Forty percent of Montgomery County Public Schools students enroll at the local community college within two years of leaving high school, a college official said Tuesday. “Partnerships are so important. … We have ongoing dialogues with our counterparts in MCPS on curricular alignment,” said Clarice Somersall, special assistant to the senior vice president for academic and student services at Montgomery College.
Somersall spoke on a panel with Superintendent Jerry Weast and education experts following the release of Education Week’s “Diplomas Count 2011” report, which ranked Montgomery first in the nation for graduation rates among large school districts.
As reported in The Washington Examiner last month, one of every four MCPS graduates enrolls at Montgomery College in the fall following graduation, and former MCPS students ultimately comprise 75 percent of the college’s three campuses in Germantown, Rockville and Takoma Park/Silver Spring.
Sixty percent of Montgomery College students require remedial classes, while students fresh out of high school come in at closer to 70 percent, spokesman Marcus Rosano said.
Students who do not demonstrate a grasp of basic college skills on placement exams are enrolled in remedial courses, which generally do not count toward their degrees.
Kevin Carey, the policy director at independent think tank Education Sector, emphasized as he spoke on the panel that “college is not just a magical destination that if you get to it you will be fine.”
While high school coursework is a “major contributing factor” to students’ success — or lack thereof — in college, Carey also pointed to state and federal-level input.
“From a political standpoint, I think we’re pretty much stuck at ‘pathway to college,’ ” instead of a “pathway to college success,” he said. – Lisa Gartner
