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Another one for Margaret Spellings
It's official: College students can't read. Worse, fewer can read today than could read a decade ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only 25% of college graduates count as "proficient" readers, while only 31% of people who have done some graduate work score as "proficient." A decade ago, 40% of college graduates were proficient; 45% pf people who had done graduate work were. Proficiency, as defined by the test, is "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential." InsideHigherEd.com has the details, but the upshot is that as more and more people go to college, fewer are graduating with the skills a college degree is supposed to guarantee. This appears to be owing in part to the fact that colleges are admitting large numbers of underprepared students (most of them from impoverished and ethnically marginal backgrounds); it appears also to be owing to the fact that colleges aren't doing enough to remediate those students once they are enrolled.
InsideHigherEd.com cites several college officials' speculations on why the numbers are increasingly bad. These include the cultural deification of uneducated dropouts who have made it big, the failure of inner city schools to prepare students properly, the failure of young people to read for pleasure, and the rise of a mass culture that emphasizes superficiality and continual change over thoroughness, focus, and depth.
What's not mentioned: the failure of college English departments to teach reading and writing skills, the failure of college administrations to require students to demonstrate competency in reading and writing in order to graduate, and the alacrity with which colleges across the country have, in the name of promoting a more diverse student population, managed to make the degree an increasingly worthless piece of paper. Also not mentioned: the manner in which the rising costs of tuition don't correlate with an improved quality of education.
Parents, students, and legislators should be outraged. And trustees should be ashamed. It's not just intellectual diversity that trustees need to ensure, but basic academic accountability. A college or university that graduates students who can't read or write--and this is what the national assessment essentially documents--is one that is fraudulent. That the majority of schools appear to be doing just this does not mitigate their dishonesty--it just makes it all the more shameful.
Posted by acta online at December 16, 2005 01:27 PM
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Comments
Really?
Posted by: David Ayers at December 22, 2005 01:20 AM