Almost Half of Cal State Freshmen Lack Skills

About half the Cal State Fullerton freshmen enrolled last fall lacked the math or English skills they should have mastered in high school, reflecting a statewide trend, according to new figures released Thursday.

The new campus-by-campus figures for the California State University system offer a dismaying view of the lack of preparation for college work at many of the system’s schools, particularly those in urban areas.

Equally striking were other statistics released by the university system showing that at some high schools, not a single graduate going on to one of the Cal State campuses passed the basic skills tests. In Orange County, about 40% of high school graduates who went on to Cal State had to take one or both remedial courses. And officials said the number of students needing remediation actually is higher than the new statistics show because 10% of the freshmen were not tested.

“This ought to be a wake-up call for everybody in California,” said Charles B. Reed, the new chancellor of the Cal State system, which has 344,000 students. “We are not doing a very good job of educating our youth.”

The figures for Cal State Fullerton’s 4,018 freshmen were similar to the statewide figures showing that a record 47% of California State University freshmen flunked basic skills placement exams and had to take remedial English; 54% had to enroll in remedial math.

The largest percentages needing help were at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles County, where eight of 10 freshmen who enrolled last fall needed remedial instruction in English and 87% needed remedial work in math.

While the figures for Cal State Fullerton were lower, they still represented increases from last year.

Cal State Fullerton President Milton Gordon attributes the trend to a higher rate of students whose first language is not English and high schools not demanding rigorous math requirements.

“I don’t think students nowadays take sufficient kinds of math courses before they get to college,” Gordon said. “I’ve always been a strong proponent of four years of college preparatory mathematics.”

To be eligible for Cal State schools, high school students must earn a grade of C or better in three math courses or up through Algebra II. The Cal State remedial math course generally covers Algebra II, the equivalent of 10th-grade math.

Even Fullerton students in the remedial math courses agreed with Gordon, saying they were able to cruise through high school math without understanding the concepts.

“I took trigonometry in high school and passed [with a C],” said junior Claudia Gomez, who admits that she struggles with math. “And here I am taking algebra again. What the schools need to know is that there are a lot of kids just getting by in high school. I was one of them. The high schools are not strict enough.”

Gomez was among the students in a remedial math class at Cal State Fullerton on Thursday, some of whom still have trouble calculating the area of a rectangle.

Senior Jason Mahoney said he has always struggled with math.

“I got Cs in a private high school and I managed to graduate,” he said. “I resent teachers who didn’t recognize I was having problems early on.”

Freshman Victor Ortiz added that many students take only three math courses in high school to meet the Cal State minimum requirement. Ortiz started taking pre-calculus in his high school senior year, but later dropped it after he was accepted to Cal State Fullerton.

“Pre-calculus was taking too much time,” said Ortiz, a theater major. “I like math, but it doesn’t have anything to do with my major.”

Starting next fall, Cal State will require all freshmen to take both the Entry Level Math and English Placement Test before they begin classes, meaning even more are likely to be sent for remedial training.

Cal State is hardly alone in finding that many of its students are not fully ready for college work. A 1995 survey found that 78% of American colleges and universities, including many of the top private schools, offered remedial courses.

About 35% of freshmen entering the state’s elite University of California system do so poorly on its “Subject A” English proficiency test that they must receive additional instruction during their first year.

And at the City University of New York--where Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has called for privatizing remedial functions--63% of the freshmen at its four-year campuses and 86% of its community colleges fail at least one of the university’s placement tests in reading, writing or math.

As shocking as the numbers may seem, education experts say it is difficult to determine whether students are more poorly prepared for college or whether places such as Cal State are simply testing more thoroughly to find those in need of remediation.

Rhondia Morris, a freshman at Cal State Dominguez Hills, complained Thursday that the placement tests are unfair and “too hard.” She now is in a remedial English class that is “a waste of time,” she said. “I’m not learning anything new. I’m just getting the credit and getting out.”

But CSU officials, and many students, find it hard to shrug off the fact that so many freshmen who were supposed to be among the top third of California high school graduates--a criterion for admission--could not pass the rather routine tests asking them to explain the meaning of words or paragraphs, or to do basic algebra and geometry.

“I was in Advanced Placement English and honors English throughout high school and got to college and didn’t do very well on the entry test,” noted another Dominguez Hills student, Jamel Shakir.

At some CSU campuses, though, most incoming students passed both tests or were exempted from them because of high scores on other exams, such as the SATs or Advanced Placement tests.

At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, freshmen were the best prepared, with 19% needing remedial math and 17% placed in remedial English. That the popular San Luis Obispo had the best record is not surprising because, unlike its sister schools, it actually turns away qualified students.

Other Cal State campuses generally take all comers, provided they meet minimum requirements.

It’s also not surprising that Cal State Dominguez Hills was on the bottom of the list, said Boice Bowman, the school’s vice president for student affairs, given that it draws many students from low-income parts of communities such as Compton, Lynwood, Hawthorne and South Gate.

Compton High School was one of the high schools whose graduates struggled with Cal State’s freshmen placement exams: all 20 of its graduates now enrolled in the system failed the math test and 89% failed the English test.

“These are capable students, but they didn’t get all of the preparation needed,” Bowman said. “A large part of our mission is to serve inner-city schools and provide these students with opportunity to be successful in their lives. If we don’t allow them to come, then we have done a disservice to our community.”

Hoping to reduce the need for remedial courses, Cal State has launched an ambitious effort to improve its teacher-training programs, which supply nearly 60% of California’s teachers. CSU officials also are sending thousands of their college students into the K-12 public schools as English and math tutors.

The university this week also turned up the heat on individual high schools by putting the placement test scores of each school’s graduates on its Web site (https://www.asd.calstate.edu/performance).

The figures show that even at some well-regarded high schools, many graduates require remedial courses. For example, among graduates of prestigious Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton who entered CSU, 38% flunked the math test and 46% flunked English.

Hoping to reduce the share of freshmen needing remedial courses to 10% by 2007, Cal State and UC officials have signed a contract with the Educational Testing Service--which administers the SATs and other exams--to devise a “diagnostic” test that, beginning in the spring of 1999, will measure the English skills of high schoolers in their junior years.

“You’ll know in 11th grade what skills you lack for college and you can then get that education in the 12th grade,” said Allison Jones, Cal State’s senior director of academic affairs.

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Need for Remedial Classes

More than four in 10 Orange County students who attended California State University schools as freshmen last autumn failed proficiency exams in math and/or English and were required to take remedial classes. Here are the numbers for individual schools in Orange County:

District: Anaheim Union

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Anaheim 19 63 19 68 Cypress 30 33 30 37 Katella 26 27 25 56 John F. Kennedy 32 63 32 56 Loara 43 42 43 56 Magnolia 24 38 23 48 Savanna 17 65 17 65 Western 23 48 22 55

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district: Brea-Olinda Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Brea-Olinda 47 47 48 40

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district: Capistrano Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Aliso Niguel 48 35 49 24 Capistrano Valley 18 44 19 32 Dana Hills 25 44 24 33 San Clemente 26 42 28 29

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district: Fullerton Joint Union

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Buena Park 35 60 34 59 Fullerton 13 46 13 46 La Habra 43 58 43 63 Sonora 20 55 19 32 Sunny Hills 48 38 48 46 Troy 47 40 46 46

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district: Garden Grove Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Bolsa Grande 14 43 14 71 Garden Grove 30 40 31 68 La Quinta 19 58 19 37 Los Amigos 16 19 16 63 Pacifica 29 45 28 32 Rancho Alamitos 20 40 20 60 Santiago 31 58 31 74

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district: Huntington Beach Union High

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Edison 35 26 38 37 Fountain Valley 33 27 33 45 Huntington Beach 40 43 42 38 Marina 35 31 34 26 Ocean View 21 48 21 43 Westminster 35 40 34 53

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district: Irvine Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Irvine 46 22 48 29 University 23 35 24 29 Woodbridge 31 29 32 44

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district: Laguna Beach Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Laguna Beach 14 57 13 46

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district: Los Alamitos Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Los Alamitos 70 39 67 51

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district: Newport-Mesa Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Corona del Mar 5 60 5 40 Costa Mesa 9 11 10 30 Estancia 6 33 6 17 Newport Harbor 11 36 12 33

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district: Orange Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Canyon 49 63 50 46 El Modena 33 45 34 32 Orange 27 48 28 57 Villa Park 21 33 20 50

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district: Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed El Dorado 63 27 62 23 Esperanza 79 30 78 18 Valencia 45 18 44 25

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district: Saddleback Valley Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed El Toro 60 40 62 27 Laguna Hills 21 48 22 27 Mission Viejo 18 39 19 21 Trabuco Hills 36 42 36 28

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district: Santa Ana Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Century 19 84 19 68 Saddleback 27 59 27 67 Santa Ana 8 38 8 88 Valley 12 50 12 92

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district: Tustin Unified

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Foothill 41 27 40 33 Tustin 24 54 24

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district: Private/religious

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MATH ENGLISH Number Percent Number Percent district/school tested failed tested failed Brethren Christian 14 57 14 57 Calvary Chapel 11 18 11 18 Cornelia Connelly 6 33 6 17 of the Holy Child Lutheran 20 55 20 20 Mater Dei 78 49 81 30 O.C. Christian 5 80 5 0 Rosary 34 53 34 18 Santa Margarita 45 51 45 29 Servite 22 36 22 32 Total 1,975 42 1,983 41

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Note: These numbers cannot be used to compare individual high schools with each other, since it is not known whether the CSU students from each school were among the stronger or weaker students at that school, or what percentage of their graduating class they represent; in addition, in many cases the numbers of students are too small to draw statistically valid comparisons.

Source: California State University