School performance, experiences, and solutions.

[DemoLady]

It's not quite that bad

That is incredibly worrisome!!!

80% of our GRADUATING high schoolers aren't prepared enough for community college?

Please note that these are only the students who applied and were accepted at OWCC. This would not include graduates who get into other colleges/universities.

 

[scooterbug44]

What exactly are the requirements to get into OWCC? Does it have certain grade/SAT requirements or is it more of a "if the check clears" situation?

I would expect a certain percentage to be taking these classes to raise their scores/make them more prepared for a 4 year college, but that still seems like a pretty high percentage.

 

[Jdarg]

I would like to see this list broken down by the different Walton County high schools.

I would also like to see statistics of the kids going to others colleges and universities that are not community colleges, but I imagine this would be impossible to track, which to me makes the OWC stats a bit more alarmist than relevant. Some students ( and quite often, students with poor grades), use community colleges to gain enough "strength" so to speak to allow them to apply to bigger schools later, since they may not have had the board scores and grades to apply as freshmen.

I know private school kids that have had to do this- not every kid graduates from high school totally ready for college work. Another factor to consider is the parents. Where were the parents of these kids, and why were they not involved enough in their kids' educations to not have a clue that their kids weren't ready for college? Another example of how parent involvement is so important.

80% of the graduates THAT WENT TO OWC needed the remedial classes. That is not 80% of all Walton County graduates, just the ones that went to OW. We are a rural county, and college prep is not the total focus, and not every kid needs to go to college, but I would like to see improvements in their preparation.

I imagine Tricia Hutchison sent this out since she seems to be using these stats as the basis of her campaign platform. I am concerned, but not going to get all woo-hoo over it because there are so many other factors and considerations.

 

[beachmouse]

OWC is indeed open enrollment- if you've got a pulse and money to cover tuition, then you're good for class.

Also a couple years back, Florida abolished remedial education courses at all traditional universities except fror A&M, and put pretty much all remedial classes into the community colleges. So if you know coming out of high school that your math skills are just barely strong enough to pass FCATs, then I can understand wanting to take a sub-1000 level class in order to get comfortable with college math before going on to a bigger school or more challenging class.

 

[wrobert]

Has anyone ever floated a media partnership? When I was in highschool we got a copy of the local newspaper once a week in our English glass and had an assignment that revolved around it. In addition to the lesson it also gave us a moment to find out what was going on in the city, county, state, nation, and world.

The Daily News has a Newspapers In Education program that they use. I am thinking it started back when my wife was still in the classroom teaching. They provide a quantity of newspapers that are used in the classroom.

 

[ShallowsNole]

And, from my 20+ years' perspective, if you go on to graduate with an AA from OWC, you are more than ready for anything that lies ahead.

Stats can be manipulated until you get the result you are looking for. Yes, this sounds alarming, but without analyzing how many from which school and what these students took while in high school, all the stats are good for is shock value.

Also...were students entering OWC under dual-enrollment part of these figures?

 

[wrobert]

OWC is indeed open enrollment- if you've got a pulse and money to cover tuition, then you're good for class.

Also a couple years back, Florida abolished remedial education courses at all traditional universities except fror A&M, and put pretty much all remedial classes into the community colleges. So if you know coming out of high school that your math skills are just barely strong enough to pass FCATs, then I can understand wanting to take a sub-1000 level class in order to get comfortable with college math before going on to a bigger school or more challenging class.

I understand this helped the census count at Tallahassee Community College tremendously.

 

[ckhagen]

Also...were students entering OWC under dual-enrollment part of these figures?

You cannot be dual enrolled if you have to take prep classes...
If you don't fully pass the placement test, you are not eligible for dual enrollment.

If you come up short in areas on the placement tests, that's the gauge they use as to how many prep classes are required before you're ready for the college classes. There's two levels of prep English and two levels of prep math. The first level of the prep math class is... err... what I would call 6th grade math. The second level is comparable to maybe 8th grade algebra. I don't know anything about the prep English classes except that the first one focuses on bringing reading up to HS level.

 

[Jdarg]

The numbers came from graduates of Walton County high schools who enrolled as freshman at OWCC.

 

[wrobert]

The numbers came from graduates of Walton County high schools who enrolled as freshman at OWCC.

Since this is a general discussion on the school system. Strange to me that they stopped meetings in south Walton due to lack of attendance by the public. At the budget hearing tonight, which I consider one of the most important meetings since it affects just about everyone in the county, only two members of the public showed up. Me and Tim. Now I usually am at these particular meetings. And there was no press present. Thank goodness Tim came or I would not have had anyone to talk too.

So if we are using attendance by the public as a barometer, does that mean we can now cancel all future meetings in DeFuniak Springs? And if so, just where the heck is it that we should be meeting in the future?