Keeping students in college starts with better K-12 education

“Community colleges must do more to halt dropouts” (Dec. 5) puts the shoe on the wrong foot. The problem lies with K-12 preparation, not at the college level. The continual process of passing K-12 students along in order to maintain the ADA (average daily attendance) guarantees that many students achieve little.

During 28 years teaching CC science classes, I had many students with A’s and B’s all through high school who could not write a simple declarative sentence or even simple arithmetic. With such a lack of basic skills, there’s no wonder at the dropout rate. I must add, however, that I also had some outstanding CC students who went on to major universities and have achieved much.

This story was originally published December 10, 2016 at 8:40 PM with the headline "Keeping students in college starts with better K-12 education."