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GREENSBORO — Joseph Level sat in his seat on the end of the third row, and for two hours, he listened to 11 smart people on the stage talk about education in Guilford County.

The school system was given a C average. Agree? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

A lot of the talk was pretty gloomy.

Kids can't read. Kids aren't ready for college. Kids take too many tests that get in the way of actual learning.

Even so, Level left the room thinking of a bright future.

"I am hopeful," the 14-year-old said. "It's not easy, but you have to find your own motivation. No one's going to do it for you."

Level and about 30 of his fellow freshmen at Dudley High were among a crowd of about 300 who gathered at UNCG's Elliott Center auditorium Wednesday for the third One Guilford symposium, a series of leadership discussions sponsored by the News & Record.

Eleven panelists took turns answering questions about education. Four represented the higher education/business perspective, four the public schools perspective and three the student perspective.

All 11 agreed on one thing: There is plenty of work to do.

"We heard a lot of statistics in there," said Jasmine Renee Mitchell, one of the three student panelists. "I know those Dudley kids kept hearing 'underprepared, underprepared, underprepared.' ... But I would tell them not to be discouraged."

Mitchell, a Smith High graduate who won a Morehead-Cain scholarship and is now a sophomore majoring in economics at UNC-Chapel Hill, was the panelist closest in age to the Dudley students who filled the first three rows.

She has some advice for them.

"Don't accept limits other people place on you," Mitchell said. "I would definitely tell them to think about a goal. Figure out what you want to do, and stick with it."

Perhaps the most telling question was the first. Panelists were asked to grade how well Guilford County prepares graduates for life after high school, whether it be college or the job market.

The grades were painfully average: B-minus, B-minus, B-minus, C, C, C, C, C, C, C-minus and an incomplete.

Kathryn Baker Smith, GTCC's vice president for educational support services, said the community college tests its incoming students.

"The data we see from brand new (high school) graduates is very discouraging," she said. "We see 85 percent need math remediation, 60 percent need some kind of remediation, and 39 percent are not reading above an eighth-grade level."

The C average didn't surprise Joseph Graves, N.C. A&T's dean of university studies. He said the problem stretches beyond Guilford County.

"I believe the United States is not doing a good job, period, when it comes to preparing students for college," Graves said. "Especially when you compare us to the rest of the world."

So what's the best way to prepare students? The panel liked the idea of community involvement and disliked standardized testing.

"I think we're testing our students to death," Mitchell said. "I think we focus so much on tests, and teachers teaching for the tests, there's not room for any real learning."

Noah Rogers, the principal at Smith High, criticized the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"As a result of all the testing, we're leaving a lot of children behind," Rogers said. "When you test and test and test, when you talk about testing constantly, you kill the enthusiasm for learning."

Maybe so. But not completely.

Level, the Dudley freshman, seemed to keep his enthusiasm. He said he wants to go into business someday, although he doesn't know for sure what kind.

"I think this was helpful," he said. "It was helpful in finding out about what administrators' positions are on how to help solve some of these problems."

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com