Poor CSUN Showing Sparks Debate

Far from finding solutions to the problem, educators and others could not even agree Tuesday on the chief causes for the record numbers of unprepared students at schools such as Cal State Northridge, offering instead many and sometimes conflicting explanations.

Poor quality public schools in Los Angeles, inadequate state funding for education, and demographic changes were just some of the profusion of reasons offered for why the share of local college freshmen needing remedial help has hit an all-time high.

But while educators increasingly struggle to find ways to deal with the rising numbers of unprepared students, the effort also is provoking argument over what is driving the increase--and who deserves the blame for what has increasingly become an academic black eye.

“The professors are all mad at the high school teachers. The high school teachers are mad at the junior high school teachers. And the junior high school teachers are all mad at the elementary school teachers,” said CSUN mathematics professor David Klein of the contentious debate.

“If we’ve learned anything through this whole process, it’s that this is an extremely complex issue,” added Peter Hoff, the Cal State system’s senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. “And the last thing you’re going to find is a single magic bullet or cause.”

The linked issues of unprepared students and remedial education flared again Monday with the release of new data showing levels of freshman students judged to be unprepared for college-level English and math hit record levels in 1994 both at CSUN and throughout the 22-campus Cal State system.

Northridge ranked among the worst schools in the system, with nearly 70% of its 1994 freshmen found unprepared for college-level English and math work, and thus referred to remedial, or below-college-level courses.

The results for 19 Cal State campuses studied was 49% for English and 54% for math.

At the Northridge campus Tuesday, despite its poor showing compared to other Cal State schools, much of the explanation was directed at the school’s transition from a largely white, suburban campus to an increasingly urban and minority one.

“This reflects the demographic changes in our area,” said university spokesman Bruce Erickson. “It’s an increasing presence of school-age people who do not have a history of higher education in the family.”

While stressing that students’ ethnicity itself does not shape their academic performance, Erickson said the shift brought with it other factors that often do: more students with low incomes, who are not native English speakers and who lack a family history of college attendance.

“I think there’s a tendency among the media and some parts of the public to simplify the problem and play pin the tail on the donkey--the schools, the teachers, wherever, when in fact what we’re looking at is a changing world.”

Reflecting broader demographic changes in the surrounding San Fernando Valley, CSUN’s share of white students fell from nearly 68% in the mid-1980s to only 45% by 1994. And the change was even more pronounced among freshmen, where the 1994 class had fewer than one-quarter white students.

Both at CSUN and across the Cal State system, freshmen from minority groups generally scored lower on the English and math tests used to determine preparedness. Thus as CSUN’s share of those students rose markedly in recent years, overall test performance among freshmen declined, records show.

“It’s a lot different than 10 years ago when most of the students were coming out of middle-class families,” said David Hassett, a CSUN graduate student who tutors remedial math students.

“A lot of the kids now have full-time jobs. And they worked when they were in high school too,” he said.

Added Michael Scott, another remedial math tutor on campus, “I have several students who are single parents. They have kids who are 2, 3 years old, so they had them when they were in high school too.”

But not all of the changes have been beyond CSUN’s control.

While Cal State schools generally admit students from only the top third of high school graduates, CSUN in recent years also has made increasing use of special provisions to admit worthy students who do not meet normal academic standards--another low-scoring group on the tests.

The share of so-called special admits among CSUN’s freshman class doubled from 11.7% in 1989 to more than 23% in 1994--a move some faculty members have said was aimed at increasing plummeting enrollments.

Systemwide, specially admitted students failed the tests at rates exceeding 80%, double those of others.

But not everyone was willing to point the finger at demographic and internal changes. Some educators, argued instead Tuesday that the poor quality of Los Angeles’ public schools is more of a culprit for declining student preparedness.

“I think we just need to not deceive ourselves about how low the knowledge base is in our schools,” countered Los Angeles Board of Education member David Tokofsky. The former 12-year high school teacher warned that students now graduate from high school with reading levels as low as fourth grade.

The reason, Tokofsky said, is that Los Angeles and other districts have no reliable testing system to assess whether students have actually learned their material before they are passed along. And the schools, he charged, have dramatically lowered academic standards, letting students get by.

That view found some agreement Tuesday among CSUN students taking remedial courses.

“In my high school, I got up to trigonometry/math analysis. But you could get through it without a lot of discipline,” said Matthew Wells, a 19-year-old freshman who attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys.

“We were just hanging out in high school. You could get by. I was not prepared for this,” admitted Jason Danner, an 18-year-old freshman from Alabama, who was working in a special math lab at CSUN where students in remedial classes study together and view instructional videotapes.

The public schools, meanwhile, had their defenders as well, with several blaming their woes on a shortage of state funding for public education. California’s per pupil expenditures for public education now rank among the bottom third of all states in the nation.

“It would be nice if California would make a greater investment in the schools,” said Hoff, the Cal State vice chancellor, although any immediate prospects for that appear slim.

“You can’t get a top quartile performance out of a bottom quartile investment,” he argued.

Public school officials complained they have had little clear sense of the academic priorities expected by Cal State instructors. Cal State officials in turn conceded their outreach efforts to public schools have been sporadic in the past.

Some officials argued the Cal State tests are tougher than most people would expect, saying many professionals and even state lawmakers would have a tough time passing them after years away from the classroom. And they cautioned that failing them doesn’t mean students cannot read or write.

Some also challenged the tests, citing cases in which students who failed them still succeeded in regular classes without any remedial help. And while Cal State officials first recognized the growing problem more than a decade ago, the numbers of unprepared students still have steadily grown.

Each fall, CSUN’s English Department now offers about 25 sections of regular freshman composition, compared with nearly twice that many sections of remedial English for freshmen who have not passed the test, said department chair William Walsh.

“The problem has grown faster than the solution has. We have students who are even less able now,” said Walsh.

He mainly blamed the rise in non-native English speaking students, saying, “We are probably somewhat further behind now than we were 15 to 18 years ago.”

Times staff writer Sharon Bernstein contributed to this story.

* REMEDIAL TRAINING: Classes boost students’ chances for success. A1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Prepared for College?

Freshmen at Cal State campuses each year are tested to determine if they have college- level English and math skills. Students who do not pass the test are referred to remedial courses.The questions below are samples from the tests. Answers are at the bottom.

Composition

Directions: In each of the following questions, select the best version of the underlined part of the sentence. Choice (A) is the same as the underlined portion of the original sentence. If you think the original sentence is best, choose answer (A).

1. After the enormous mudslide of May, 1983, about 3 million cubic yards of rock and soil were removed from the Pacific Coast Highway, and they required a fleet of 30 bulldozers and 7,700 pounds of explosives.

(A) and they required

(B) and it required

(C) a job requiring

(D) a job where it required

2. On his second voyage, Captain Cook found that Tahitian breadfruit, which becomes rich in vitamin C after long storage, and this helped his crew members resist scurvy.

(A) storage, and this helped

(B) storage, helped

(C) storage and helped

(D) storage, helping

*

Math

3. If the price of a fishing reel which originally sold for $35 was reduced by 25%, what is the new price?

(A) $28

(B) $26.25

(C) $17.50

(D) $8.75

(E) $7

4. Five runners in a 100- yard dash ran the race in 13.4, 12.9, 15.0,12.9 and 14.6 seconds, respectively. What was the average time in seconds for runners to complete that race?

(A) 68.80

(B) 17.20

(C) 13.95

(D) 13.76

(E) 13.40

Answers:

1.C;2.B;3.B;4.D

Sources: CSU

*

More Students Unprepared

Since 1989, an increasing percentage of freshmen entering CSUN were assessed as not ready for college- level courses in math or English. In 1994, testing indicated that 69.7% of freshmen were not ready in each of the subjects.

Percentage of students testing not ready

69.7% Not ready

Note: In 1992, the standard for math proficiency was raised.