Schools fail to prepare students to finish college

Last Updated on Thursday, 05 January 2012 12:39 Written by Sean Goldrick
Thursday, 05 January 2012 01:00

In the town of Greenwich, the wealthiest town of its size in the entire country, home to a major concentration of hedge funds, with one of the best educated adult populations, half of the graduates of the public high school fail to earn a four-year college degree.

That revelation comes from the just-released report by the Connecticut Board of Regents on college completion, which lists completion rates for each public high school in Connecticut. While our school system claims to be “setting the standard for excellence in public education,” Greenwich High School’s college completion rate places it just 41st in the state. And it’s important to understand that the Nutmeg State, though the nation’s wealthiest, ranks only seventh in the percentage of young adults with college degrees, but it’s falling further behind, with the rate of improvement in college graduation trailing 33 other states.

As with standardized tests scores, Greenwich’s college completion rate of 53% (including 3% who earned associate’s degrees) trails virtually every affluent suburban school district in the state, those categorized as DRG A and B, besting only Granby and West Hartford’s Conard High School. Six DRG B high schools recorded completion rates of 63% or better, including Daniel Hand High School in Madison at 67%. But GHS also trailed 13 schools in lower socio-economic communities. Even graduates of two DRG E high schools, Litchfield and North Branford, achieved greater success in college graduation.

This should not come as a surprise. For years we’ve seen Greenwich’s standardized test scores trail its peers’ and fall further over the past few years. Some have asserted that the state’s standardized tests of reading ability, math, science and social studies were not indicative of the true education that students were receiving. Some suggested that GHS’s steady decline in national rankings based on Advanced Placement achievement was also irrelevant. Those exams are too hard for most students anyway, they argued. But barely half of all GHS students going to four-year colleges take and pass even one AP exam, even though research clearly shows that doing so correlates with dramatically higher rates of college degree completion. Six years ago, the Board of Education set a goal to have 60% of all eighth graders complete a year of algebra. Algebra completion is another goalpost, the achievement of which is highly correlated with substantially higher rates of college completion. But even that modest goal went unmet.

Now comes a statistic that cannot be ignored. A stark divide in earnings potential and unemployment rates stands between those with college degrees and those without. The pain of the current economic depression cuts far deeper in those without college degrees. And given our increasingly technological society, demand for those with college degrees will only increase.

Our town government, not just the Board of Education, but the first selectman, the Board of Estimate and Taxation, and RTM, must work together to improve our public school system. If we are to maintain the economic vitality of this town, we must do a better job of educating our youth. A college completion rate of 50% is unacceptable.

Sean Goldrick is a Democratic member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation, though the opinions expressed in this column are his own. He may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .