What to do with the gap?

As an educator at a local community college teaching fundamental math, I see the extreme disconnect between what happens at the jr. high and high school levels in preparation for higher education. The post: Early College (or “Who goes to high school anymore?”) is a prime example of this disconnect. Higher education used to be defined as something beyond high school and not a realistic pursuit for everyone. Compared to world standards, our American education system has experienced a dumbing down. This has definitely affected our K-12 education, but what do we do at the college level? Dumb down “higher education”? Attempt to reteach high school at the college level (my role)? Attempt to collaborate with K-12 education systems (which sometimes results in programs described in the “Early College” post)? Thankfully, the community college at which I teach is a feeder school for the 4-year universities in the area and works hard to not “lower the bar” for those seeking to continue on to a bachelor’s degree. We “raised the bar” at one point for all associate’s degree students by requiring at least one college level math course, but unfortunately this backfired with certain majors in the Health Science, Business, Industrial, and IT Departments. And so, what’s an educator to do? Make a post on a blog with similar-minded educators!