California’s higher education officials have
teamed up with the public schools to create
the state’s first proposal for academic
standards for high school students.
The preliminary proposal, which was
unveiled last month, is a cooperative effort to
address the skyrocketing necessity for
remedial education for students entering the
state’s community colleges and universities.
California Community College System
Chancellor Tom Nussbaum joined leaders of
the state’s two university systems and state
schools chief Delaine Eastin in releasing the
proposal for increasing high school graduation
requirements in mathematics and English at a
meeting of the California State University
board of trustees.
“We all share a common problem: Our
children are not achieving at a high enough
level,” Eastin, the state superintendent of
public instruction, said in an interview. “Not
having standards allows all manner of things
to pass as education.”
The proposal was developed by the
California Education Round Table, a group of
educators that includes Nussbaum, Eastin,
California State University Chancellor Barry
Munitz, University of California President
Richard Atkinson, and representatives of the
Association of Independent California
Colleges and Universities and the California
Postsecondary Education Commission.
Community college officials do not know
what percentage of the 1.4 million students in
the state’s 106 community colleges require
remedial education. But in 1993, the system
tallied almost 500,000 enrollments for basic
skills courses–a number that includes
students enrolled in several remedial classes.
Although many are older students without
recent formal schooling, many others are
entering directly from high school or within a
few years of graduation. Some community
colleges in the state claim more than 80
percent of their students are not prepared for
college courses.
Earning good grades and performing well
on college-entrance exams qualifies the top
one-third of the state’s graduates for
admission to the California State University
system. Yet almost half of those incoming
freshman are not prepared for college courses
and are routed first into remedial programs.
