Huge Majority of Marshall County Students Entering College Don’t Need Remediation

With demands from four-year and two-year colleges, trade schools, and industries to have applicants prepared with the needed skills to hit the road running, the buzzwords for Indiana high schools continues to be “college and career ready”. From all appearances, Marshall County schools are doing an outstanding job of fulfilling the expectations. Marshall County had the highest college readiness levels in the state. Only ten percent of those students going on to public colleges /universities from the 2013 graduating classes needed to take remediation courses prior to enrolling in for-credit courses.

According to Plymouth Schools Principal, Jim Condon, and Director of Guidance, Aimee Portteus, 90 percent of the 2013 PHS students graduating and enrolling in college courses do so without needing a remedial course.

Portteus believes the efforts at identifying students who are deemed to be at risk are making sure they get the extra help they need along the way. As an added measure, students are retested to make sure they have mastered the material.

Both Condon and Portteus indicated that looking at the specific areas, such as English standards, guides them in how they go about interventions.

A report from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education shows that 77 percent of those from those Indiana students graduating in 2013 who went on to an Indiana public colleges did not need remedial classes to be successful in the course work. Even though that number is higher than in 2012 (72 percent), Teresa Lubbers, Indiana Commissioner, said, “I’m no way celebrating this as “we can check this off our list and move on to another issue, because that’s not the case.”

The numbers below reflect those entering public colleges or universities, not private colleges /universities or technical schools.

New legislation passed in 2013 requires high schools to identify students at risk of needing remediation in college along with providing interventions.

The Commission for Higher Education is responsible for overseeing post secondary institutions within the state. The 14-appointed member board is empowered to make budgetary recommendations to the Indiana General Assembly. They also make recommendations to colleges and universities concerning tuition.

The following chart shows the number of 2013 graduates by corporation, total number of those entering college after high school, and the percentage of the graduating class attending public and/or private colleges (post secondary schooling).