February 28, 2011: So, which is it?

Excuse me for a semi-regular event of befuddlement.  The relationship between high schools and higher education institutions is dizzying.

On the one end of the spectrum is the willingness of many colleges and universities to award high school students credit toward their college level classes--via the articulation agreement.  The California Statewide Career Pathways provides a nice overview of the articulation agreement.  Note that, while in this agreement most references are about high school to community college articulations, there are many four-year institutions also involved in developing these articulation agreements with high schools (as of course with the community colleges who have developed their own with high schools).  

On the surface, the benefits of articulation agreements seem obvious:  students can get a head start on their college credits, saving money and propelling them toward a career sooner rather than later.  However, the articulation agreement eventually begs the question:  why are high school courses teaching (roughly) the same content as college courses? The purest form of Advanced Placement exams has been criticized for being too crammed with material and memorization, thus preventing students from applying necessary critical thinking skills (see January 9, 2011, New York Times).  Maybe there's a reason that college level courses build upon the collective knowledge of high school graduates.  However, some faculty and administrators fear that many of these articulated courses are not giving the students too much content, but rather not enough. And if the high school course really is an equivalent to the college course, shouldn't the college course be revised, then, to reflect a higher level of content and knowledge?

But, here's what really bugs me.  On the other side of the spectrum is the realization that many high school students are unprepared for college, whether it is through the million students that fail placement exams or the roughly 40% of all college students that require some kind of "remedial" courses.  See the recent Diploma To Nowhere study for excellent analysis of this crisis.  4-year colleges and universities are required to sink millions of dollars into programs that don't even count for college credit, and community colleges see their remedial classes packed with students.

So, as I look at this spectrum, I can't help but think:  American high schools produce both the most advanced students ever as well as the least prepared students ever.  That's quite a feat!

My point is not to attribute more criticism of American high schools, which get plenty of it without my participation (some merited, much not), but to show that higher education has not been a helpful partner to high schools in terms of creating a K-16 model of education necessary to create a better education for all of our kids.