Remedial Education

Remedial education is hotly debated within the ranks of higher education in America, as well as in the general public.  The basic premise is that many students graduate from our K-12 system without requisite skills in writing, math, and critical thinking to ensure success in college.  Consequently, these students must receive instruction to improve these skills prior to entering into college-level coursework.  There are a number of variations on this theme, but this is the situation that remedial studies address.

There are a myriad of studies examining the efficacy of remedial education.  The overwhelming conclusion from all of them is simple:  Remedial education does not work.  Here are a few reasons why.

*You can’t fix 12 years of inadequate preparation in one or two semesters. 

*The problem is not just with content

*The underlying assumptions of many remedial programs are flawed

To begin, skills like writing and math are cumulative.  One level of proficiency builds on the previous one and lays the foundation for the next.  Each level requires significant practice, and students must be able to navigate the entire system to be successful.  Each student will have individual gaps in knowledge and ability, based on the K-12 instruction received.  With good assessment tools and patient instructors, deficiencies can be addressed.  But the paths to success can be as many and varied as the students, and in any case few of the paths can be traversed in just a few months.

Evidence that students require remedial instruction comes from failure to perform on assessments test that may or not be closely related to college course content.  But that is another issue.  What is important to note is that failure may be related to multiple causes, like poor study habits or obligation outside of school, like family and job responsibilities.  These are difficult to test for or to remediate or ameliorate.

There are several deleterious assumptions that underlie remedial studies, whether we acknowledge them or not.  The first is that the remedial student is “broken” and must be “fixed.”  This bias is shown in a number of ways.   For instance, remedial students are put in a class with others who have been identified as inadequate or incompetent.  They know it, their instructors know it, and other students know it. 

A second assumption is that if students repeat exercises eventually they will master the content. This may sometimes be true in the short run. However, if remediated skills are not employed within a reasonable time frame, they stand a good chance of eroding by the time they are needed.  This is especially true in math, for instance.  If skills in algebra are developed but perhaps not needed for a couple of semesters, the chance of those skills having been retained is questionable.

Third, we should reexamine the relevance of those areas in which we require remediation.  For example, is there any real value in students being able to construct a five paragraph descriptive essay? I ask this as someone who taught the five paragraph descriptive essay for more than 20 years.  We might want to look at the nature of written communication today and reassess the best way to develop this skill in students.