Although different websites give different percentages about the number of first year college freshmen that must take remedial courses to get up to a basic collegiate knowledge on subjects such as mathematics and English, the percentage of students needing to take at least one remedial course in college is reported by several media outlets as generally around 40%, whereas as reported by Carol Burris, the true number for students that attend four-year colleges needing a remedial course is possibly as low as 17%. Wherever, the true number lies, the percentage of students that are unable to come to college fully prepared for its curriculum should be virtually 0%, as not too surprisingly the very students that take remedial courses are the very same students that graduate at substantially lower rates than students that are already prepared for college.
For whatever reason, Florida has taken the concept of remedial classes and thrown it into the dustbin of history. Instead, in Florida, students can opt-out completely in the taking of remedial classes, or if desired take shorter five-week remedial segments to get back up to speed. The thought process behind this change is that since remedial courses do not count towards any credit to collegiate graduation, that this barrier in having mandated remedial courses, is precluding or preventing students from completing successfully their college degree curriculum, because these students are being forced to spend extra time and money taking courses which somehow results ultimately in many of them simply giving up or losing interest in the continuation of their college education. While there is merit in taking a serious look at the remedial courses and how they are presented to students in college, simply sweeping this demonstrated lack of preparation of these students under the rug is clearly not the appropriate answer.
Americans are fortunate to live in a country to which their public primary and secondary education is provided by the State for free, or perhaps it's fairer to state at no direct cost to the students themselves. This is therefore the opportunity for the State to do everything within its power to attend to these students and to prepare them to have the necessary skills to succeed in post secondary education. The fact that double-digit percentages of students are so woefully prepared for college that the colleges themselves point out or mandate that these students need remedial courses is a direct reflection of the failure of our high school educational system to actually educate our students. The point is this, we know for a fact what skill level is necessary for math, science, reading, and writing in order to attend an accredited college, high school education should make it their fundamental purpose to see that these goals are achieved, or they have failed their intended mission.
It is fair to say, that not every high school student is college material, but every student deserves the best opportunity and the best efforts by our State-mandated educational system to at a minimum try to achieve these goals by providing the tools, the tests, the guidance, and the discipline to see that this is done. The fact that a double-digit percentage of high school students that go on to attend college, are in fact, unqualified to actually do so, reflects that we are poor teachers and poor mentors.