An SOS for Our Students

To be accepted by the California State University system, students need grade-point averages in the top third of their high school classes. That sounds like a good, challenging standard, but test scores released last week showed that more than half the students who cleared the mark still lacked the basic English and math skills they should have learned in high school. Something clearly is out of whack.

The scores, based on tests taken by incoming Cal State freshmen, suggest our public schools have rampant cases of grade inflation. When C students graduate with A grades, the system is not educating pupils; it’s merely moving them along.

The problem is particularly corrosive in Los Angeles area high schools. More than two-thirds of Southland graduates cannot tell whether a paragraph is stating a consequence or making a compari- son. Nor can they solve basic algebra and geometry problems.

Part of the solution lies in simply recognizing the problem, which is why Cal State’s new chancellor, Charles B. Reed, was right last week to list the test scores of students next to the names of their high schools on the system’s Web site, www.asd.calstate.edu/performance. You only have to look at the relationship to see why many students are leaving high school ill-prepared. Getting good grades doesn’t always mean someone is getting a good education.

If the high schools fail their students, the remedial responsibility falls on the Cal State system, turning higher education into a game of catch-up. Currently, entering Cal State students with unsatisfactory SAT scores must take remedial math and English classes as freshmen. Since most Cal State students are admitted by April for classes that begin in September, there’s plenty of time for remedial work at a community college before they enter Cal State.

The fact is these students are not ready, and it’s not up to the four-year colleges to accept them until they are. California’s community colleges have decades of experience in remedial education. They are in the right spot on the education ladder to save these sinking students.

Reed, regarded as politically savvy in his previous job running Florida’s state college system, should consider working with state legislators to reward community colleges according to their success, as measured by test scores, in remedying educational problems. New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose city college students are suffering from similar deficits in basic skills, is one of many civic leaders who have recently called for handing remedial education over to private universities or learning centers. That might be too drastic; bringing some market incentives to public universities would make sense.

The long-term solution to Cal State’s--and California’s--problem must begin before high schoolers head off to college. Cal State can be of some help here. Some CSU campuses have begun sending their students into public high schools to help tutor kids in English and math. It’s a good idea that should be repeated throughout the Cal State system. Priority ought to be given to helping schools whose students score particularly low in tests. Most are in urban districts.

There’s no mystery to the challenge facing California. The higher education system has delivered generations of first-class workers into the economy of America’s richest state. But the college system can only do so much. Progress must start in the lower school classrooms with goals and heightened expectations. The state must not fail its students. The result would fall upon us all. The answer lies in getting a good running start into higher education. The structure is there; California needs the will.