Education experts speculate that an increasing number of American high school students are moving onto the purgatory that is remedial education because the country’s high schools must raise standards to ensure graduating students are college-ready.

The experts argue that Common Core and its implementation in state high school exit exams could be what saves America’s students from stalling before starting four-year college programs.

“'This is the reason why Common Core is so important,' said [Linda] Noonan, whose organization has lobbied Massachusetts to switch its existing exit exam to a Common Core-aligned evaluation called the PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers,”according to The Hechinger Report.

"'We need a test to give educators, students and families an honest indication of whether [high school students] are on track to meet postsecondary demands,’” she said.

But critics argue that high school exit exams can remain as-is because they are not supposed to be an indicator of whether or not students are college-ready, but rather are intended to ensure students are proficient in basic skills.

Still, students who aren’t ready go on to experience a frustrating purgatory that exists in remedial education, The Hechinger Report says.

"Remedial education can be a black hole for college students: Only one in five who has to take them manages to pass into college-level courses. For many, just the prospect of remedial classes is discouraging enough that they drop their college aspirations altogether,” it says.

While some states are choosing to use college entrance exams to assess high school students, Alissa Peltzman, vice-president of Achieve, told Hechinger Report that this is not enough to guarantee college readiness and more needs to be done to raise standards within the next few years.

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Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

2/22/2016