College bound and . . . coming up short

As more Utah high school students don caps and gowns this week, some may discover that the past four years don't count for much at the university door.

More Utah students are getting lost in the gap between high school and college, unprepared for the rigor of university courses. Now higher education and public school leaders are forming a "K-16 Alliance" to usher students from public education to higher education.

At the core of the K-16 movement, a trend nationally as well as in Utah, lies the conviction that a high school diploma is no longer enough — and that high schools need to better prepare students for college.

"The (K-16) alliance has the right belief that we've got to stop thinking about a public education system and a higher education system," said Kim Burningham, State Board of Education chairman. "We've got to start thinking of a continuum. We've done too much of working in isolation."

The statistics alone are formidable: Fewer than half of Utah's high schoolers are prepared for college-level math and only about 30 percent are ready for science, according to the latest American College Test (ACT) scores. In English, Utah students fare better, with three out of four seniors passing ACT benchmarks for college readiness.

Those numbers still paint an overly optimistic picture, said David Doty, assistant commissioner of higher education for Utah. Students trying to pass the ACT are already pared down to a group of self-selected students trying to get into college.

"The system is not operating very efficiently if a lot of students are coming unprepared. It affects the system's ability to deliver degrees," Doty said.

John Francis, senior associate vice president for academic affairs at the U., said many students are entering college with little grasp of English composition or basic math skills required for college-level courses.

Although the spectrum is widening with some students coming in with stellar ACT scores and 4.0 GPAs, Francis said many students stopped taking math after their sophomore year of high school and haven't worked an algebra equation since age 16.

Try majoring in business or engineering without a background in math. Any student who tries will end up taking a bunch of prep courses just to get ready for his major, Francis said.