the greatest number of graduates in remedial courses at Chattanooga State. Soddy-Daisy High and Hixson High also consistently ranked among the schools with the greatest number of students in need of remedial work each year during that period, figures from the college show.

Brainerd High showed a significant decrease in the number of students in remedial classes at Chattanooga State last year, but ranked just behind Hixson High in total numbers for the three-year period.

The number from Chattanooga State counts only students who graduated from high school in May and went immediately to the community college that fall. If the number included all first-time freshmen -- including students from outside Hamilton County, and those who may have been out of high school for several years -- more than 75 percent must take developmental classes, officials said.

At a recent meeting, school board members, including Thurman, pressed school administrators for answers as to why high school graduates are unprepared for college.

Board member Jeffrey Wilson, who used to work for the Hamilton County Juvenile Court, said he is particularly concerned with students' low levels of literacy. He remembers sitting in court and listening to students who struggled or were unable to read aloud their rights or other court documents.

"What I did see was that a disproportionate number of our young people are illiterate," he said. "We need to work hard; we are graduating too many children who are not where they should be in terms of literacy and problem-solving skills."

Ooltewah High Principal Mark Bean acknowledged that his school produces a number of graduates who need remedial work.

The school has a large number of students taking remedial classes, but observers must note that the school offers a wide variety of advanced placement and honors classes, as well, Bean said.

National problem

Administrators have said that, while they are concerned with the number of students taking developmental courses, the problem goes beyond Hamilton County.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 35 percent of freshmen enrolling in two- or four-year colleges took some kind of remedial class in 2000.

Central High School Principal Finley King said the fact that so many students must enroll in developmental courses should come as no surprise. There always has been a gap between what students had to know to graduate from high school and what they were expected to know in college, he said.

Everyone knew that state officials set very low standards under the federal No Child Left Behind law in 2001, King said.

"Even if kids scored advanced on the Gateway [standardized exam], that was nothing to turn a cartwheel over," King said. "They set their standards low, and we met those standards.

"It frustrates me because even a kid who had a 4.0 GPA struggled to get a 21 on the ACT. I don't know why people were surprised."

But last fall, the state implemented a more rigorous curriculum and higher standards under the Tennessee Diploma Project, which is designed to prepare students better for college or careers.

Ava Warren, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Hamilton County, said the district soon will begin to feel the effects of the switch.

"Our goal is for nobody to need remedial. Will we reach it? We don't know," she said.

Warren said the district is changing the way it teaches reading and language arts so students will do more reading and writing across all subjects.

In math, the school system is partnering this year with Chattanooga State to offer seniors a Bridge Mathematics course -- essentially a college developmental course.

Students are placed in the bridge course based on the scores on their ACT, which all students are required to take their junior year.

John Squires, head of the math department at Chattanooga State, said if more students came to the school ready for college-level courses, they would get their degrees faster.

It also likely would increase the community college's graduation rate because fewer students would become frustrated and quit, he said.

"In the math department, [developmental courses] are roughly 50 percent of what we do," he said. "We could otherwise offer a wider variety of college-level math."

Always a need?

But some administrators insist there always will be a need for remedial classes. Years ago, before remedial coursework, students who needed extra help just didn't go to college, Warren said.

LaDarrius Billups graduated in 2005 from Hamilton County High School, the county school for student in danger of dropping out or behind in credits. At 24, he now has three children under age 6 to support and said working minimum wage jobs is no longer enough.

Billups plans to study nursing at Chattanooga State, but first must make it through two developmental math courses.

"I breezed through high school; none of that stuff sunk in," he said. "But if I'd have come right out of high school, I wouldn't have needed this."

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, administrators are experimenting with a new way of offering extra help in English.

Incoming freshmen are given a survey with about 20 questions on their experience and confidence in their own writing abilities. Students who say they need additional help are put in a college-level class with an extra hourlong writing lab, instead of a remedial course.

The pilot program is a response to new state legislation that will not allow public four-year colleges to offer developmental courses in 2012 or thereafter.

Fran Bender, UTC's assistant provost for retention and student success, said the university is talking about how to handle the change. One possibility would be to raise entrance requirements, which now are set at a 2.75 grade-point average and a cumulative score of 18 on the ACT, or a 2.3 GPA and a 21 on the ACT.

Saundra King, director of transitional studies at Chattanooga State, said the change at UTC might mean the community college will end up with more students.

More than anything, she said, high school students need to take a greater number of challenging math courses. Students who graduate from high school with C's in algebra may not be ready for college, she said.

Still, some level of developmental offerings probably always will be necessary, she said.

"It is a significant number of individuals who come in underprepared," she said. "We're an open-admissions school, so that's why we have the developmental courses that we do. We take them wherever they are, and we try to build on that."