California State University to End Placement Exams and Remedial Classes for Freshmen

[Weatherman2020]

We don't need no education.
Democrats continue to hasten the collapse of the State into a rust belt.

Cal State plans to drop placement exams in math and English as well as the noncredit remedial courses that more than 25,000 freshmen have been required to take each fall — a radical move away from the way public universities traditionally support students who come to college less prepared than their peers.

In an executive order issued late Wednesday, Chancellor Timothy P. White directed the nation’s largest public university system to revamp its approach to remedial education and assess new freshmen for college readiness and course placement by using high school grades, ACT and SAT scores, previous classroom performance and other measures that administrators say provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge.

Cal State will no longer make those students who may need extra help take the entry-level mathematics (ELM) test and the English placement test (EPT).

The new protocol, which will go into effect in fall 2018, “facilitates equitable opportunity for first-year students to succeed through existing and redesigned education models,” White wrote in a memorandum to the system’s 23 campus presidents, who will be responsible for working with faculty to implement the changes.

The executive order comes at a time when educators and policymakers across the nation are questioning the effectiveness of traditional remedial education and placement exams. At Cal State, about 40% of freshman each year are considered not ready for college-level work and required to take remedial classes that do not count toward their degrees.

Currently, students who enter Cal State without demonstrating college readiness in math and/or English are required to take up to three traditional remedial classes before they are allowed to enroll in courses that count toward their degrees. (If students do not pass these remedial courses during the first year, they are removed from university rolls.)

The problem is that these noncredit remedial courses cost the students more money and time, keep many in limbo and often frustrate them to the point that some eventually drop out, administrators said. In a recent study of similar college-prep work at community colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California found that remedial programs — also called developmental education — largely fail to help most students complete their academic or vocational programs.

Under the new system, all Cal State students will be allowed to take courses that count toward their degrees beginning on Day 1. Students who need additional support in math or English, for example, could be placed in “stretch” courses that simultaneously provide remedial help and allow them to complete the general math and English credits required for graduation.

Faculty are also encouraged to explore other innovative ways to embed additional academic support within a college-level course. A few other states have experimented with these approaches, and the results so far are encouraging, administrators said.

“This will have a tremendous effect on the number of units students accumulate in their first year of college,” said James T. Minor, Cal State’s senior strategist for academic success and inclusive excellence. “It will have an enormous effect on college affordability, on the number of semesters that a student is required to be enrolled in before they earn a degree, and it will have a significant impact on the number of students that ultimately cross a commencement stage with a degree in hand, ready to move into the workforce, ready to move into graduate or professional school."

In addition to redesigning remedial requirements systemwide, the executive order instructs campuses to strengthen their summer Early Start programs...

Los Angeles Times on Twitter

 

[Cellblock2429]

We don't need no education.
Democrats continue to hasten the collapse of the State into a rust belt.

Cal State plans to drop placement exams in math and English as well as the noncredit remedial courses that more than 25,000 freshmen have been required to take each fall — a radical move away from the way public universities traditionally support students who come to college less prepared than their peers.

In an executive order issued late Wednesday, Chancellor Timothy P. White directed the nation’s largest public university system to revamp its approach to remedial education and assess new freshmen for college readiness and course placement by using high school grades, ACT and SAT scores, previous classroom performance and other measures that administrators say provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge.

Cal State will no longer make those students who may need extra help take the entry-level mathematics (ELM) test and the English placement test (EPT).

The new protocol, which will go into effect in fall 2018, “facilitates equitable opportunity for first-year students to succeed through existing and redesigned education models,” White wrote in a memorandum to the system’s 23 campus presidents, who will be responsible for working with faculty to implement the changes.

The executive order comes at a time when educators and policymakers across the nation are questioning the effectiveness of traditional remedial education and placement exams. At Cal State, about 40% of freshman each year are considered not ready for college-level work and required to take remedial classes that do not count toward their degrees.

Currently, students who enter Cal State without demonstrating college readiness in math and/or English are required to take up to three traditional remedial classes before they are allowed to enroll in courses that count toward their degrees. (If students do not pass these remedial courses during the first year, they are removed from university rolls.)

The problem is that these noncredit remedial courses cost the students more money and time, keep many in limbo and often frustrate them to the point that some eventually drop out, administrators said. In a recent study of similar college-prep work at community colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California found that remedial programs — also called developmental education — largely fail to help most students complete their academic or vocational programs.

Under the new system, all Cal State students will be allowed to take courses that count toward their degrees beginning on Day 1. Students who need additional support in math or English, for example, could be placed in “stretch” courses that simultaneously provide remedial help and allow them to complete the general math and English credits required for graduation.

Faculty are also encouraged to explore other innovative ways to embed additional academic support within a college-level course. A few other states have experimented with these approaches, and the results so far are encouraging, administrators said.

“This will have a tremendous effect on the number of units students accumulate in their first year of college,” said James T. Minor, Cal State’s senior strategist for academic success and inclusive excellence. “It will have an enormous effect on college affordability, on the number of semesters that a student is required to be enrolled in before they earn a degree, and it will have a significant impact on the number of students that ultimately cross a commencement stage with a degree in hand, ready to move into the workforce, ready to move into graduate or professional school."

In addition to redesigning remedial requirements systemwide, the executive order instructs campuses to strengthen their summer Early Start programs...

Los Angeles Times on Twitter

/----/ How much education do you need to pull the lever marked Democrat every election day?

 

[EvilCat Breath]

The students sent to remedial classes cannot read a menu. They have no understanding of basic arithmetic. Their high school grades reflect social promotion not what they can do.

This is just so very sad.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

The students sent to remedial classes cannot read a menu. They have no understanding of basic arithmetic. Their high school grades reflect social promotion not what they can do.

This is just so very sad.

In that case they have no business being in college.

 

[usmbguest5318]

From the LA Times article:

Cal State officials said the executive order was issued after extensive consultation with students and faculty.​

??? What? It's good to consult with students about some things. Pedagogy, however, doesn't strike me as one of them.

California State University to End Placement Exams and Remedial Classes for Freshmen

Does the school have open enrollment?

If it does, well, the placement tests make sense to administer. As for the remedial classes, well, some institution has to provide such instruction to would-be collegians who need it. I suppose it may as well be colleges, though private tutors, self-study, or a variety of other means and modalities may as aptly provide it.

At Cal State, about 40% of freshman each year are considered not ready for college-level work

Additionally, if the school does have open enrollment, that would explain the 40% figure noted. If the school does not have open enrollment, one has to wonder why those unprepared students gained admittance. Maybe there's a good case for admitting a very small few unprepared individuals, but not 40% of the newly matriculated freshmen in the school/system.

Cal State plans to drop placement exams in math and English as well as the noncredit remedial courses that more than 25,000 freshmen have been required to take each fall [...] Cal State will no longer make those students who may need extra help take the entry-level mathematics (ELM) test and the English placement test (EPT).

??? Must all enrollees who have not, prior to the first day of class, earned English and/or math college credits take the placement tests or just students about whom the school is uncertain of their actual adroitness with pre-collegiate math and English? If not all students must take the placement test, what determines whether they must take either placement test?

Chancellor Timothy P. White directed the nation’s largest public university system to revamp its approach to remedial education and assess new freshmen for college readiness and course placement by using high school grades, ACT and SAT scores, previous classroom performance and other measures that administrators say provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge.

I find it hard to believe one's performance on ACT/SAT tests and in their high school classes provides a better or worse measure of one's "comprehensive understanding" of one's knowledge. One's performance on high school delivered tests should equal that of one's performance on a college placement.

For the Cal State approach to hold water, it must be so that matriculating students' coursework in high school math and English must match or outstrip what the college/university expects they have covered. For the admissions department to know whether the nature and extent of a student's high school performance, though perhaps not one's SAT/ACT correspond to what the school needs it to be for the student to enroll in college-level math and English courses, the school has to know the match/English curriculum at every school from which its applicants graduated.

That seems like a lot of "administrivia" that could be avoided by giving the kids the school's own placement test. Perhaps, however, they already know such things, in which case, I suppose it's no big deal.

The problem is that these noncredit remedial courses cost the students more money and time

The courses do cost money that is not spent toward a baccalaureate degree, but I don't see that as a problem for anyone than the students and their families who must pay for their education. All American children, absent cost, have the opportunity to learn the math and English required to pass the placement exams. Those who didn't avail themselves of that opportunity created the problem for themselves. Having to pay for remedial education is merely the consequence of their election not to sufficiently learn the material in high school.

frustrate them to the point that some eventually drop out

The kids should direct their frustration where it belongs -- with themselves. The only reason they are called to take a remedial class is because they didn't in high school perform well enough not to have to do so. There's no just basis for being frustrated about taking a placement test. One takes the test, passes it and enrolls in whatever college-level classes one qualifies.

In a recent study of similar college-prep work at community colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California found that remedial programs — also called developmental education — largely fail to help most students complete their academic or vocational programs.

1. Is that even the immediate goal of those programs? It's not as though remedial education class are strategic in nature; they're totally tactical. The tactical goal of such programs is to provide an opportunity for students to master content/skills they did not master when they were in high school, content and skills a variety of college courses assume students have mastered.
2. Of course, that's what the study found. According to early statements in the article, sixty percent of students enter college prepared for college work. Well, 60% qualifies for the definition of "most."
3. As an aside, what is most helpful to completing an academic or vocational program is studying. The only person who can do that effectively for the student is the student in the program.
   
   Students who didn't study well and enough -- "enough" being however much studying a given student needs to study to learn the material; in any given class, it may be more for some and less for others -- are strongly advised to seek guidance about how to study well and how to assess for themselves whether and when they need to study more. Those too are skills they should have acquired in high school.
   
   Colleges and employers want people who learn quickly and thoroughly; paying attention and studying are the modes/means by which learning happens. Quite simply, individuals who didn't figure out how to learn comprehensively and quickly in high school are, upon entering any mode of life as an adult, playing "catch up" rather than advancing.
   
   There are no shortcuts to success. To succeed, the work, the learning, the advancement, etc. must happen. It's a question of when it happens -- ideally before "too late" arrives -- not whether it must. For the most part, and for most people, the sooner it happens, the better.

Faculty are also encouraged to explore other innovative ways to embed additional academic support within a college-level course. A few other states have experimented with these approaches, and the results so far are encouraging, administrators said.

It's good that the tactics are working. It's also good for the people who need them.

I almost certainly would not want my kids who didn't need such coddling enrolled at a school that uses them. Time is an immutably limiting force constraining the extent of material that can be covered in the fixed duration of class. To the extent that any classroom time is used to cover content that students should have learned in high school, that is time not available for teaching new content.

Anecdote:

My neighbor's kid was enrolled in an undergraduate business program. The boy and I were discussing a sales management class he was taking. The boy mentioned that at the time, the course was covering sales volume measurement and analysis. He shared too that they had just has a quiz on nothing other than how to calculate a weighted average and that the professor had actually taught how to do so.

Now that may seem like a good thing to some people. That the professor taught how to perform the math of taking a weighted average was disconcerting. Doing so is among the simplest concepts of eighth grade math (it's not even algebra), yet the undergraduate business school has a calculus prerequisite for admission.

The professor should merely have stated that one approach for measuring/analyzing sales volumes is to do so using averages weighted by X, Y, Z, etc. coefficients. The reason for the prerequisite is, in part, so that instructors assume a level of foundational math/English mastery and not teach concepts and techniques covered by they prerequisite material.
​

We don't need no education.

I see no correlation between that sentiment and the content of the article or the redesigned approach Cal Sate is taking.

• Remedial courses cover content that the student's should have mastered in high school. I don't see such content as the stuff that any institution of higher education should offer, but for merely being able to do so and collecting revenue from doing so.
• Placement exams certainly are not a form of education; they are tools that measure the education one already has received.

 

[DGS49]

I suspect that the Elephant in the Room is that the remedial classes simply weren't working. The instructors teaching the "real" college classes reported that their students STILL couldn't read and/or write at college level, and STILL lacked basic mathematical understanding. So why waste the time and money?

The question constantly comes up: What is an instructor to do when the student, for example, submits a "history" term paper that is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, or mis-use of vocabulary? Should the paper be downgraded for reasons unrelated to the subject? Not an easy answer.

The fact is that for the past 100 years, only about 25% of the population is capable of doing real college-level work. So we water down the standards, offer bullshit course and majors, allow students to avoid the death penalty by re-taking classes, and pat ourselves collectively on the back because almost half of us are getting college degrees.

Whom do we think we are kidding? Whom do we think we are helping?

Who "wins" when a marginal, student gets a sheepskin, only to find that s/he is not capable to doing specialized or management level work? Starbucks? Mickey Dee's?