Most Freshmen at Cal State Still Lack Basic Academic Skills

California State University threw out fewer freshmen last year for failing to master basic math or English skills, but most first-year students still arrive on campus unprepared for college work, officials reported Wednesday.

Top administrators for the 23-campus system expressed frustration about the weak skills of arriving students. They noted that only 42% of the freshmen who started last fall were proficient in math and English, as measured by placement exams.

That figure was up slightly from 41% a year earlier but remains far below the goals established by the system’s Board of Trustees in 1996. Those self-imposed targets call for roughly twice as many freshmen to be fully proficient by the fall of 2007.

New Measures Needed

The new freshman student report “makes it very clear to us that we’ve got to do exceptional things that we haven’t tried before” to meet the goals, said David S. Spence, Cal State’s executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer.

The low proficiency among Cal State’s incoming freshmen dovetails with the marginal progress that California’s high school students have shown on state and national tests in recent years. The Cal State system kicked out 6.8% of the 2002-2003 freshmen class of 37,870 students, telling them not to return until they had passed remedial classes in math or English at community colleges. That was down from a dismissal rate of 8.2% a year earlier, reflecting the first improvement since Cal State started tracking such statistics in the fall of 1998.

Allison G. Jones, assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs, credited a tougher stance taken by Cal State campuses in recent years with students who don’t complete their remedial classes: “I think what we’re finding is that more students are taking this seriously, because they understand the consequences if they don’t.”

Cal State officials acknowledged that previous outreach and academic assistance efforts to help college-bound high school students had failed to bring significant progress. But officials expressed optimism about a new Cal State assessment test that is to be offered to high school juniors around the state this spring.

The early assessment test is supposed to identify students who need to improve English or math skills. The intent is to encourage such students to take courses to strengthen their abilities during senior year of high school. “I think you’re going to see tremendous improvement beginning next year.... I’m willing to bet my job on it,” Spence said.

Cal State administrators portrayed their existing remedial instruction programs for freshmen already on their campuses as a major success. They reported that 82% of students who had taken remedial classes in the last school year had achieved proficiency by the beginning of their second year of college, up from 79% a year earlier.

Methods Challenged

But Murray L. Galinson, vice chairman of the university system’s Board of Trustees, questioned whether Cal State can determine whether on-campus remedial programs are effective. He noted that students who end up in remedial courses because of poor scores on placement tests are not retested with the same exams at the end of their remedial programs. Instead, Cal State relies on the faculty to determine whether students have reached proficiency or whether they should be allowed more time.

“If you were doing a scientific study at all, this wouldn’t pass the smell test,” he said.

Juliann Pena, an 18-year-old freshman at Cal State L.A., said she was benefiting from the remedial math class she was taking at her campus. She said, however, that she needed the help largely because her math class in her senior year at Franklin High School in Highland Park last year had been too easy.

“I got a B in the class and I didn’t do anything,” she said. “You know how high school is -- they don’t care. They just want you to graduate.”

On the other hand, Pena said she was baffled at being required to be in remedial English after having taken an Advanced Placement literature course in high school.

Spence said that situation is a common one, and is the reason students need a college readiness assessment exam in their junior year of high school. Many high school students, he said, “are getting Bs, they’re taking the right courses, and yet they need further preparation.”

Cal State released other figures Wednesday showing that most students who are kicked out head to community colleges. Cal State’s figures showed that 77% of the 2,277 freshmen in the 2000-2001 entering class who had been dismissed subsequently had enrolled in community colleges. A year later, 58% of the students were continuing at community colleges and 13%, apparently after completing remedial work, were back at Cal State.

Spence speculated that few students had returned to Cal State campuses because the majority who remained in school had decided to complete their lower-level courses at community colleges.

Officials noted that the finding that 42% of entering freshmen in the fall of 2003 had been proficient in math and English reflected tiny gains in both subjects. For instance, 63.3% of the students arrived on campus proficient in math, up from 63.0% a year earlier. For English, last fall’s proficiency rate was 51.8%, up from 51.0% the year before.

Still, by this fall, the goals adopted by the system’s trustees called for the proficiency levels to be 74% in math and 78% in English. By the fall of 2007, proficiency levels are supposed to be 90% in each subject.

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Failing to make the grade

California State University has reported that most of its freshmen arrive on campus unprepared for college. It admitted 37,870 freshmen through its regular procedures for fall 2002 and 38,086 freshmen for fall 2003.

Skills of arriving freshmen

*--* Goals for Goals for Fall Fall fall fall Arriving freshmen 2002 2003 2004 2007 Proficient in math and English 41% 42% - - Proficient in math 63% 63.3% 74% 90% Proficient in English 51% 51.8% 78% 90%

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Freshmen not permitted to re-enroll for a second year

Freshman class of 2000-2001: 6.7%

Freshman class of 2001-2002: 8.2%

Freshman class of 2002-2003: 6.8%

Source: California State University; Los Angeles Times analysis