Cal State’s Retreat From Remediation Stokes Debate on College Readiness

Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images

California State University’s decision to eliminate all noncredit remedial classes next fall will either remove roadblocks to success for struggling students or set more of them up for failure, depending on whom you ask.

The shift at the nation’s largest public-university system comes at a time of intense national scrutiny into how colleges should decide who is ready for college-level classes and how best to bring those who aren’t ready up to speed.

Four in 10 entering freshmen at Cal State must complete at least one remedial course before they can start earning college credit. The system’s chancellor, Timothy P. White, thinks that’s one reason for Cal State’s dismal 19-percent four-year graduation rate. The system has committed to doubling that, to 40 percent, by 2025, and hopes that jettisoning remedial classes will help.

Across the country, colleges with similarly high dropout rates are questioning whether the classes do more harm than good. Advocates say that as part of a broader umbrella of developmental education, which also includes tutoring and counseling, the courses are crucial for students who start out far behind their peers.

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In an executive order issued on August 2, the chancellor directed the system’s 23 campuses to end remedial placement tests, as well as any noncredit remedial courses in writing and mathematics, starting in the fall of 2018.

Instead of relying on a single test, the campuses will consider a variety of other measures, including high-school grade-point averages, English- and math-course grades, and SAT, ACT, and Advanced Placement scores.

Students who are farthest behind can be placed in college-level math or writing courses with built-in supports, which can supplement tutoring or corequisite basic-skills instruction. Courses can also be stretched over more than one semester. Early-start programs offered over the summer before freshman year will be revamped over the next few years to cover college-level material and will grant college credit.

Faculty members were directed to modify their existing courses, develop new ones, or introduce “innovative instructional approaches” that reach a broader range of student abilities without compromising rigor. Making sure students understand the basics is a particular concern in math, instructors say, because students who haven’t mastered arithmetic are hard-pressed to tackle algebra, and each successive course depends on mastery of the one before it.

Groups that have pushed for the elimination of free-standing remedial courses welcomed the change. Students who start out in remedial courses may feel demoralized and question whether they belong in college, the advocates say. Since those courses cost money but don’t count for credit, they can prolong the time it takes to graduate.

Mixed Results

But others say universities are hurting, not helping, students if they’re pushed prematurely into courses that are over their heads. And states that have largely done away with freestanding remedial courses report mixed results.

Tennessee’s shift to corequisite remediation, in which students simultaneously take college-level and basic-skills classes, has largely succeeded, according to many higher-education officials. It doesn’t work for everyone, though, as lawmakers in Florida found out when they made remediation optional for most students, and many struggled in college-level classes.

In Florida, remedial placement examinations are now optional. At Cal State, they’re being eliminated. But some faculty members argue that faster isn’t always better for students who are far behind.

“The last things faculty want to do is set students up for failure because they’re not ready,” said Jennifer Eagan, a professor of philosophy and public affairs at Cal State’s East Bay campus.

Ms. Eagan, who is president of the California Faculty Association, a statewide union with 28,000 members, said the chancellor’s order demonstrates “overreach by CSU management and a blatant disregard of shared governance.” The faculty union wasn’t told of the changes in advance, and there was little consultation with the system’s Academic Senate, she contended in a written statement challenging the chancellor’s executive order.

Overhauling classes to incorporate basic-skills instruction into them means more work for faculty members, she argued. And eliminating remedial instruction could result in job cuts.

A system spokesman, Michael Uhlenkamp, said no layoffs were anticipated because most remedial-class instructors are also qualified to teach the revamped college-level courses that will replace them.

And he said that there was plenty of consultation with faculty and staff members in the year leading up to the executive order and that all of the campuses were asked for feedback.

James T. Minor, the system’s senior strategist for academic success, agreed that the timeline to overhaul classes was aggressive, but he said the failure of the existing system to help students catch up “calls for a sense of urgency that may not lend itself to the traditional timeline for doing business” in higher education.

He described the reaction of students placed in remedial classes, who are disproportionately the first in their families to attend college and from minority backgrounds.

“They all remember the sinking feeling of receiving a message that says, on the one hand, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been accepted to college,’ and the very next is ‘You have to take courses that don’t count for college credit because you’re not ready to be here.’”

The latter message, Mr. Minor said, “invites students to question whether college is for them.”

Faculty Concerns

Even so, some faculty members worry about the consequences of such a radical shift away from remedial courses.

“This edict from above promotes a thinking that the most important thing is getting students out quickly,” said Bruce Hartsell, a lecturer in social work at Cal State at Bakersfield. “We’re much more concerned about their getting a paper at the end than what they learn along the way.”

High-school seniors will be applying to CSU campuses in the next few months, before the campuses have had time to establish academic expectations and make changes in the curriculum, Mr. Hartsell said.

Some argue that, if remedial classes are eliminated, the system should tighten its academic requirements so fewer unprepared students enroll. The system now accepts 72 percent of applicants, many of whom are low-income, minority, and first-generation.

The eligibility requirements were already under review before the changes in remedial classes were announced, system officials say.

Advocates of tightening eligibility requirements say students who are unprepared for college work could be encouraged to attend a community college first.

But transferring from a two-year to a four-year college in California can be fraught with difficulty, recent studies have found. One report, by the Campaign for College Opportunity, concluded that despite recent efforts to streamline the transfer process in California, it remains “a complex and costly maze.” Students end up spending nearly $40,000 more to earn a bachelor’s degree when they start out at a community college, it found.

For students who opt to begin at a four-year college, the first course they take should be a “gateway, rather than a gatekeeper” course, said Bruce Vandal, senior vice president for Complete College America, a nonprofit group that has been promoting efforts to scale back remediation as a way to improve completion rates.

With the growing number of states moving toward corequisite models of remediation, “we’re quickly approaching a tipping point where, in the foreseeable future, students will be defaulting into college-level classes” and those who need extra support will get it alongside them, not as a prerequisite, Mr. Vandal said.

In an editorial last month, The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote that there were “reasons for optimism for CSU’s gamble” in eliminating remedial classes.

It added a caution, however. “If CSU wants to reassure parents and taxpayers that its prime commitment is learning — not improving appearances by downplaying student shortcomings,” it wrote, “it must set up accountability measures to ensure a CSU degree retains credibility.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.