Achieve.org and Public Agenda Report Comments

Two different reports, one from Achieve and one from Public Agenda, came out this week on students, employers, and their thoughts on college. They both say a whole lot of same things that I feel and some of the same things that I have said on this website.

In the Achieve report they interviewed employers, college students, and some non-college students to get thoughts on college preparedness. It had some very interesting results.

39% of college students said they were not prepared for college. I do not like this at all. Students need a stronger core of classes to take in order to graduate from high school.

Students say the biggest gap they have is oral speaking/communication skills followed closely by math and science. That will need fixing.

4 out of 5 students surveyed for the Achieve report say they would have worked harder if the curriculum demanded it and over 90% said AP and IB classes will help them out later on life. Both are something that I 100% believe in and I am glad to see a report back up what I have said on this website since day one of the website’s launch.

It was interesting to know that a majority of high school students would have taken tougher classes if they could do high school all over again.

Employers said in this report that if you have gone to college that you are way more likely to move up in a company than if you have had no college experience at all. Most non-college degree grad jobs are in the construction, skilled trades and cashier professions.

The Public Agenda report interviewed people aged 18-25 and also gave some interesting results. I will highlight a few of the results below.

Around 75% of all people polled said college does get you ready for the real world, but they also said money problems were a big factor of people not going to college. 40% Whites, 45% of Asian Americans, 53% of Blacks, and 54% of Hispanics said that.

Lower income families were less likely to instill the importance of going onto college. I do hope this can change.

89% polled agreed that college is not for everyone which surprised me big time.

3 out 4 people are going to college because the job needs it. Good thing.

These two reports were nice to see and I do hope more of them come out.

To comment on my commentary: RichardGinn@myeducationalplan.com

SOURCES

A Touch Of Greatness website:

http://www.atouchofgreatness.com
and...
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/touchofgreatness/index.html

A Touch Of Greatness. Dir.Leslie Sullivan. Aubin pictures 2004.