“Right away, your dreams of going to college are deferred, because technically you're not in college,” she said. “If you start in a remedial class, the odds are that you will never finish a credit-bearing course in that subject.”
She pointed to positive models: El Paso Community College, which gives prospective students placement tests while still in high school, and Mountain Empire Community College in Virginia, where there are new lesson plans and textbooks to move students through remedial education faster.
The Gates Foundation is spending $100 million to develop new models for remedial education.
Advocates say the need for reform is urgent, pointing to studies that show that more jobs in the future will require more education and that people with less education have been hit with higher levels of unemployment during the recession.
Nemko doubts the notion that most workers will need a higher level degree.
“In every corporation or government agency, there needs to be a small number of people coming out with the great new ideas,” he said. “But for everyone of those, they need 20 to 50 worker-bees who are there to provide the product.”
At Broward College, there are signs of improvement: The percentage needing remedial education has dropped, from 85 percent of first-time college students to 74 percent in the 2009 incoming class.
“I don't remember learning any of this stuff in high school," said CaSonya Fulmore, 40, who was laid off from her job as a customer service supervisor with American Express last year. Fulmore is taking a preparatory math class and studying for a degree in social science, with hopes of becoming a counselor.
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