More Missouri graduates taking college classes to learn basic concepts

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- More than one-third of college freshmen at Missouri's public schools had to take remedial courses last year to catch up with the basic concepts they should have learned in high school.

The percentage of students in remedial courses is up significantly compared with a decade ago.

Members of the governing boards of Missouri's K-12 and higher education systems, meeting jointly Thursday, acknowledged they need to do a better job of tracking, publicizing and attempting to reverse the rise in remedial courses.

"We do need to close the gap between what colleges are saying [students] need to come into collegiate courses and what high schools are saying they need to graduate," said Higher Education Commissioner Robert Stein.

When college freshmen don't meet basic expectations in such areas as math, English or reading, they have to take remedial college courses that essentially prepare them for college but don't earn them any college credits. That can be costly to the students and their families and can delay the students' college graduation.

The expectation should be that "if you graduate from high school, you are ready for college," said the Rev. Stan Archie, of Kansas City, a member of the State Board of Education, which governors K-12 schools.

But "in a sense, it seems we reward high schools for graduating students," Archie said. "We don't reward them for preparing students not to have to undergo remedial education in college."

More than 26 percent of the Missouri students who graduated from public high schools in 1996 and entered one of Missouri's public two- or four-year colleges and universities needed to take remedial education courses, according to figures from the Missouri Department of Higher Education.

Of the 2005 and 2006 high school graduates who went to a public college or university, more than 36 percent needed to take remedial college courses, the department said.

The greatest increase was in remedial math courses, though a higher percentage of students also needed remedial help in English and reading.

Colleges and universities each set their own policies for determining when a student needs to take a remedial course, Stein said. But the department is trying to come up with a statewide approach, he said.

The state figures on remedial courses do not include high school graduates who attend a private college or university or who go out of state for their higher education. Members of the state K-12 and higher education boards said they would like to get that additional information -- or at least as much of it as possible -- so they can take a more comprehensive look at remedial education courses.

Part of the problem is that some public school officials aren't aware that so many of their graduates aren't adequately prepared for college, said Duane Schreimann, a member of the state Coordinating Board for Higher Education.

Schreimann, who also is a Jefferson City school board member, said he was surprised at the number of graduates from his own district who needed remedial math courses. State figures show 22 percent of Jefferson City's 2006 graduates who went on to public colleges had to take remedial math, compared with just 6 percent of its 1996 graduates.