By William Trombley
Senior Editor
 |
| Mali Heded, a part-time English instructor
at Lehman College, a City University of New York campus, finds teaching remedial
students "emotionally draining." |
New York City
ON A RAINY SPRING afternoon in the North Bronx, 15 students sat in a freshman English
class at Lehman College, participating somewhat reluctantly in a discussion of a
Langston Hughes short story.
Pacing back and forth in front of the class, a young part-time instructor named
Mali Heded tried to elicit opinions about the story or about Hughes, one of the nation's
best-known black writers, or about race relations in New York City at the time the
story was written (the 1930s). It was tough going. The students, mostly Latinos and
African Americans, tried to answer Heded's direct questions but they volunteered
very little.
Technically, this was a regular, credit-bearing freshman composition class, not
a remedial class that would have carried no credit. This is because Lehman, one of
the 11 four-year colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) system, has "mainstreamed"
its students who have poor English reading and writing skills into the same classes
with more capable students. But Heded said many of her students need remediation,
especially in writing.
Many were among the two-thirds of Lehman freshmen who failed the CUNY Writing
Assessment Test, one of three basic skills tests -- reading, writing and mathematics
-- that all entering CUNY students take. Less than 25 percent of Lehman's entering
freshmen passed all three tests, despite the fact that the college requires a high
school average of at least 75, in prescribed academic courses, for admission.
"I find this quite exhausting and emotionally draining," said Heded,
a 24-year-old doctoral candidate at Cambridge University in England, who was in her
first and perhaps last semester of teaching at Lehman. "The adjuncts (part-timers)
who teach this course are one of the more demoralized groups of people I've seen
in awhile...these are sweet kids but (teaching them) can be devastating to a lover
of literature and learning."
Heded has ended the year with ambivalent feelings.
"Objectively, I'm very sympathetic to the notion of raising the level,"
she said. "I don't think students should be graduating when, in fact, what they
are doing is ninth grade work. That said, however, I believe these people deserve
an opportunity and I think we are better able to provide that (opportunity) than
anyone else."
Forty-year-old Gabriel Tirado, born in New York City of Puerto Rican parents,
was one of Heded's better students. After working for the New York City subway system
for 23 years, Tirado quit to enroll at Lehman last January.
"My family thought I was crazy to leave a job with decent pay ($16 an hour)
and good benefits," he said, "but I wanted to have a profession. I wanted
to work with people at risk from substance abuse and alcohol. I've seen what a negative
impact they can have on my people."
Tirado said Mali Heded's class has been helpful. "I've always been a reader,"
he said, "but she has given me more focus on certain problems I have with writing."
But the future of classes like this is uncertain, following adoption in late May
of a new CUNY Board of Trustees policy that no student who has failed any of the
three basic skills tests will be admitted to a senior college.
City University officials estimate that new enrollments at Lehman -- first-time
freshmen and transfer students -- could be reduced by as much as 60 percent.
But the new policy, which has been described as the most important change in CUNY
admissions standards in 30 years, is being phased in over a three-year period and
will not affect Lehman until September of the year 2000. By then, college officials
hope that intensive summer programs and better performance by local high schools
will make more students eligible for admission.
"The potential loss is great," said Steven Wyckoff, director of freshman
year programs at Lehman, "but a lot can happen to mitigate the effects before
we get to 2000."
Many potential Lehman students might be diverted to Bronx Community College, several
stops south on the "D" subway line, since the two-year colleges remain
open to anyone with a high school diploma or its equivalent. But Caroline Williams,
president of Bronx Community College, said her 7,800-student campus is close to capacity
and also would need more money to accommodate an overflow from Lehman.
"If there are going to be significant increases in students, there certainly
will be a need for additional resources," Williams said.
Bronx Community College is located in one of the poorest Congressional districts
in the nation. Forty-six percent of its students come from families with annual incomes
of less than $15,000. Ninety-three percent are African American or Hispanic, and
53 percent were born outside the United States. About one-third are on welfare. Close
to 90 percent take at least one remedial class.
As the spring semester wound to a close, 15 freshmen, all African Americans or
Latinos, were gathered in an "immersion writing class," paying close attention
to Jeff Spielberger, a faculty veteran of 30 years who once taught drama and poetry
at the college but now devotes his time to remedial instruction.
All of the students in Spielberger's class had failed the CUNY writing proficiency
test, as did most of the two-year college’s entering freshmen. Some had graduated
from New York City high schools, others had earned equivalency certificates or were
recent immigrants from Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, with uncertain
high school preparation.
The idea behind this "immersion" class, which meets for three hours
a day, five days a week, and lasts five weeks, is that intense concentration on one
subject -- writing -- over a short period of time, will produce better results. The
classes are smaller than most -- 15 students instead of 26 to 28 -- so each student
receives more individual attention.
At the end of the five-week period, students must be able to write a short essay
that is graded by two outsiders. Those who pass can move on to the first freshman
credit course in English. Those who fail must repeat the remedial class, which they
may do as many times as necessary, although paying tuition for non-credit remedial
courses is a luxury not many of these students can afford.
As Spielberger worked on sentence structure, he bantered with his students, most
of whom seemed to be involved in the work. There was no break in the three-hour class
but the instructor let them leave the room to smoke a cigarette or to allow one of
the many single mothers in the class to pick up a youngster from child care.
"Most of these students have been out of school for awhile," he said
afterward. "I spend a lot of time showing them how to be better students. Some
of them just don’t know. But their attitude is good; they take coaching well."
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| Remedial Students work in a computer-assisted
writing laboratory at CUNY's Herbert H. Lehman College. |
Spielberger has found that teaching these young men and women, who come from uneven
educational backgrounds, who work at part-time or full-time jobs while attending
classes and who have serious personal problems, involves more than the classroom.
"We butt into their lives as much as they'll let us," he said.
This approach seems to work. Twice as many students in the immersion classes pass
the CUNY writing test as in other freshman remedial classes, according to Joe O'Sullivan,
who runs the immersion program.
"These students have tremendous problems," O'Sullivan said. "Their
apartment burns down or they get mugged or one of their kids gets sick. We can only
do a little to help. Our goal really is to get them to class the next day."
"A lot of them think they can't make it in college," he added. "They
have a very exalted idea of college. But then you see the light come on when they
realize, 'hey, I can do this,' and that's one of the really nice things to see."
Classes like Mali Heded's, at Lehman College, and Jeff Spielberger's, at Bronx
Community College, have been at the heart of the controversy that has swirled around
the City University of New York in recent months.
Early this year, New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and New York State Governor
George E. Pataki, both Republicans, began to complain that CUNY's graduation rates
were too low and that too much remedial instruction was offered, cheapening the value
of a City University degree. Their complaints echoed arguments that have been made
in recent years by the Manhattan Institute and other conservative think tanks in
the New York City area.
In a series of typically vivid speeches and press conferences, Giuliani called
on the CUNY Board of Trustees to eliminate remedial instruction in the system's four-year
colleges, farm it out to private companies in the community colleges and do away
with the university’s "open admissions" policy, which, since 1970, has
guaranteed a place in the system for anyone with a high school diploma or its equivalent.
"There comes a point, after 15 years of tragically plummeting graduation
rates and total evisceration of standards, that somebody has to say, 'This isn't
working,'" the mayor said.
If these changes were not made, Giuliani threatened, the city might withdraw financial
support from the City University.
However, that was something of an empty threat. The city's financial contribution
to CUNY has been cut sharply ever since New York came close to bankruptcy in the
mid-1970s.
In the 1997-98 academic year, the city provided 23 percent of the operating budget
for the community colleges but only four percent for the four-year senior colleges.
Most of the rest of CUNY’s annual $1.25 billion operating budget comes from the state
and from student tuition, which is relatively high for public institutions -- $3,200
for the senior colleges, $2,500 for the community colleges.
Giuliani also has insisted that CUNY faculty members should take attendance, as
they did when the mayor attended Manhattan College, a small, Roman Catholic institution
in the New York City suburb of Riverdale.
In one of the lighter moments of what has been an increasingly bitter dispute,
Giuliani held aloft an attendance book at a press conference and said, "You
get a book like this. You put down the names of the students at the beginning of
the semester and then you call out their names at the beginning of class. And if
they're there, you mark 'yes' and if they're not, you mark 'no.'"
From the back of the room, someone called out, "Where'd you get the book,
Rudy? We haven't had money for those for years."
City University officials said attendance is taken in all community college classes
and in most senior college classes as well.
Governor Pataki, running for reelection this fall, has echoed Giuliani’s criticisms
but at a lower decibel level. On the CUNY Board of Trustees, the argument was taken
up by Anne A. Paolucci, the current board chair, and by Herman Badillo, the vice
chair and a close Giuliani political ally.
Defenders of open admissions and remedial education said the mayor was ignorant
of the needs of the City University, where half of the 200,000 students were born
outside the United States, 70 percent are racial minorities, 42 percent have annual
household incomes of less than $20,000, 30 percent are supporting children and 60
percent work either full-time or part-time.
Some speculated that Giuliani's attack on remedial education was intended to curry
favor with conservatives, should he decide to seek a Senate seat from New York State
or run for national office.
 |
| Students protesting the phasing out of remedial
classes march in front of City University of New York headqwuarters in Manhattan. |
Since then, student protestors have marched in front of CUNY headquarters on Manhattan's
East 80th Street, each time the Board of Trustees has met, demanding that open admissions
and remedial instruction be retained. At the May 26 meeting, when the trustees voted
to phase out remedial classes in the senior colleges, 14 protestors were arrested.
One of them was Edward C. Sullivan, the 65-year-old Democratic chairman of the
State Assembly's higher education committee, who refused to leave the board room
after Paolucci evicted everyone except reporters. Sullivan was hauled off to the
local station house in handcuffs and was not released until the next afternoon.
The newspapers took sides in the growing dispute -- the tabloids Daily News and
Post supported the mayor in their editorials, and The New York Times opposed him.
The "op-ed" page of The Times became a forum for the debate. One day,
Frank McCourt, best-selling author of "Angela's Ashes" and once a part-time
CUNY instructor, pleaded for continuation of remedial classes. A few days later,
historian John Patrick Diggins, a professor at the City University Graduate Center,
urged the board to allow remedial instruction only in the two-year community colleges.
For months, the trustees wrestled with the issue. Even though Pataki has appointed
six of the 16 voting board members (there is a 17th, a faculty representative who
does not vote), and Giuliani appointed five, it was difficult for them to gather
the nine votes necessary to change the admissions policies. There was strong opposition
from students, faculty members, the presidents of most of the colleges and from some
trustees, notably two who were appointed by former Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo
-- Edith B. Everett and James P. Murphy.
Civil rights organizations argued that the policy change would harm minorities
the most, since they fail the proficiency tests at a higher rate than white students.
Systemwide, 55 percent of Hispanic students, 51 percent of Asians and 46 percent
of African Americans probably would fail to meet the new standards, according to
CUNY estimates, while 38 percent of white students would be affected.
Colleges with the highest minority enrollments would be the hardest hit. At Medger
Evers College, a Brooklyn campus with a 96 percent minority enrollment, only 14 percent
of first-time freshmen passed all three basic skills tests last fall. At City College,
which is 89 percent minority, 29 percent of first-time freshmen passed all three,
and at York College, in Queens, which is 92 percent minority, the pass rate was 31
percent.
| Related information |
Sample Test Questions
THE CITY UNIVERSITY of New York tests all first-time freshmen in reading, writing
and mathematics. In the past, these tests have been used to determine which students
need remedial work. In the future, however, students who fail one or more of the
tests will not be admitted to one of the 11 four-year colleges in the CUNY system,
although they still can attend one of the system’s two-year community colleges.
The new policy will be phased in over a three-year period, beginning in fall 1999.
These are sample questions from the tests:
Writing
You will have 50 minutes to plan and write the essay assigned below. You may
wish to use your 50 minutes in the following way: ten minutes planning what you are
going to write; 30 minutes writing; ten minutes rereading and correcting what you
have written.
You should express your thoughts clearly and organize your ideas so that they will
make sense to a reader. Correct grammar and sentence structure are important.
You must write your essay on one of the following assignments. Read each one carefully
and then choose A or B.
A. It always strikes me as a terrible shame to see young people spending so much
of their time staring at television. If we could unplug all the TV sets in America,
our children would grow up to be healthier, better educated, and more independent
human beings.
B. Older people bring to their work a lifetime of knowledge and experience. They
should not be forced to retire, even if keeping them on the job cuts down on the
opportunities for young people to find work.
Do you agree or disagree? Explain and illustrate your answer from your own experience,
your observations of others, or your reading.
Mathematics
| Simplify st2(3-t)
- 2st2 |
| (A) 3st2 —
2st2 |
(B) st2 — t |
| (C) st2 + st3 |
(D) st2 — st3 |
| (E) st2 |
|
| |
|
| 1 3/4 ÷ 4 = |
| (A) 7/16 |
(B) 2 |
| (C) 2 2/7 |
(D) 7 |
| (E) 1 3/16 |
|
| |
|
| A room is 20 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high. The area of
the floor is? |
| (A) 240 square feet |
(B) 240 feet |
| (C) 1,920 cubic feet |
(D) 1,920 sq. feet |
| (E) 1,920 feet |
|
|
However, senior colleges with large white enrollments also would be affected. At
Queens College, where 57 percent of the students are white, less than half of first-time
freshmen passed all three tests. At the College of Staten Island, where white students
make up about three-quarters of the enrollment, the pass rate was only 33 percent.
Faculty members said many students do well on two of the tests -- usually math
and reading—but need help with their writing. They believe that these students would
be better off in a senior college, where they could combine regular course work with
remedial writing, than in a community college filled with less-qualified students.
The plan's supporters contended that tougher standards would enhance the value
of a CUNY bachelor's degree. They noted that two of the senior colleges -- Baruch
and Queens -- already had announced they would do away with remedial classes. (However,
both will provide extensive tutoring for students in need of remediation.)
A few days before the board met on May 26, it appeared that the Giuliani-Pataki
forces still lacked one vote. Then Richard B. Stone, a Columbia University law professor
and a Giuliani appointee, announced he would provide the ninth vote, and the plan
was approved.
Stone was subjected to "very heavy pressure from the highest levels at City
Hall," said a CUNY official who followed the maneuvering closely. "You
might say they left no stone unturned."
The board voted nine to six to terminate remedial instruction at four senior colleges
in September 1999 (Baruch, Brooklyn College, Hunter and Queens College); at five
more a year later (City College, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Lehman,
New York City Technical College and the College of Staten Island); and at Medger
Evers and York colleges in September 2001.
The new policy also applies to students taking English as a Second Language classes,
except for those who attended high schools outside the United States.
Afterward, Giuliani said the vote "sends a powerful message that CUNY is
starting the important and difficult process of restoring its reputation as one of
the great public institutions of higher learning in the country."
Board Chairwoman Paolucci told reporters, "We are cleaning out the four-year
colleges and putting remediation where it belongs," comments that have been
widely condemned as racist.
How valid are the criticisms that Paolucci, Badillo, the mayor, the governor and
others have been leveling at the City University?
Low Graduation Rates?
The four-year and two-year graduation rates are indisputably low -- less than eight
percent in the senior colleges, less than two percent in the community colleges.
But officials contend that short-term rates are not meaningful for a system like
CUNY, where half of the first-time freshmen were born outside the United States,
42 percent come from households with incomes of less than $20,000 and almost 60 percent
hold full-time or part-time jobs.
"This isn't Amherst or Princeton or even Berkeley," a Lehman College
dean said. "These people have very complicated lives and it takes them longer
to finish, but they do get there."
Long-term graduation rates appear to be comparable with those of other urban public
institutions. Six years after entering CUNY in fall 1990, 32 percent of bachelor's
degree candidates had graduated, while the average for 15 other urban universities
-- such places as the University of Alabama, Birmingham; the University of Illinois,
Chicago; and the University of Louisville—was 33 percent, the CUNY Office of Institutional
Research and Analysis has reported.
A 1997 study by David Lavin, professor of sociology at the City University Graduate
Center, and several colleagues, found that 30 percent of CUNY community college students
had earned diplomas after eight years, and another ten percent had received bachelor's
degrees or diplomas from other institutions.
"Both at CUNY and nationally, extended college careers have become the rule
rather than the exception, and transfer rates are high," the report said. "For
these reasons, graduation studies that use short time intervals and which fail to
take account of transfers, seriously underestimate the educational success of community
college students."
Lavin and others pointed out that many community college students enroll in a
few courses to brush up their business or computer skills and have no intention of
completing a full diploma program.
Too Much Remedial?
"If we are promising a college education, we should deliver one," Mayor
Giuliani said at a press conference last spring, repeating one of the major themes
of his campaign to cut back on remedial instruction at CUNY.
The mayor and other critics charge that the City University spends too much time,
money and energy teaching students things they should have learned in high school.
Supporters of remedial education have countered with the argument that the City
University, with large numbers of low-income, immigrant students, is bound to require
more make-up classes.
They also blame New York City high schools for graduating students with a frail
grasp of fundamental skills like reading and writing.
"The New York City schools are terrible," said Joe O'Sullivan, who runs
the freshman writing "immersion" program at Bronx Community College. "If
they were doing their job, we wouldn’t be doing all this remedial work."
CUNY officials applaud recent efforts by New York schools Chancellor Rudy Crew
to prepare more students for college work, but they say it will take at least several
years for these efforts to pay off.
University records indicate that remedial instruction has declined in the four-year
colleges in recent years -- from 55 percent of first-time freshmen in the fall of
1994 to 39 percent two years later. However, some of this improvement might have
been achieved simply by changing the names of remedial classes or by "mainstreaming"
students with remedial needs into regular freshman classes, as has been done at Lehman
College.
 |
| At Lehman College, inThe Bronx, two-thirds
of the entering freshmen fail the City University of New York's Writing Assessment
Test. |
While the need for remedial work might have been declining in the senior colleges,
it has been increasing in the two-year community colleges -- from 68 percent of first-time
freshmen in 1964 to 75 percent in 1996.
CUNY records also show that remedial classes account for only five percent of
total instruction in the senior colleges. In the community colleges, the figure is
20 percent.
As long as there is a City University of New York, there will be a need for some
remedial instruction, said Louise Mirrer, CUNY vice chancellor for academic affairs.
"We will always have some unprepared students," she said in an interview.
"So does every university in America."
Privatize Remedial Education?
Initially, Mayor Giuliani insisted that all entering CUNY students, in the community
colleges as well as the four-year campuses, should be able to pass the basic reading,
writing and math tests. He said this probably would eliminate three-quarters of the
65,000 students now in the two-year colleges.
The mayor said remedial work in the community colleges should be done by private
companies like the Kaplan Educational Center or the Sylvan Learning Center.
However, as it became clear that getting rid of remediation in the senior colleges
would be a major battle, the mayor dropped his community college proposal (though
many expect him to revive it next year).
Vice Chancellor Mirrer said contracting out remedial work would cost two and one-half
times more than CUNY now spends and that the instruction would not be as good.
CUNY's remedial instruction is relatively inexpensive to provide because much
of it is done by part-time faculty who earn only $3,000 to $4,000 per semester course
and receive limited benefits.
For teaching two sections of freshman composition at Lehman College, "I take
home exactly $572, after taxes, every other week," said Mali Heded, the young
instructor who was struggling to interest her class in the writings of Langston Hughes.
Many educators believe the rapid expansion of remedial education is a real problem,
not only in
| Related information |
Cuny Campuses
Graduate School and University Center
Senior Colleges
Bernard M. Baruch College
Brooklyn College
City College
Hunter College
Herbert H. Lehman College
Queens College
York College
Comprehensive Colleges (offering both two-year and four-year degrees):
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Medger Evers College
New York City Technical College
College of Staten Island
Community Colleges
Borough of Manhattan Community College
Bronx Community College
Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College
Kingsborough Community College
LaGuardia Community College
Queensborough Community College |
New York City but in many other places around the country. However, they doubt that
the problem can be solved in a superheated political atmosphere.
"There is a legitimate issue here but, unfortunately, now it's all politics,"
said Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University. "The
legitimate issue is, at what point is enough, enough? The government's got to ask,
'How long do we do this?' We do remedial education in elementary school, in high
school and then again in college. What are we getting for all this expense?"
"So this is a real issue," Levine continued, " but I'm sorry it
has come up in this political context, where everybody is taking shots at remedial
and nobody is giving careful thought to how it might be done more effectively."
As a matter of fact, quite a lot of careful thought had been given to the subject
at the City University of New York -- by faculty members, campus presidents, systemwide
administrators and the Board of Trustees -- and last fall they seemed to be close
to consensus.
"Rational discussions about the missions of the different colleges were underway,"
Louise Mirrer, the academic vice chancellor, said. "We were also having a highly
rational discussion about remediation and areas of agreement were emerging."
Then Mayor Giuliani began his public blasts at the City University and the rational
discussions ended.
