Not necessarily "breaking" news: High school doesn't prepare students for college
When I was the managing editor of my college campus' student newspaper back in the late 1980s, we ran a story about how many incoming freshmen - most of them recent graduates from local high schools - were having to take remedial classes in such courses as writing, reading and basic math skills. Most of us on the staff - myself included - either knew someone who had been a "great" student in elementary, junior high (what we used to school middle school back then) and high school but had failed at least one part of the Basic Skills Test required of all credit-course student applicants. (Full disclosure: I passed the basic math part - by a miracle - but found Algebra 1 so intimidating that I tried to take remedial math...twice...and failed.) I no longer have the 1989-era issue, so I can't quote from it, but this recent article published in the Miami Herald this week covers the same topic. 13th grade: Many freshmen unprepared at community and state colleges As th