Earning your education

Joanne Jacobs has a great article on earning your education at Tech Central Station (click here for article). It's a derivative of her book, but you can forgive her inadvertent plug given the value of the article. From the article:

U.S. high school seniors don't have the skills to match their ambitions,
according to a new U.S. Education Department study. A third of 12th graders
surveyed in 2004 expected to complete a bachelor's degree and another third
expected a bachelors and a graduate or professional degree. But nearly
two-thirds of the college bound hadn't mastered intermediate mathematics; nearly
a third had trouble solving simple problems requiring elementary math skills.

Everybody who wants to go to college can find a place at a community
college or unselective four-year college. But half of students who start never
earn a degree. They're not prepared, they get sick of remedial classes and they
give up.

It would be an enormous kindness to tell students what they'll need to
succeed while they've still got time to improve.

The rest of the article talks about how this happened at a charter school she profiled in her new book. Well worth reading.

When you read about the continued use of social promotion, such as the recent announcement in my own state of North Carolina (story about 4000 fifth graders failing end-of-grade tests, with 3500 still getting promoted, here), you have to wonder how these kids will ever be prepared for the real world.