Public Schools, CSUN Must Work Together : Improving the readiness of freshmen should be a joint effort

The Cal State University system, and its Northridge campus in particular, are not alone in contending with large numbers of new students who are unprepared for post-secondary academics.

Every year, for example, between three-fourths and four-fifths of the new students at the University of the District of Columbia have such poor basic skills that they must take remedial classes in reading, math and writing. And there has been a constant tug-of-war over the increasing need for remedial courses at the university (and for the instructors willing to teach them!) and increasingly tight budgetary constraints.

There was much discussion on what could be done to solve the dilemma, and Washington officials managed to squarely put their collective fingers on the precise problem and its solution. Yet little was accomplished, and the problem remains.

Now, we’re told that 69.3% of the students who entered CSUN last autumn failed to pass required Cal State placement tests in English, and that 70% failed the placement tests in mathematics.

Meanwhile, the California State University board of trustees took a cautious first step this past week toward scaling back the remedial course offerings. The trustees hope that the move will encourage high schools to do a better job.

Looking to the high schools is certainly part of the right idea, but it is going to take something more than this kind of “encouragement” to get the job done. We have something more comprehensive in mind.

Most of CSUN’s students, for example, come from the San Fernando Valley. Another group hails from the Glendale and Burbank areas, and still others come from as far away as East and South Los Angeles.

The largest group of those new students is first-time freshmen from local schools, such as the Los Angeles Unified School District. The second largest group comes from local two-year colleges. The smallest (and of no concern to us here) is made up of graduate students.

It’s time that CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson take some formal steps to raise the problem with public school superintendents, such as the LAUSD’s Sid Thompson, and with the community college presidents. How?

The high schools and junior colleges must teach with an eye toward the types of skills that the Cal State system expects from its incoming freshmen. What are these freshmen expected to know in terms of English and math and writing skills? That’s what the high schools need to know to begin to address the problem.

In one area of study, that of science, we have said that the public schools cannot be expected to operate in a vacuum and deliver a proper science curriculum on their own. We have said that college scientists and their institutions must reach down to the high schools and help out the teachers there in terms of how to teach, and what to teach, to help prepare more graduates for college studies.

The same must happen at a more basic level, and that won’t occur until the schools, junior colleges and the universities start seeing each other as adjacent steps on the same staircase.