Remedial Ed on the Rocks
The budget axe and a drive to raise the bar for academic performance combined in 1995 to deal hard blows to remedial programs in higher education.
Fiscal realities are fueling a debate over whether four-year institutions should continue to shore up reading and writing deficiencies in undergraduate degree candidates.
"It's already being challenged in the legislatures and it will continue to be challenged. Some of those challenges will come from faculty members," said D. Stanley Carpenter, associate professor of education administration at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX.
In 1995, budget cuts proposed for the State University of New York system would eliminate remedial education from the City University of New York curriculum, in what observers say is a preview of things to come for existing remedial programs.
The result is an elevation of expectations and performance standards for remedial education programs. "We changed our attitude about performance," said Jonnathyn Ogle, who helps run the Challenge Program at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA.
The Georgia Tech program is an example of how schools are redesigning remedial education programs to jump-start students' academic performance early in their undergraduate years.
Ogle describes it as a "wake-up call to the fact that performance is the only things that matters."
"We realized that we were doing a disservice to students by patting them on the back," he said.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
