Followup With Chairman Badillo:
CUNY By The Numbers

By JUSTINA WILLIAMS

Eighty seven percent of CUNY community college freshman require remediation classes — more than double the national community college average — and CUNY senior college freshman take remedial classes at a rate three times the national average. These, and other dismal figures were offered by the new City University of New York Board of Trustee Chairman Herman Badillo at a recent meeting with the Queens Tribune.

The new City University of New York Board of Trustee Chairman Herman Badillo (third from left) and Vice Chancellor Jay Hershenson (left) recently discussed the state of CUNY with Trib staffers, including Publisher Michael Schenkler and Editor Tamara Hartman.

Badillo offered the figures as support for his statement on the urgency of raising City Board of Education standards, setting higher standards in the CUNY system, and looking for new ways to teach students what they should have learned but didn’t, which the city refers to as "remediation." The figures are from The City University of New York: An Institution Adrift, a report by the Mayor’s Advisory Task Force on CUNY, of which Badillo was a part.

Though also focusing on administrative disorganization, the Task Force report pinpoints the first steps for a better CUNY as fixing the haphazard remediation system, and re-evaluating lax standards. Noting that 60 percent of CUNY attendees are from public schools, the study also addressed the symbiotic relationship between the Board of Education and CUNY. It discounted social promotion as fostering incompetence and drop out rates as frustrated students eventually leave the system. Changes are even more important as the city shifts from a manufacturing base to a service base; software jobs doubled between 1992, and 1997, the report said.

Setting Some Standards

The study identified CUNY’s poor standards as resulting from the affects of open admission, a policy that began in the 1970s and which doesn’t differentiate between Regent’s and non-regents diplomas.

Noting that one of its traditionally hardest colleges – Queens College — has a average SAT score of 942, researchers concluded that the overall lack of standards defuses the value of a CUNY diploma, and even a high performing student is not taken seriously upon graduation. CUNY is also the only public system without several top-tier colleges.

The task force suggested that the system develop clear and objective admission standards for all CUNY colleges, including a standardized test.

A Tough Look At Remediation

A high number of Queens students are not originally English speakers, and many others are unprepared due to faulty early education. Fully half of the freshman class lacks basic reading skills. The task force suggested a two-pronged remedy.

First they proposed changes in the remediation system, which does not have objective standards. Tests differ from school to school and teacher to teacher. The report suggested an objective entrance exam to uncover problems, and an exit exam which must be passed before a student moves on to college classes.

Secondly, the report addressed a need for federal or state funding for the programs so that students do not have to use their tuition aid, as they currently do. Remediation is presently done simultaneously with regular college classes, and while many only flounder, others are forced to quite before graduation because their TAP has been exhausted.

Be Ready To Go Back To School

Many students come to CUNY system unprepared by public school. Once there, they drop out, take over six years to graduate, or do graduate but are not on the level of national graduates.

The task force suggested making high schools aware of CUNY’s higher standards so as to engender higher achievement. So as not to leave them in the lurch, Badillo is creating College Now a program which matches high school students with college educators to help bring them up to the appropriate level.

Get Racism Out Of Schools

During the Tribune interview, Badillo said that these educational needs are only magnified by the city’s changing demographics.

During the 1990s, the black and Hispanic population rose 24.5 percent, while the white population fell 19.3 percent. Badillo said that the black and Hispanic populations have been hit hardest by the ills of social promotion, a policy he decried as "racist."

Though 53 percent of elementary school kids were below grade level in reading, and 40 percent below in Math, 96 percent were passed.

"Nobody wants to be accountable, nobody wants to explain to black and Hispanic parents why their children are not learning," Badillo said.

Nonetheless, CUNY does offer many opportunities, and some students are still excelling. Researchers noted that "during the time of our inquiry two Queens College students won Marshall Fellowships, the first from the college ever so honored, [and] two professors won the Pulitzer Prize for a splendid history of the city of New York entitled "Gotham."