


Three of four will graduate from high school. That's a generous estimate, but I'm keeping it simple.

If all three enter college, two won't be able to do college-level work. They'll have to take remedial classes in math, reading and/or writing. Most likely it will be math.


The Colorado Commission on Higher Education's 2011 Legislative Report on Remedial Education sums it up this way: Of those students who graduated in 2004 and entered a four-year public Colorado university that fall, one-third graduated within four years — if they didn't need remediation.

Of those who did? Nine percent graduated within four years.

That's not a typo. Nine percent.


Community colleges have a much higher percentage of students who need to catch up —remediation is part of their mission — and have kept the gap between the two groups much smaller. It's still not a pretty picture. About one in five who did not need remediation graduated within two years, compared with 16 percent of those who did.


But it explains why Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia last week said: "The real tragedy is not that so many students need remediation but that so many who need remediation never finish college."




Which brings me back to Andy, Sean, Erika and Stephanie. They are taking their regular math classes but are also part of a pilot program with 48 other middle-school students. In that pilot class, they are taking the equivalent of the first level of remedial math taught at Adams State College. Master the material, pass the assessments, and they don't have to retake that remedial math class in college. It's done. Out of the way. They're one step closer to jumping directly into college-level math.

I was skeptical when I read about this program. One excited student said she was happy to be taking a college class in middle school. No, darling, I thought, you're taking eighth-grade math. Twice.

I say that to Scott Mendelsberg, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education's Gear Up program, which is running the pilot in partnership with Adams State. He fires back with a depressing truth: "For 72 percent of kids who graduate from Adams City High, this is a college class. It's a college class for 67 percent of Alameda High graduates and 74 percent of Aurora Central graduates."

The colleges and universities know what basic math, reading and writing skills they want, he argues. So, use their online programs in middle and high school together with teacher instruction and allow students entering college to head straight into college-level classes. What they don't remember can be addressed through tutoring. Money saved. Time better spent.

"The state spends $22 million a year in remedial education. Students spend another $24 million," he says. "It's unconscionable."



But I sit Friday with four young people who no longer see college as an abstract concept. They want college degrees and are working hard toward them. They're holding up their end of the bargain. We need to hold up ours.

Tina Griego: 303-954-2699 or