Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)
15. To Beat the Odds, Part 2
“Academic preparation,” “Academic Resources,” and high school curriculum have all been cited as correlates of access and success in higher education for low-income and underrepresented students. But which specific subjects have been shown to be strong predictors?
Reading [emphasis added] has been emphasized as important to student success, since students who don’t read well may never get to college. Indeed, a new report by of Anthony Hernandez of Hunter College links reading inability and poverty to dropping out from high school. According to Hernandez, students who have difficulty reading and are poor face “double jeopardy.” As the author noted: “Educators and researchers have long recognized the importance of mastering reading by the end of third grade. Students who fail to reach this critical milestone often falter in the later grades and drop out before earning a high school diploma. Now, researchers have confirmed this link in the first national study to calculate high school graduation rates for children at different reading skill levels and with different poverty rates. Results of a longitudinal study of nearly 4,000 students find that those who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers. For the worst readers, those couldn’t master even the basic skills by third grade, the rate is nearly six times greater. While these struggling readers account for about a third of the students, they represent more than three fifths of those who eventually drop out or fail to graduate on time. What’s more, the study shows that poverty has a powerful influence on graduation rates. The combined effect of reading poorly and living in poverty puts these children in double jeopardy.” [emphasis added] (Donald J. Hernandez, Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, April 2011, p. 3.) http://www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Topics/Education/Other/DoubleJeopardyHowThirdGradeReadingSkillsandPovery/DoubleJeopardyReport040511FINAL.pdf
Clifford Adelman also recognized the necessity of reading to succeed. According to him, “It is a megawork in progress, much of which depends on students’ reading skills on entering high school. If students cannot read close to grade level, the biology textbook, the math problems, the history documents, the novel—all will be beyond them.” (Clifford Adelman, The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion From High School Through College, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2006. p. xx.) http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/toolboxrevisit/toolbox.pdf
To underscore the importance of reading in college, Adelman cited these data: “Thirty-nine percent of 4-year college students who were assigned to remedial reading courses completed bachelor’s degrees, compared with 60 percent of students who took only one or two other types of remedial courses, and 69 percent of those who were not subject to remediation at all.” (Clifford Adelman, Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree Attainment, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 1999, p. 5.) http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/NationalConf/2007/Handouts/S229H3.pdf
Mathematics and science have also been identified as being important for students to succeed in college. Indeed, according to the report Reclaiming the American Dream, “The level of math taken in high school correlates strongly with a student’s likelihood of completing college, for example, with ‘the tipping point of momentum towards a bachelor’s degree now firmly above Algebra 2.’ The number of units in lab science courses is a similarly good predictor.” (William Bedsworth, Susan Colby, and Joe Doctor, Reclaiming the American Dream, The Bridgespan Group, October 2006, p. 4.) http://www.nhscholars.org/Documents/ReclaimingAmericanDream.pdf
Adelman also commented on the importance of mathematics for students to succeed in postsecondary education. As this researcher stated, “Of all pre-college curricula, the highest level of mathematics one studies in secondary school has the strongest continuing influence on bachelor’s degree completion. [emphasis added] Finishing a course beyond the level of Algebra 2 (for example, trigonometry or pre-calculus) more than doubles the odds that a student who enters postsecondary education will complete a bachelor’s degree.” (Clifford Adelman, Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor’s Degree Attainment, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 1999, p. 3.) http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/NationalConf/2007/Handouts/S229H3.pdf
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