Edyamuhkation

Ripped from the headlines of today's San Diego Tribune: CSU freshmen fail proficiency goal. According to the article more than half the freshmen in the state's largest public university system were academically unprepared this year. In fact, only 45% were "fully prepared" in both math and English. At Cal State San Marcos, of the 659 freshmen admitted in fall 2004, 63% needed remedial education in either math or English or both! Notice what this says, that 63% of those admitted, that is, they got in. Even though they were not prepared in the two most fundamental subjects they were allowed to enter the Cal State system. My question to you dear readers is "Why?" I just do not see the justification. Let me be frank, a college education is not due anyone but is something that must be earned. Yes, I will admit that I am a bit of an elitist but I don't see a problem with being one. I believe in earned privilege, that is, if you meet the criteria you are allowed to attend. I didn't grow up with any of the advantages that even most of the poor in San Diego have. Neither of my parents went to college. I went to the same rural high school they attended in the Missouri section of the Ozarks (yes, I am a hillbilly). The first house I remember didn't have running water and you could see the ground between the cracks in the floor. We didn't have a city paper, didn't have a town library (the elementary school library consisted of six book carts, one for each grade and even that was inaccessible 4 months out of the year). Growing up we probably had less than 20 books in the house (and several of those were different translations of the Bible). There was no Electric Company or Sesame Street and certainly no Discovery Channel or History Channel (heck, no cable television, we got CBS and NBC and on stormy days we picked up an ABC signal bounce). I was the first person in our extended family to go to college (my sister was the second). Not only did we go, we excelled (my sister graduated with a 4.0 majoring in business administration while I completed work in the areas of mathematics and computer science through the doctoral level). Our parents never pushed us to go to college, they couldn't economically support us, but they did emotionally and spiritually support us. I worked two and sometimes three jobs to put myself through the various colleges I attended. So please people, stop with the excuses.

It's interesting how people cry that our educational system needs more money, that we have too few teachers for so many students. Let's see, if 55% are not prepared perhaps that is one place to start looking. Just for fun take a class schedule, turn to the math and English offerings, and count the number of sections offered that are below the minimum level for college credit. Compare that number with the total number of sections offered for all courses that count toward a major in those areas (you may get quite a shock). Just think of the money and hours that are poured into classes whose sole purpose is to prepare students to take college-level classes (which I thought was one of the purposes of high school for those intending to go to college).

If we combine the information in this report with all those letters to the editor of people crying about our precious high school students being required to pass an exit exam to obtain their high school diploma (and for those of you not in California this simply amounts to the student showing they can adequately demonstrate eight grade math skills and show proficiency in English equivalent to that taught in the tenth grade) we get a sorry picture of what education is in our state. God help us.