Differences between schoolteachers, professors on what students should know

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

State learning standards may help high school teachers focus their coursework, but college faculty say they're focusing on the wrong things, says a report that finds a "significant gap" between what high school instructors teach and what college faculty think entering freshmen ought to know.

"States tend to have too many standards attempting to tackle too many content topics," the report says. The report examines science, math, reading and English.

"High school teachers are working very, very hard at following and teaching their state standards," she says, but college faculty "felt it was more important for students to learn a fewer number of fundamental but essential skills."

High school teachers put more weight on advanced content, while college instructors said "a rigorous understanding of fundamentals" was more important. More than half (55%) of faculty ranked "basic operations and applications" most important, compared with 40% of high school faculty. Among material most desired by college faculty but covered the least in high school were algebraic problems such as solving quadratic equations and factoring.

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