Cal State: Minorities Need Not Apply

Let a high school teacher share an American success story that threatens to go out of fashion, thanks to some dangerous changes being made, almost unnoticed, in higher education.

When Luanna came to our school five years ago in the 10th grade, she read far below grade level and had never mastered basic math, let alone algebra. She described her early school years with all the pain that only urban kids can express about unfeeling, unorganized schools. She worked hard, raised her reading level, learned to write research papers, and unleashed her curiosity on subjects like history and biology. She graduated, and she did it all in spite of evictions, utility turn-offs and other personal crises.

Luanna was turned on by the world of the intellect and the possibility of some future job serving the community as a counselor, a nurse, perhaps a doctor. She was eligible for financial aid, went to the local state college and has done well.

But beginning next year few kids like her will be admitted to California’s state college system. New standards demand that they be “college bound” by junior high in order to complete the courses that will now be required for admittance.

This means that they must score high enough on standardized tests to be admitted to pre-algebra in the eighth grade. It means passing two years of foreign language, a year of lab science, three years of approved electives, history and government and four years of English (which cannot include remedial English or English as a Second Language). These requirements previously were reserved for applicants to the far more competitive University of California system.

Of course, advocates of higher standards make persuasive arguments. Says a 1986 state college chancellor’s bulletin: “We know that the students, whatever their backgrounds, who are prepared for university studies perform better than those who are not.” But the arguments ignore the questions of educational equity that were raised in 1967 and remain at least as pressing in 1987. We are an unjust society if we penalize young people for the failures of the school systems we force them to attend. A not-very-subtle and extremely effective tracking system keeps the vast majority of low income, non-white students out of the courses that the new standards require.

The process is multi-dimensional: Urban elementary schools often are ineffective; low-income parents don’t have the option of private schools, moving or hiring a tutor; racism, both covert and open, still is very present in education.

By junior high, two very distinct tracks exist: “college-bound” and “other.” If you score very well on standardized tests, you are automatically considered college-bound and placed in classes that meet the new state college requirements. If you do not score well, you must individually demand access to college-preparatory materials and courses, and even then they may be denied on the grounds that you will not be able to “handle” the work.

Many students of color do not score well on the tests, partly for the reasons already enumerated and partly because of a cultural bias in the tests, which the courts have acknowledged. These students are unlikely to demand courses that, they have been told, are too difficult for them.

This process translates into statistics like those compiled by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Atzlan, a group that opposes the new California state college requirements: 94.8% of the current Latino California state college undergraduates, 92.7% of the black undergrads and 92.5% of the Asian students would not have qualified for admission if these requirements had been in effect when they applied.

According to the California Post-Secondary Education Commission, 17% of public high schools in the state did not even offer the required courses last year.

I was at San Francisco State in 1968. It was a very white institution until thousands of us fought lengthy battles for open admissions. Today, federal aid cuts already have decreased black enrollment nationally. And now in the name of “educational excellence,” new measures are in the works that will further narrow low-income students’ access.

Without equity, excellence is meaningless. When the public school system demonstrates some capacity to teach advanced math to all high school students, then it will be a fair requirement. Until that time, some years and many dollars from now, it is not equitable to punish young people for the failures of the public schools.