A College "Core Function" is to Teach High School, Says VP

The Ohio Board of Regents has proposed phasing out the funding for remedial classes for incoming freshmen. It seems that high school graduates are enrolling in college without having learned prerequisite knowledge in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Therefore, Ohio colleges and universities are teaching basic high school courses to the students with the taxpayer picking up the cost.

"Assisting underprepared students is a core function of higher education and is something we do at the University of Cincinnati. There is nothing to indicate that this is going to change anytime soon," said Anthony J. Perzigian, UC's senior vice president and provost for baccalaureate and graduate education.

It is incomprehensible to this writer that a senior official with the University of Cincinnati states that teaching high school is a core function of the university. It also doesn't make any sense that the taxpayer should be responsible for a university to teach high school courses.

Worthy of mention is the scope of the problem with high school graduates who didn't learn anything in high school.

The 2002 Performance Report for Ohio's Colleges and Universities said 32 percent of new freshman [sic] take a remedial math and/or English course their first year on the main campus, and that the average for Ohio main campuses last year was 23 percent.

On UC's Clermont campus, about 47 percent of new freshmen take a remedial math and/or English course their first year, and about 54 percent of new freshmen take a remedial math and/or English course their first year at the Raymond Walters campus in Blue Ash.

The 2002 statewide average for branch campuses was 48 percent, UC officials said.

There it is. Final tally, approximately one-half of enrolling HS graduates didn't learn the basics in high school. Pretty sad.

On a positive note, unnamed officials have been heard to remark that incoming students are well versed in diversity, environmentalism, homosexuality and transgenderism, animal rights and radical vegetarianism, and the problems of the homeless. No remedial classes are necessary in these areas. Areas of deficient knowledge are exclusively reading, writing, and arithmetic.