NYT article

[Kirsten Benson <kbenson@utkux.utcc.utk.edu>]

Here is the text of the NYT article to which Christine's letter to the
editor
was responding, in case anyone wants it.

Thanks, Christine, for your keen eye and quick defense!

Kirsten

Kirsten Benson
Director, University of Tennessee Writing Center
Knoxville, TN
423/974-2611
                                                                                         
                                                                                         
The New York Times                                                                                         
Week in Review

May 31, 1998


Classes Are Full at Catch-Up U.

By KAREN W. ARENSON

  All the brouhaha last week over the dropping of remedial classes at the
City
University of New York, one of the nation's largest systems, would make
many
people think that remediation was a multicultural course invented by CUNY
professors. 

They would be wrong. 

In 1995, 78 percent of America's colleges offered such classes, up from 73
percent in
1988. Although they were most prevalent at public community colleges (96
percent of
them offered these courses in 1995), they were common at four-year
colleges, too, with  72 percent offering the courses. 

Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst at the Department of
Education, found that
almost half of all college students took at least one class to prepare
them for college-level
work. At CUNY last year, 46 percent of students entering four-year
colleges failed one or
more of the placement examinations in reading, writing and math. At the
California State
University System, about half the freshmen need such classes to acclimate
them to the
rigors of academia. 

In the Ivy League, the official line is that there are no remedial courses
or underprepared
students, but these institutions typically provide help in different
guises. Harvard and Yale, for instance, offer peer tutors and a writing
center. At the University of Chicago, a handful of students are directed
each year to a course called essential mathematics that begins with
arithmetic, algebra and geometry -- comparable to the remedial math
courses at 	CUNY. 

So why are so many high-school graduates unprepared for college? 

One explanation, educators say, is that there is a gap between what many
secondary schools expect their students to know and what college
professors require, and that there
has not been enough coordination between them. Another is that many high
schools offer preparatory courses but students fail to take them, either
because they are not planning to
go to college or because they think they can get by without them. In some
cases, they get
weak instruction; sometimes they do poorly. 

"Students have been allowed to coast," said Joseph Creech, director for
educational
policies at the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta. "If students
are going to
have to be able to do certain things when they get to college, then we
have to make these
expectations clear in high school, and even in middle school." 

At one time many of these ill-prepared students simply did not go to
college. But in a
 technology-driven, information-based economy, where a college diploma is
a passport to 	a higher standard of living, more students are continuing
their education. 

But a growing number of university administrators and college officials do
not see this
trend as good news. To them, each remedial student represents a failure,
and wasted
resources -- a job that has to be done at least twice thus diverting
colleges from their real
mission of providing higher education. 

 Remediation is such a dirty word that some colleges will not even admit
to offering it,
although their catalogs list courses in algebra, grammar and other
subjects many students
routinely take in high school. 

"There is a sense that it is despoiling the environment," said H. Patrick
Swygert, president
of Howard University in Washington. "Remediation -- the word -- is
verboten on this
campus because it carries with it all the stigma that its opponents have
trotted out that
students who need it are less than fully qualified. 

"Some people do not qualify intellectually or have the inclination to do
the hard intellectual
work required in college," Swygert added. "The great tragedy is that by
removing remedial
 classes, that is not who is being screened out. The numbers suggest that
once students
navigate the remedial classes, many go on to successful college careers." 

Few colleges have approached moving remediation off campus with the fervor
of the
trustees at the CUNY, who despite widespread protests from faculty and
students, voted
last week to phase out remedial classes at their four-year colleges by
2001. Students failing
placement exams will be directed to intensive summer or weekend classes,
or to the
two-year community colleges. 

No one knows how many of these students would be able to complete these
courses
quickly, how many will opt for community colleges or how many will choose
other
four-year colleges or simply drop out in frustration. 

But CUNY is not alone in trying to reduce its remediation. 

Some universities, like the University of Maryland, are trying to foster
closer coordination
between secondary schools and colleges about what ground will be covered
in certain
courses. 

The California State University, the largest public university in the
country with 360,000
students, has set a goal of reducing the percentage of freshmen needing
remediation to 10
percent by 2007 from more than 50 percent now. The trustees, who had hoped
to move
faster, scaled back in the face of criticisms that they would penalize
immigrants and
minority students who had attended poor high schools and fared poorly in
placement
exams. 

Charles Reed, who became chancellor of California State University system
in March, said
 he would like to follow a program similar to the one he introduced at the
University of
Florida in 1985, where it offers no remedial courses; students needing
them must go to
community colleges or other institutions. The students, however, can still
register for
university classes at the same time. 

"There are always going to be some students who need remediation," Reed
said. "But
universities are not as well prepared to do remediation as the community
colleges." 

Another critical part of the plan, he said, is to give the college
placement tests to high school students -- preferably by the 10th grade --
"as a wake-up call." That way students
 can see where they are weak and still have time to improve. 

Does it work in Florida? Partly. 

 Officials at the University of Florida say that only 10 percent of the
students need remedial
work -- well below the figure at CUNY and Cal State. The figure is lower
in part because
the university takes in many of its students after they have already
completed some credits
elsewhere. 

But even under the Florida system, students do not always whiz through
their remedial
courses. Chuck Lindsey, director of general education at Florida Gulf
Coast University,
said that some students simply skip the hours they should spend learning
basics and
computer skills. "They just keep taking the class until they pass it," he
said. 

So Florida has taken one more step. The state recently passed a law
requiring that students
taking remedial courses repeatedly will be charged the full price of the
course, not the
subsidized price available to local students. 

In the meantime, Reed said, the number of students needing remediation at
Florida's
 community colleges continues to grow.