Students graduating from high school this spring in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties are more likely to enter college next fall in need of remedial classes for basic subjects such as math and reading, experts say.
But while some in academia decry the numbers as a sign of tanking standards, others say they reflect greater numbers of all types of students, including limited English speakers, encouraged to enroll in higher education.
The most recent data, compiled by the Maryland Commission on Higher Education, shows that in 2005, 30 percent of students in Montgomery County and 44 percent in Prince George’s County who took a college-preparatory high school curriculum needed of classes to brush up on the basics of algebra, compared with 22 percent and 32 percent respectively in 1995.
In reading, the numbers jumped from 6 percent to 11 percent in Montgomery County, and from 16 percent to 31 percent in Prince George’s.
Broken down by race and for all freshmen — not just those who took college-prep classes — the numbers swell.
Statewide, 67 percent of black high school graduates needed math remediation in 2005, compared with 56 percent in 1998, according to data collected by Jerome Dancis, a math professor at the University of Maryland. Hispanic numbers grew from 44 percent to 58 percent; whites grew from 33 percent to 40 percent.
“The overwhelming need for remediation occurs at the state’s four historically black colleges — Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State and University of Maryland at Eastern Shore — and at Towson University,” said Michael Keller, director of the higher education commission’s policy analysis and research.
Dancis blames a lack of proper preparation at the high school level.
“What it’s doing is cutting off their options,” he said, adding that math skills are critical to boosting the country’s output of engineers.
At Rockville’s Montgomery College, which has an open admissions policy, officials haven’t noticed a significant change in the need for remediation, but in the need for English language classes before enrollment in classes for credit.
“The increase in [non-citizen students] is just astounding,” said Karen Roseberry, dean of student development, adding their enrollment has grown to 7,313 in 2006, a 24 percent increase since 1996.
