What were they thinking?Legislators this year enacted a law that essentially replaced college preparatory instruction with developmental education.
The term has nothing to do with special education, as a lot of people assume. Developmental education is the process used in colleges to provide lagging students with education they are supposed to get but often don't in 13 years of public schooling.
A 57-page conference committee composite of SB 1720 establishes a grand framework for developmental education in all colleges and universities, demands that guidelines be set by the Board of Governors and all college boards, and even provides for punishment if colleges fail.
Wonderful except it then makes the whole effort rather moot.
Currently, colleges test incoming students to see what they know. They have been finding out that a majority of incoming students many of them returning to school after a long break lack the skills needed to do college work.
Currently, they can place those students in developmental education to acquire those skills so they can have a better chance of completion.
But the new law says colleges can't test recent graduates beginning next year and can't require them to get developmental education.
Instead, K-12 schools are supposed to find out what students are lacking before they graduate, and provide it to them.
What are the odds that will happen? And how will we even know if the colleges don't test?
Legislators seem to be hoping the new Common Core standards, which are supposed to be aligned with the college curriculum, will ensure that public school students are college ready. Seems to me the wisdom of Ronald Reagan should be employed: "Trust, but verify."
Admittedly, the public schools are showing improvement since the advent of standards and accountability, but the sad fact is that many students still graduate without the ability to move into a college environment on an equal footing.
The new law cannot prevent teachers from making an assessment of a student's strengths and weaknesses. It also does allow a student to seek developmental education courses at his option. Some will, knowing that it could ease their way through an already difficult college system. But what about those who opt out and fail?
Developmental education should not be needed at all. But obviously it is, and enacting a law that weakens it does not make much sense.
Apparently, the Legislature accepted the claim from an organization called Complete College America that few students who get developmental education graduate on time.
It is unclear what that proves. Few students graduate in four years anymore, and the issue is whether more would graduate without developmental education.
In a just world, it would work like this: If students do not get what their parents paid for in the public schools they should get a refund in the form of developmental education in college, at no cost to them. Colleges should then get their cost reimbursed out of the K-12 budget.
Lloyd Brown worked in the newspaper business nearly 50 years, beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. After retirement he served as speech writer for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
