INFORMED OPINIONS ON TODAY’S TOPICS : Is Cal State the Place for Catching Up?

Incoming Cal State Northridge students are supposed to have mastered the three R’s--reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic.

But a large percentage of them must instead spend time in college trying to cope with another R: remedial.

Campus officials said recently that more than two-thirds of this year’s CSUN freshmen were not prepared to handle college-level math and English classes and required remedial help.

A report showed that 70% of the freshmen weren’t ready for math, up from 60.6% a year earlier, and that 69.3% weren’t prepared for English classes, up from 63.3% in 1993.

CSUN was hardly alone. The number of students who need remedial classes is a big problem throughout the Cal State University system.

In a meeting last month, CSU’s Board of Trustees approved a resolution that calls for the development of “specific, practical action plans” to reduce the number of remedial classes.

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Should the Cal State University system be in the business of offering remedial classes for students who attended public high schools?

Michael Turner, CSUN remedial math student

“It’s absolutely necessary. In my case, I had wonderful scores in English and history and science, but my math skills, even though I slipped through the system, just weren’t up to par. I took the classes and that was it. But now I can really grasp them, and this class is going to set the foundation and the basis for me taking a mathematics class I’m going to need for my major.”

James Castro, CSUN math specialist

“It’s a need that exists. There has to be someone to provide the service to those students. We have a tremendously successful program here at Cal State Northridge. We have very low attrition rates, and our tracking statistics show the students who go through the program do extremely well, better than the general population in their subsequent math courses.

Mary Lee, president of Pierce College

“If they admit the student to CSUN, CSUN should provide that student with whatever instructional support or prerequisites that are necessary for that student to reach his or her educational objective. However, they have control over who they admit. And, if they admit students below the top one-third of the graduating seniors from high school, they will be needing remedial education.”

Ralph Pesqueira, Cal State trustee from San Diego:

“I don’t believe so. I believe it’s the responsibility of the K-12 system to see to it that when their students graduate and have the necessary grade point average and have completed the necessary course work, those students should be able to enter the CSU directly into freshman English and freshman algebra classes without having to take remediation work. Maybe we could work out something with the K-12, that we could test these students at an earlier time before they register for classes.”

Judy Vanderbok, English teacher at Taft High in Woodland Hills:

“No, theoretically, they shouldn’t be. It seems to me that if students are going to college, they should have been prepared. They should have a minimum of skills. They should know how to write an essay, and they should know their algebra and geometry functions. Traditionally, people who go to college are in the top 20% or 30% of their graduating classes. But that is no longer the case. Education has become a vehicle for a better life, for lifting up all peoples who seem to be disadvantaged, and as long as it is, we have to help people to achieve it, and that’s why there are remedial classes.”