County’s Freshmen Ill-Prepared for College Basics : District report says administrators at area’s two-year campuses are having to place many incoming students into remedial courses.

Vast numbers of freshmen enrolling at Ventura County’s community colleges are not prepared to take entry-level math, reading or English classes, a college district report concludes.

As a result, community college administrators are having to place hundreds of students in remedial courses that focus on material that students should have learned in high school.

Copies of the private memos, which were obtained by The Times on Monday, show that 89% of Buena High School students were not prepared for a first-year math class at Ventura College.

In another case, 77% of students at Moorpark High School are ill-qualified for a freshman English class at Moorpark College, the report concluded.

The survey results generally include test scores from high school students assessed between 1993 and January, 1995. The tests are designed to alert counselors to what course level is most appropriate for an incoming student.

The study was requested several months ago by Timothy D. Hirschberg, president of the Ventura County Community College District board of trustees. But its results were kept private by college district administrators.

“I had resistance getting this report,” Hirschberg said Monday. “We were cautioned when it was given to us not to publicize it because it would create bad feelings among the high schools. But the public needs to know the results of this test and the high schools need this feedback.”

Hirschberg has long advocated offering more classes to students planning to transfer to University of California or Cal State University campuses. But after reading this report, he said the district might consider offering more remedial classes.

The report “raised a lot of eyebrows, especially among the administration,” Hirschberg said. “We didn’t anticipate that the results would show so many high school students coming to us not ready to start college work.

“The numbers were overwhelming,” he said.

The survey results came six months after state officials singled out Ventura County for having a lower-than-average number of high school graduates enrolling in public universities.

Only 11.2% of local high school graduates enrolled as freshmen in either UC or Cal State campuses in 1992-93, the state Department of Education said. Statewide, the average is 14.2%.

The same state report, released in November, concluded that Ventura County high school students took fewer difficult courses such as geometry, foreign languages or other classes required by UC campuses.

Charles Weis, the county schools superintendent, said local college administrators need to work with high schools to increase students’ performances.

“I would not look for affixing blame,” Weis said. “I would look for things to change to make it better. I’d recommend a full analysis of that data.”

Community college officials studied test results of students from about 20 public and private high schools in Ventura County who took placement exams within the past two years.

By and large, many high school seniors were not eligible for such college-level staples as reading, math and English. Instead, many of those who enroll in community college are steered to prerequisite courses that review material covered in high school. Not everyone who took the proficiency tests enrolled in Ventura, Moorpark or Oxnard colleges.

Oxnard College Vice President Ronald Jackson said the survey results are not surprising.

“It’s nothing new, and that’s unfortunate,” Jackson said. “When you look at what our instructor deems an appropriate score to enter a freshman composition course, those students don’t have that.

“It indicates to us that there’s a tremendous amount of preparation that’s needed,” he said. “The high schools argue that the students come to them unprepared.”

John Wooley, a Ventura College vice president, said prospective students at Ventura, Moorpark and Oxnard colleges “are not demonstrating on the tests that they have the sufficient skill level” to enroll in college.

But, Wooley said, it is a community college’s role to offer courses that are needed by the community--regardless of whether the material is available at the high school level.

Prospective students fared the worst in math. For instance, less than 8% of nearly 1,700 students tested by Ventura College officials qualified for a math class transferable to a university.

At Oxnard College, administrators tested nearly 2,000 students, and only 11% were recommended for the same college-level math courses.

Students generally performed better in English and reading, with as many as 49% of Newbury Park High School seniors scoring high enough to enroll in an English class at Moorpark College.

But 85% of the students at the private La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks were qualified to take the same class, the study showed.

Moorpark College Vice President Diane Moore said part of the reason so many students are placed in remedial classes is that community colleges accept anyone who applies.

“We have an open-door policy, where we take any students 18 years or older who are capable of benefiting from instruction,” said Moore, who said the issue is not unique to Ventura County’s colleges.

“If (universities) are having problems with kids who need remediation in math, English and reading, you can imagine that we would have at least the same and probably even greater problems,” she said.