Elina Pierce, chair of Southeast Community College’s Pharmacy Technician program, knows the importance of admitting students to her program who possess basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics.
She also understands the challenges in establishing minimum standards of preparedness.
Pierce participated in a National Assessment of Educational Progress Judgmental Standard Setting Study in early June in St. Louis. Pierce was invited to participate in the study, which was conducted by WestEd and the U.S. Department of Education. WestEd is a research, development and service agency that works with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity and improve learning for children, youth and adults.
The conference involved pharmacy technician and nursing faculty whose goal was to set minimum standards of preparedness for their particular field in reading and math.
Pierce was selected after a competitive selection process where only a fraction of pharmacy technicians and nurses from across the U.S. were chosen. Pierce was chosen to participate on the math team.
“It was a very interesting process,” Pierce said, “and although I cannot reveal any details, I will say that a lot of things that we are doing at SCC are for the better good of the student and the College.”
The NAEP is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history.
Pierce said SCC’s efforts in implementing a comprehensive developmental component were critical to student preparedness.
“It is absolutely critical that our students come to the program of study prepared to read, write and do math,” she said. “However, what I find is that students struggle considerably in those areas and sometimes in more than one area. In terms of student responsibility and accountability, I think we, as a college, do a good job of that as well. We want our students to succeed.”
For more information on the Pharmacy Technician program, readers can visit the following link: Pharmacy Technician