Stepping down

Every year, high school students across the nation celebrate their achievement of admission into IU. For many Indiana residents who throughout their childhood heard about our beloved school’s legacy and prestige, they find perhaps no greater thrill than the opportunity to attend college in Bloomington. But residents across the state are having greater difficulty making this dream a reality. As admissions standards begin to rise, Indiana public school systems seem to be lacking in preparatory methods.\nThe recently released categorization of Indiana high school academics required under the No Child Left Behind Act found that 75 percent are in the lowest two levels – “academic watch” and “academic probation.” More troubling still, 89 percent of high schools either stayed in the same bracket (57 percent) or dropped to a lower one (32 percent), despite those lower brackets having received more state aid.\nBecause high school academics are vital to preparing for college level classes, this trend threatens the quality of both IU and the state job market. With an increasing number of applications received by IU coming from Indiana residents, the University will be forced to admit more out-of-state students who attended better high schools or lower the quality of those it admits for under-performing Indiana residents. Some may argue the latter is one of the school’s primary duties, but that still seems unlikely considering IU’s constantly increasing admissions standards. \nThe state should make re-establishing education one of its primary goals. A starting place for improvement might be to have teachers measure their effectiveness by asking students’ opinions thereof, a task already being pursued here. IU’s annual High School Survey of Student Engagement found that 30 percent of the students polled – 81,000 students – cited lack of teacher interaction as a primary difficulty and 75 percent cited lack of interesting material as a key problem. \nBoth led to increased boredom of students. Only 52 percent of students said their teachers’ lectures were engaging. \nAll of these numbers shape a pretty poor perception of the Indiana public school system and seem to indicate a population uninterested in higher education. However, 75 percent of the same polled group expressed interest in attending college.\nThe danger for those students who have the above feelings is that, when the time comes for them to receive a college acceptance letter, their lack of preparation will find them at a disadvantage. With IU officials calling the incoming freshman class “the best academically prepared class in the history of IU,” many are already concerned that students are not being admitted who would have been in the past. \nThe lack of preparation of Hoosier high school students will have a greater effect on their lives than they might perceive. And so it is with a stern eye and newly reformed commitment to excellence by state legislators, high-school officials and educators across the state must improve. Otherwise, Indiana residents will find themselves left out of higher education more often.