Blog Post 6 - Remediation

Although the case is different for community colleges, most four year schools usually vet their applicants before accepting them. Because of this, I think that these schools should work with their admitted students regardless of their level and need of remediation. Essentially, because the remedial student was admitted, the school has an obligation to get the student to where he or she needs to be. With this in mind, I think each school should be allowed to make a decision on how to conduct their remediation programs. This is seen through the benefits of allowing schools to figure out what is best for their students, rejecting the idea that there is a formulized solution to every remediation problem, and adopting solutions that best suit the needs of the community.

                Although remediation can often seem tedious and unnecessary, remedial programs shouldn’t be cut from every school; schools should be allowed to improve their programs and remedial curriculum to fit the needs of the student. In Why School?, Mike Rose writes about a remedial student named Kevin for whom “the traditional remedial writing course” which “begins with simple writing assignments and includes a fair amount of workbook exercises” was entirely ineffective (Chapter 10, pg. 128). Instead, Kevin benefited from a program “that held a different set of assumptions” which had arisen out of “current research on language and cognition and from … experience in the classroom” (Chapter 10, pg. 128).If schools could only spare a little time for each student, they can tailor their programs to be wildly effective.

                Because each school is different, a uniform solution can’t be applied to every single American school. Colleges are unique and individual; they can have massive differences in their purposes. While some schools might need extensive remediation services, others might be able to cut down on some of their programs. For instance, I would not assume MIT has a remediation program that reteaches students basic math skills. As the costs of unnecessary remediation services can be quite high, students who are admitted to that particular college should know the very foundational ideas – if they don’t know the basics, something has gone wrong at the admissions level. At the same time, I would definitely expect a two-year community college, like Chabot College, to have many remediation programs.

                Finally, colleges should serve the needs of their community. Although this statement seems fairly obvious, it is one that often gets lost in the nitty-gritty side of school and local politics. In the Bay Area, there are many ESL students, many people who have graduated from academically ill-prepared high schools, and many people who simply need a refresher- remediation is for all these hard-working academic strugglers who just a push to help them succeed. America is a truly “a nation that prides itself as being a ‘second chance’ society” (Chapter 10, pg. 135); we have to invest in people to succeed as a larger collective. As Rose aptly notes, “… when done well, remediation becomes a key mechanism in a democratic model of human educational development” (Chapter 10, pg. 137).   

Although remediation programs have their own problems, they are a necessary part of the society we live in. Until the actual educational system in the United States is radically reformed, we can’t take away all remediation programs – because they are so crucial to the success rates of so many students. As each school is different, I believe that colleges and universities should be allowed to make individual decisions on how to conduct their remediation programs; they should not entirely be done away with. This post has supported that position by examining the benefit of allowing schools to figure out what is best for their students, rejecting the idea that there is a formulized solution to every remediation problem, and adopting solutions that best suit the needs of the community.