lowering standards R/T shortage

Vsummer1 · Nov 13, 2002

I can only speak for my program. They have not brought down the standards here.

In the end it is the NCLEX-RN that makes a nurse an RN -- not the school they attend and the degree they get. If a school lowers its standards, it may graduate a lot of people just so they will fail the NCLEX. That WILL NOT help the nursing shortage!

mario_ragucci · Nov 13, 2002

Maybe, since a great deal of learning is done on the job, they figure its best to just get them out there into circulation. This is where the "natural killer nurses" come into the evolutionary picture because they can go after and eat/kill any new nurses who don't fit into their sectors.

Q. · Nov 13, 2002

To a point I agree with Val; ultimately, a student has to pass the NCLEX, regardless on whether or not their school lowered standards. However, anyone can be taught to pass a test, in my opinion.

So I wouldn't doubt if some schools are lowering standards. Hell, the NCLEX standards itself may be lowered. I would not be shocked.

Vsummer1 · Nov 13, 2002

Originally posted by Susy K
To a point I agree with Val; ultimately, a student has to pass the NCLEX, regardless on whether or not their school lowered standards. However, anyone can be taught to pass a test, in my opinion.

So I wouldn't doubt if some schools are lowering standards. Hell, the NCLEX standards itself may be lowered. I would not be shocked.

To a point, I agree with Suzy too...

Here is a way they could lower standards: we have a lot of pass/fails testing in clinicals. If these were relaxed, I think a lot more students would be graduating. And sometimes the students who do well in theory are the ones failing out of clinicals... (knocking on wood!)

EDITED to add: I forgot the part that to a point I agreed with Suzy on (duh)... I am not sure that anyone could be taught to pass the test though unless they actually had that all around basic nursing knowledge.

RENAISSANCE RN · Nov 13, 2002

Hi,

At the school that I am applying to they are raising the standards.

The school " bumped" up all of its minimum requirements by 20%. They are also requiring more pre reqs.

From what I hear, People drop out during the training due to the difficulty they face, and the school does not want any empty slots.

I somewhat feel that this "may" be discriminatory to people whos' native language is not English, but I don't want to go down that road. Has anyone seen the same situation?

SmilingBluEyes · Nov 13, 2002

I think in many areas, a "dumbing down" is going on in order to fill quotas or engineer the outcome to a set state of satisfaction by those "in charge" ...I see it in public school where my son attends, to a large degree....... HEY, I see folks who graduate 4 year university programs (usually NOT nursing, actually) who cannot write a coherent sentence or paragraph or communicate effectively with others. I see it all around. Look at so many schools (my alma mater included) who pass athletes that would otherwise fail classes, but are "needed" to play the sports they have so much talent to do.....

There IS definately a thread of truth to this belief, not just in nursing school but in many areas today. It is very sad, indeed.

emily_mom · Nov 13, 2002

Aren't they just doing a disservice to us if they dumb down the program and then we all fail the NCLEX? It just makes them look bad. I know our program hasn't eased up on the workload. We're actually putting in more hours than my sister-in-law did 5 years ago. Over half of our class is gone...it's definitely not easy.

Peeps Mcarthur · Nov 13, 2002

If they would just quit trying to teach graduate psychology to people that won't have time to talk to anybody anyway, I would be happy. We might look a little less like a sorority of soccer moms that allows male members and more like a profession.

I would like to make my school aware of the dumbing-down process because they seem a little behind the times. We had people quitting the first 3 weeks of semester.

I guess they expected some connection to medical science like I did. :rolleyes:

KarafromPhilly · Nov 13, 2002

Thank you, Peeps. So true.

Actually, if you compare a nursing textbook from 20 or even 10 years ago with what is currently in use, the dumbing down is obvious. Now there are lots of glossy pictures, colorful graphs and other illustrations and relatively little text. And the text that has survived seems dumbed down too. Scary that some people STILL can't pass.

NMAguiar · Nov 14, 2002

Here is the ultimate story about the conflict between community colleges' "admit everyone" philosophy and the need to maintain high nursing admittance standages.

The story can be found here.

Vsummer1 · Nov 14, 2002

Originally posted by NMAguiar
Here is the ultimate story about the conflict between community colleges' "admit everyone" philosophy and the need to maintain high nursing admittance standages.

The story can be found here.

As admittance was "dumbed down" more students failed the program because the program itself was not "dumbed down". It shows that many students get in d/t lesser standards, and many more are failing out. It is the same at my college, we have already lost 1/6th of our original class, in the first semester. They took more students this semester than ever before. Most of those students who failed out plan to attend next semester, or are going for LPN. One quit right at the beginning, stating that nursing just wasn't what they figured it was.

On another note regarding how much harder it was 10 years ago... a local copy house has the notes from 10 years ago (1992). The dates on the notes are right there, and I can use them for my program today. They had it EASIER because I can also see the objectives included in those notes. While many are the same, ours have many additional objectives showing an increase, not decrease, in what we need to know. I WISH I could only be tested on only the information required back then!