The debate continues about whether adjuncts or full-time faculty teach remedial courses, but it has not come to the foreground because of the big budget implications.
Traditionally, those applicants have been required to take — and pay for — remedial or development courses to shore up their basic skills before they are allowed into college-level classes. Many never make it that far.
Such remedial education is a major contributor to lowering student retention at two-year schools. Less than 10 percent of remedial students graduate from a community college within three years, according to a 2012 report by Complete College America. It called traditional remedial education a “bridge to nowhere.”
“Frankly, the way we’ve been doing it isn’t very successful,” says J. Noah Brown, president and CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees. “Worst case, it actually discourages and creates barriers to students and can be, honestly, downright demoralizing.”
One reason is that many students arrive with higher expectations of themselves.
“Often students may not even be really aware of their own academic deficits,” Brown explains. “A lot of these students have high school diplomas, so as far as they’re concerned, they’re ready. But then they take these math and English assessments and they’re found wanting.”
Novel tactics
