Cal State Aims to Reduce Need for Remedial Classes

Trying to head off the high number of college freshmen needing remedial classes, Cal State University officials Tuesday said they plan to test high school juniors for basic skills and could require some of them to substitute math class for the traditional senior year activity: goofing off.

If these students still don’t get it, the university will encourage thousands of them to spend their summer break before college taking remedial math and English so they don’t waste time as freshmen.

These latest reform proposals surfaced as the 22-campus system unveiled statistics showing that 54% of its freshmen were unprepared for college-level math and 47% lacked the skills for college English courses.

The dismaying lack of preparation was even more pronounced at urban campuses, such as Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, where eight out of 10 freshmen needed remedial English and 87% needed remedial math. At Cal State L.A., 79% needed remedial English and 77% remedial math.

Still, Cal State officials found some hope in the numbers--at least they were not higher than last year.

The percentage of freshmen in need of remedial work has climbed steadily every year for the past decade, mostly because university officials do a better job corralling Cal State-bound students and giving them assessment tests before they enroll in classes.

University officials managed to test 99% of incoming freshmen this past fall, up from about 90% the year before. “So we expected the percentages to go up,” said Allison Jones, Cal State’s senior director of access and retention.

The flat numbers, he said, suggest that “the rate is actually going down. Maybe all of the attention on the schools from the governor and the Legislature, the new state standards [for kindergarten through 12th grade], is starting to pay off.”

Cal State, of course, is not alone in struggling with remedial students. Nearly eight out of 10 American colleges and universities, including many of the elite schools, offer remedial classes.

Nonetheless, the Cal State system wants to get out of that business.

A few years ago, Cal State leaders rejected the idea of simply denying admission to those who lacked college-level math and English skills.

Instead, they launched a major effort to improve the public high schools and thus slowly reduce the numbers needing such help to about 10% of incoming students by 2007.

A key component of Cal State’s reform drive aims to improve its teacher-training programs, which supply nearly 60% of California’s teachers.

It also tries to embarrass high schools into improving student performance by releasing test scores that show how many of each school’s graduates failed the placement exams. This year’s scores were released Tuesday on Cal State’s World Wide Web site:

https://www.asd.calstate.edu/performance.

And now the university wants to expand a pilot program of testing high school juniors for math and English proficiency so they can get the remedial help before they get to college.

The plan is to offer such testing at the 200 high schools that send the most students in need of remedial help to Cal State.

“We are doing everything we can to get people to focus on the problem,” said Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the Cal State system.

He has fixed on one problem: “Most high school students don’t take any math in the senior year. They forget a whole lot between May of their junior year and 17 months later when they enroll at Cal State. That has to change.”

To keep math skills from getting rusty, Cal State officials are considering attaching a condition when the entry level math placement exam is taken at the end of the junior year.

If the student passed the exam, the university would excuse him or her from any remedial classes as long as the student took math as a high school senior.

Cal State officials expect that students who failed the test as a junior would take math the next year to bring their skills up to par.

At Tuesday’s meeting of Cal State’s Board of Trustees, university leaders urged all campus presidents to offer intensive summer courses for students so they are ready for college-level work before fall classes begin.

Cal State Long Beach offers such courses. During the meeting, all the presidents indicated that they support offering summer remedial programs if they don’t already.

Students can avoid remedial classes by passing the math and English placement tests, taking a writing course at a community college or getting sufficiently high scores on the SAT--550 verbal and 560 math--or an Advanced Placement test--3 or higher.

Remedial classes at Cal State cost just as much as other courses, but students do not earn college credit toward their degree from them.

“You don’t really feel like you are making any progress,” said Alex Moreno, a freshman taking remedial math at Cal State L.A. “You’re paying all this money and feel like you’re running in place.”

Moreno is one of 1,800 students on his campus who had to take remedial math this year.

Under rules that kicked in this year, all Cal State freshmen who failed the placement tests had to take remedial classes as soon as they enrolled in the fall.

In Cal State L.A.’s math department, that meant administrators had to scramble to find instructors for 55 remedial classes, up from 33 the previous year.

These students, under the new rules, must pass remedial classes within a year. If they don’t, they may be asked to leave the university until they master basic skills--although campus presidents can make exceptions.

“I see a significant number of them being booted,” said Marshall Cates, Cal State L.A.’s director of development mathematics. “If a student is making an effort, we will probably make an exception. If they are not making the effort, then they will have to go to a community college.”

Cates visits high schools to explain to teachers what Cal State expects. To him, the key is not allowing students’ math skills to get rusty.

“Anybody going to college should take math their senior year,” Cates said. “Otherwise they are going to lose half of what they learned in high school and have to relearn it here at the university at a much higher cost.”

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Failure Rates

The percentage of Cal State freshmen who failed their proficiency tests in math and English leveled off last fall after years of steady increases. That gave educators hope that things will soon improve.

% Failing Test

Math: 54%

English: 47%

Note: The failure rate in math proficiency jumped markedly in 1992 after the Cal State system added a third year of math--intermediate algebra--to its entrance requirements.

Source: California State University

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Unprepared for College

Before enrolling at Cal State campuses, incoming freshmen must take placement tests to determine if they have the English and math skills needed for college-level work. Those who fail must take special remedial classes.

Sample test

Reading Skills

1. The gigantic waves and high tides combined to destroy life and property.

Two people drowned and 10 homes were washed into the sea.

In relation to the first sentence, what does the second sentence do?

A) Introduces a new subject.

B) Gives supporting evidence.

C) Provides contrasting information.

D) Suggests a cause.

****

2. A panel of distinguished judges was selected by the trustees of the Smithsonian Institution to decide which inventions had been most beneficial to our society.

Rewrite, beginning with The trustees of the Smithsonian Institution

The next words will be:

A) with their selection of

B) in deciding

C) selected

D) had been the

****

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

Select the best version of the underlined part.

A) storage, and this helped

B) storage, helped

C) storage and helped

D) storage, helping

****

Math Skills

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

A) $28.00

B) $26.25

C) $17.50

D) $8.75

E) $7.00

****

5. 7/16 x 24=

A) 21/2

B) 14/3

C) 13/12

D) 31/16

E) 7/384

****

6. In the figure shown to the right BC DE. What is the length of AC?

A) 4

B) 5

C) 6

D) 7

E) 8

****

Answers: 1. B; 2. C; 3. B; 4. B; 5. A; 6. E

****

Campus by campus results

Big urban campuses tend to have a higher percentage of first-time freshmen who must enroll in remedial courses because they failed entry-level math and English placement tests.

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% needing % needing remedial remedial Cal State campus English math Bakersfield 53% 71% Chico 37% 59% Dominguez Hills 80% 87% Fresno 53% 67% Fullerton 51% 54% Hayward 54% 58% Humboldt 27% 51% Long Beach 53% 59% Los Angeles 79% 77% Maritime Academy 34% 35% Monterey Bay 46% 72% Northridge 59% 63% Cal Poly Pomona 51% 39% Sacramento 42% 56% San Bernardino 57% 72% San Diego 45% 55% San Francisco 53% 60% San Jose 50% 48% Cal Poly SLO 17% 16% San Marcos 51% 69% Sonoma 25% 48% Stanislaus 43% 58% Cal State average 47% 54%

*--*

NOTE: Percentages based on number of students who failed the tests or did not satisfy the requirement by scoring high enough on the SAT, ACT or Advanced Placement test.

Source: California State University