Study: One in three Colorado graduates lag in college

About one in three first-year college students needs remedial help in at least one core subject, according to an annual report by the Colorado Commission for Higher Education.

Remediation rates haven't changed much over the past few years, but state officials are confident that a new system in place to align Colorado's K-12 schools with higher education will begin to show results.

"This is like turning a big ship in the middle of the ocean," said Colorado Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien. "I'd say in the next two school years, we would begin to see kids more on grade level."

Overall, 52.7 percent of recent Colorado high school graduates who enrolled in two-year colleges in Colorado in fall 2008 needed remedial help in math, reading or writing. Nearly 17 percent needed help in each of those subjects.

Nineteen percent of first-year students attending four-year colleges in Colorado needed remedial help in at least one of those subjects.

Math — or college-level algebra — is the most problematic subject for first-year college students. Nearly 41 percent of students in two-year colleges needed help getting up to speed in math; about 16 percent in four-year schools needed help.

The report also looked at how effective each of the state's high schools was, charting how many graduates from each school went to Colorado colleges and how many needed remediation in at least one subject.

About one in two grads from Aurora and Denver Public Schools needed remediation. And five of the 10 Colorado schools with the highest remediation rates were in DPS.

"Not acceptable," said Tom Boasberg, DPS superintendent. "For those out there who say the status quo is OK and we don't need significant change, I would urge them to look carefully at this data."

The report was released a week after DPS announced encouraging news about its high schools, with data indicating higher attendance rates, more students on track to graduate and more taking college preparatory classes. Boasberg said the report didn't diminish the district's good news, but it did show the systemic problems that need to be changed.

Bill Kurtz, head of school for Denver School of Science & Technology, said the report should be a wake-up call.

"We have to be careful when we are calibrating things that we don't increase graduation rates without paying attention to providing a meaningful education," he said. "You need both — good graduation rates and good remediation rates."

DSST — a Denver charter school — had the second-lowest rate of remediation among all Colorado high schools.

The report to the legislature comes as the state is embarking on a sweeping education reform spurred by the 2008 bill — Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids, or Cap4K.

The bill signed into law by Gov. Bill Ritter tasks the state to create a "seamless system of public education standards, expectations and assessments" from preschool through college.

In devising the new standards, state officials queried businesses, colleges and examined other states to determine what high-school graduates should know. Standards were backtracked all the way to what preschool students should know.

In December, the state Board of Education adopted a new set of content standards that will be the basis of a coming assessment to replace the Colorado Student Assessment Program.

President Barack Obama's recent proposed changes to the federal No Child Left Behind law would replace the annual progress benchmarks that focus on math and reading testing.

Instead, the proposed federal requirement calls for accountability systems, like what Colorado is developing, that would be "built around the goal of helping all students graduate high school college- and career-ready," according the U.S. Education Department.

In the meantime, Colorado colleges will continue to wrestle with the challenges of remediation for incoming students while wrestling with a decreasing amount of funding.

Metropolitan State College of Denver is considering capping enrollment in 2011 for students who need remedial classes.

That will not happen at the state's two-year colleges, said Nancy McCallin, president of Colorado Community College System.

"We have to accept all the remedial students," she said, adding that the costs are much more than the $13.3 million cited in the report.

"It requires a bunch of wraparound services. It's not easy; but we have to do it," she said. "You just can't write off one-third of your high school graduates. You can't do that in this economy."

Staff writer Burt Hubbard contributed to this report. Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com

By the numbers

52.7%

17%

19%

40%

16%