Cal State Fullerton Students in Remediation Earned Bs

Cal State Fullerton freshmen who needed remedial classes to do college work had earned above-average marks in high school--a contradictory sign that may represent widespread grade inflation at the secondary level, university administrators said.

The Times reported in March on data from the California State University system showing that roughly half of the freshmen at the Fullerton campus failed basic-skills placement exams and had to enroll in remedial math and English courses. New statistics released Wednesday show that those students had a mean high school grade-point average of 3.1, or a B.

“For some reason, one that I don’t think is well-understood, students’ grades do not predict performance on these basic skill tests,” said Thomas Klammer, Cal State Fullerton’s associate vice president of academic programs. “People call that grade inflation; perhaps it is, and I don’t mean in using that term to insult my colleagues in the high schools.”

At Cal State Fullerton, 55% of the students who took the basic math skills exam failed it; 49% of those who took the English skills test didn’t pass. The failure rates were higher among female students, with 62% needing remedial math and 50% needing remedial English instruction.

Those figures are similar to CSU systemwide trends.

Many students fail the math exam because they do not take a math course during their senior year in high school, Klammer said. The CSU system requires only three years of math.

Some students, however, are able to catch up with their peers by taking a weeklong “refresher” math workshop during the summer and are able to enroll in a regular freshman math course by the fall.

But the English failure rate is more perplexing, Klammer added, because students are required to take four years of high school English to be eligible for CSU admissions.

“How can it be that students can be getting Bs in English and not pass a fairly basic test and end up having to take a remedial class?” Klammer asked.

The trend has raised much concern among educators in both the K-12 and college levels. Educators have said that one possible way of curbing the failure rate is to administer basic skills exams at the 11th-grade level.

“The hope is that we will design a single test to serve the purposes of the [University of California] and Cal State system so that students and teachers could get feedback early, allowing them time to correct their course during their senior year,” Klammer said.

The idea is being considered, but no decisions have been made to create and implement such a test. Klammer said dramatic steps must be taken promptly to reverse the trend.

“We cannot afford, as a state, to be reteaching high school classwork at the university,” he said.

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Help Needed

More than half of Cal State Fullerton freshmen taking basic skills exams last fall needed remedial math classes. And about half required help in English skills. Percentages needing remedial classes:

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MATHEMATICS ENGLISH Fullerton Statewide Fullerton Statewide Men 43% 43% 48% 46% Women 62 63 50 47 Total 55 54 49 47

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Why would so many students with a B average in high school flunk a basic skills college-level test? University officials suspect grade inflation. Mean grade-point averages for those needing:

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MATHEMATICS ENGLISH Fullerton 3.12 3.14 Statewide 3.13 3.15

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Source: California State University system