Are LGR New SAT Courses Too Long or Too Short?

In the fall, LGR piloted TestTakers new SAT curricula at Baruch LGR (Baruch College Campus High School) and Barnard LGR (The Young Women's Leadership School). The LGR Fellows for these programs and their coaches said that there was not enough time in their LGR programs to get to all the College Choice assignments and new SAT materials, not to mention all the math and English basics that students needed refreshing on. At Baruch LGR, Therese Relucio, the Site Director, said, "Time was really, really stressed," and at Barnard LGR, a coach wrote on her final evaluation that she wanted a "longer period of time to work with the girls." In the student evaluations, a few students echoed this, with one TYWLS student writing, "I need more help and reinforcement."

But how do we reconcile this push for more time on the part of LGR college students and some high school students with the reality that for many students, LGR already demands too much time? In LGR programs, typically 25% to 50% of students who start off in LGR do not complete the course. Non-attending students have been voting with their feet since the start of LGR in 1998 that LGR is too time-intensive.

Specifically, during the pilot test of the new SAT curriculum, the number of students in the Baruch LGR and Barnard LGR programs who attended less than 75% of the time was 54, which compares to only ~32 students who attended more than 75% of the time. Though I attribute much of the falloff in these two programs to administrative issues (weak cooperation with the high school, no deposits), undoubtedly some of the falloff is because the LGR course, including the adaptions for the new SAT, is not meeting the interests of students.

The conclusion that I draw from this is that no matter how much we who are commited to college access believe that under-resourced high school students should be doing college searches and learning more geometry and grammar in an after-school setting, most students in LGR courses are not as interested in doing this stuff as we are interested in them doing it. In my opinon as an LGR staff member, LGR programs should still set high expectations for LGR students and motivate them with reasons to work hard (COLLEGE and parental involvement). But the LGR office and LGR Fellows should pay heed to the students' limitations as we think about deepening LGR's programming to accomodate the new SAT, or we will be running the best, most intense college access programs ever but for very few students.

What do you think? I'd like to know that I have an audience in cyberspace...