To qualify for the California State University system, students need a B average or better in college-prep courses. Yet more than 60 percent of new students require remedial courses in English, math or both. Let’s get real, editorializes the Riverside Press-Enterprise.
Students who earn B’s and score as proficient on the state standards test may not be ready for college, concludes Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Kenneth Young. He compared the state exam to Cal State’s Early Assessment Program, which measures 11th-graders’ readiness for college work.
In 2012, for example, 43 percent of the county’s more than 30,000 11th-graders scored proficient or above on English Language Arts portion of the California Standards Test. Yet the Early Assessment Program results showed only about 16.5 percent of Riverside County 11th-graders were ready for college English. Mathematics scores offered an even grimmer picture: Only about 4.5 percent of the county’s 11th-graders were prepared for college math, despite 26 percent scoring proficient or above on the state test.
The “advanced” category on the state exam correlates with college readiness as measured by EAP, yet accountability programs focus on proficiency, the editorial notes. Furthermore, “the incentives for improvement are directed at the three scoring categories below proficient, not at the advanced achievers.”
As California shifts to the new common standards with tests to match, the state should strengthen incentives to prepare students for college success and “better align the coursework and achievement expectations for high schools and colleges,” editorializes the Press-Enterprise.
