Seattle—There’s discontent about a disconnect between college and the school years that come before it. The complaints are being voiced frequently at the Educause 2007 meeting, and major companies are trying to throw technology in the gap.
“Students are not arriving at college prepared, academically,” says Peter Segall, a vice president for higher education and operations at Blackboard, the course-management software company. So Blackboard just announced a K-through-20 initiative. The company plans to spend $1-million dollars to connect local school districts to college campuses. The general idea is to use Blackboard software as a bridge, letting high-school students participate at some level in college courses, and probably have their performance assessed. Crossing the bridge in the other direction, colleges can provide instructional resources for local schools, going all the way down to the kindergarten level.
Though not endorsing the Blackboard approach, Michael King, IBM’s vice president for global education industry, says the lack of student preparation is something his company is worried about. “There’s a pipeline problem, because students are not arriving at college with core competencies, particularly in science and math,” King says. And since IBM has to hire people to develop technology, King says, these incompetencies are a real concern.—Josh Fischman
