I nearly choked on my steel-cut oatmeal as I read in my local paper that it is estimated that 48.7 percent of Illinois high school graduates enrolled at state community colleges require remediation. According to the Illinois State Board of Education, many students need to take remedial courses in math and/or reading to pass.
How is it even possible that college students need that much assistance? How did they even graduate from high school with that much baggage? Is that an indictment of our educational system, starting with first grade? Our teachers? The parents? What does it say about the community colleges that these students are even allowed in? How low has the bar been set for entry into their hallowed halls?
Maybe we should be asking ourselves, is everyone really meant to go to college? How many students early on are pointed in the wrong direction by well-meaning, but incompetent, counselors? And what is so wrong with a trade school certificate at a time when our country is in dire need of skilled labor?
But what do I know? My degree is not in education. If I had followed the advice of my high school counselor, I would have become a cowboy 50 years ago.
— Bob Ory, Elgin
