CUNY Adjusts Amid Tide of Remedial Students - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/nyregion/04remedial.html...

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Edward Gorey’s
Sensibility Is
Growing Like
Nightshade
CUNY Adjusts
Amid Tide of
Remedial
Students

Uli Seit for The New York Times

Ethel G. Martin, right, and Nataly Mejia are students in a remedial mathematics class at LaGuardia Community College in
Long Island City, Queens. About three-quarters of this year’s 17,500 freshmen at the six community colleges in the City
University of New York have needed remedial instruction.
By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: March 3, 2011

The City University of New York has long spent much of its energy RECOMMEND

and resources just teaching new students what they need to begin TWITTER
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But that tide of remedial students has SIGN IN TO Breaking News Alerts by E-Mail
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university’s six community colleges — PRINT

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colleges this year have needed remedial instruction in reading,
writing or math, and nearly a quarter of the freshmen have required
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such instruction in all three subjects. In the past five years, a subset of students deemed Log in to discover more articles
“triple low remedial” — with the most severe deficits in all three subjects — has doubled, to based on what you‘ve read.

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The reasons are familiar but were reinforced last month by startling new statistics from
state education officials: fewer than half of all New York State students who graduated
from high school in 2009 were prepared for college or careers, as measured by state
Regents tests in English and math. In New York City, that number was 23 percent.

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CUNY Adjusts Amid Tide of Remedial Students - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/nyregion/04remedial.html...

Many of those graduates end up at CUNY, one of the nation’s largest urban higher-
education systems, which requires its community colleges to take every applicant with a
high school diploma or equivalency degree.

To bring thousands of students up to speed, those colleges spent about $33 million last
year on remediation — twice as much as they did 10 years ago. They are expanding an
immersion program that funnels hundreds of students exclusively into remedial classes.

But there is concern that the effort is diverting attention from the colleges’ primary
mission. A Reluctant Redgrave, on
'Daisy' and more
“It takes a lot of our time and energy and money to figure out what to do with all of these ALSO IN THEATER »
students who need remediation,” said Alexandra W. Logue, the university’s executive vice From the Marines to 'Angels in America'
Fresh artists take the stage
chancellor and provost. “We are doing some really good things, but it’s time that we’re not
thinking about our other wonderful students who are very highly prepared. We need to
focus on them, too.”
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At LaGuardia Community College in Queens, where 40 percent of the math classes are
remedial, faculty members like Jerry G. Ianni have been increasingly dividing their time Exclusive offers delivered to your inbox
between teaching those classes and teaching courses for academic credit, prompting
worries that professors are becoming de facto high school teachers.

“Most students have serious challenges remembering the basic rules of arithmetic,” Dr.
Ianni said of his remedial math class. “The course is really a refresher, but they aren’t
ready for a refresher. They need to learn how to learn.”

On a recent afternoon, a half-dozen students in that class prepared for a test, called a
Compass exam, that would allow those who passed to start studying college-level math.
Without college math skills, students cannot graduate. Seventeen others in the class had
not even qualified to take the test; they will have to repeat the course until they qualify or
they give up, as history shows many have.

The knowledge gap at community colleges is increasingly being recognized as a national

problem. About 65 percent of all community college students nationwide need some form
of remedial education, with students’ shortcomings in math outnumbering those in
reading by 2 to 1, said Thomas R. Bailey, director of the Community College Research
Center at Teachers College at Columbia University.

Nationwide, as at CUNY, fewer than half of students directed to take one or more remedial
classes — “developmental education” is the term administrators prefer — complete them.

“Many, many community college presidents will say that math developmental education is Ads by Google what's this?

the most difficult problem they’re facing,” Dr. Bailey said.

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On Monday, the Obama administration began a series of “community college summits” at
Universities in California Now.
campuses across the country to gather ideas on how the schools can produce more
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graduates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged up to $110 million to
improve remedial programs at community colleges.

At CUNY, the biggest concern is the students who badly lag in the three subjects.

“These students have a really low probability of success, and it’s hard to know how to work
with them,” said Dr. Logue, the provost. “There’s no question that the more remediation a
student needs, the less likely they are ever to graduate.”

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