Higher College Standards Stimulate Achievement

Post lifted from Democracy Project

The New York Times reports that “CUNY Plans to Raise Its Admissions Standards.”

The chancellor said he had long planned to ratchet up standards further. The new move, which has been discussed with some college presidents but has not been announced publicly, is also a response to some professors’ complaints that too many students are poorly prepared for college work, especially in math….

“We are very serious in taking a group of our institutions and placing them in the top segment of universities and colleges,” said Matthew Goldstein, the university chancellor, who described the plan in an interview. “That is the kind of profile we want for our students.”

When I started at Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y. in 1964, on the first day of freshman math the professor gave us the final exam, saying that any who couldn’t pass it didn’t deserve to be at Brooklyn College. We all passed, and the professor spent most of the rest of the term in one of the most fascinating expositions – no one cut class -- of the nuances of Alice In Wonderland.

At that time, Brooklyn College ranked in the top tier of American colleges. To be admitted, you had to rank in the top 2% in the country. I barely squeaked in.

Brooklyn College and the other senior colleges of C.U.N.Y. currently rank well, in the top 400, and C.U.N.Y. is trying to recapture its former stature.

That’s a challenge.

CUNY is proud of its legacy as a supportive environment for immigrant talent. At present, 40% of our more than 400,000 students were born outside the United States. These students represent nearly 170 nationalities and speak 120 different languages.

My aunt Muriel, now 90 and still able to out-debate me, was one of Brooklyn College’s first students. When she began primary school, she only spoke Yiddish. She hammered me mercilessly in high school to try harder, because getting into Brooklyn College was all we could afford, and it was an outstanding launch in life. C.U.N.Y. graduates were considered top rate.

The New York Times article continues:

Still, some CUNY professors fear that the new requirements will keep low-income and black and Hispanic students from entering bachelor’s degree programs. The same concern was voiced nine years ago, when students needing remedial instruction were barred. Students, faculty and some elected officials also argued then that enrollments would plunge.

Enrollments, in fact, have grown since then. But the proportion of black students at the top five colleges fell to 14 percent of regularly admitted freshmen last year, from 20 percent in 1999, according to the university’s data. (Those figures do not include those admitted through SEEK, a program for economically and educationally disadvantaged students, who do not have to meet the same criteria.) The proportion of Hispanic students has held even.

William Crain, a City College psychology professor who fought the earlier change, said he opposed the new plan because he feared it would keep low-income and black and Hispanic students from entering bachelor’s degree programs. “This is turning the university into more of a middle-class university,” he said.

Duh! That’s the mission objective of C.U.N.Y., to give opportunities to the poor to join the middle class, and upper. C.U.N.Y. graduates, including General Powell, and the country benefited from C.U.N.Y.’s high standards.

In 1967, I attended a faculty senate debate on the SEEK program, the consensus being that it was the college’s heritage and mission to reach out. I worked in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and participated in tutoring, but most of SEEK was even more basic, like providing bus and subway fare to poor but otherwise qualified students. The program was small and fairly successful.

Then, in 1970, Mayor Lindsey expanded SEEK to insanity, imposing “open admissions” on C.U.N.Y. The New York Times article doesn’t refer to the destruction of a great university. Blogger Fausta, who attended C.U.N.Y. in the early 1990’s tells of her experience with a text for native Spanish speakers:

The professor, by lowering his standards so the students wouldn't have too much hardship, was condemning his students to sounding like ignoramuses.

Fausta quotes an article from the Economist:

What went wrong? Put simply, City dropped its standards….City scrapped its admissions standards altogether. By 1970, almost any student who graduated from New York's high schools could attend….

The quality of education collapsed. At first, with no barrier to entry, enrolment climbed, but in 1976 the city of New York, which was then in effect bankrupt, forced CUNY to impose tuition fees. An era of free education was over, and a university which had once served such a distinct purpose joined the muddle of America's lower-end education.

By 1997, seven out of ten first-year students in the CUNY system were failing at least one remedial test in reading, writing or math (meaning that they had not learnt it to high-school standard). A report commissioned by the city in 1999 concluded that Central to CUNY's historic mission is a commitment to provide broad access, but its students' high drop-out rates and low graduation rates raise the question: “Access to what?”

Dropout rates soared, and those who attained a degree were considered third-rate.

C.U.N.Y. has been trying hard to recover from its near destruction, with successes, not by pandering but by returning to its roots: excellence. And, those wanting to attend and advance their lives now try harder in high school, and in college.

Back to the New York Times article:

Some CUNY officials, like Ricardo R. Fernández, president of Lehman College in the Bronx, who were not big supporters of that change, said they had come to embrace it.

“Perhaps I have become more convinced that students are able to rise to the challenge,” Dr. Fernández said.

He added that higher admissions standards would give Lehman added cachet and help it attract some of the 8,000 Bronx students who attend CUNY colleges in Manhattan that have tougher admissions requirements than Lehman does.

Edison O. Jackson, president of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, said higher admissions standards had increased the proportion of students in the college’s bachelor’s degree program to about half of his student population, while the college’s associate’s degree track had shrunk.

“Students are coming in and saying, ‘I want to move into the baccalaureate program and into my major much more quickly,’ ” Dr. Jackson said. “And they are.”

Australia: Pupils moving out of government schools

Which pushes some government schools to lift their game

STUDENTS have fled NSW public schools at a rate of 125 a week - equal to two busloads - in the past decade as low-fee private schools boom. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal how parents have snubbed local public schools, often in favour of new faith-based schools backed by Howard Government subsidies.

A Daily Telegraph analysis of the census data shows that in areas like Penrith there has been a mass walkout on public education, cutting their market share by almost a half of all enrolments. Almost 68 per cent of Penrith students attended public high schools in 1996, but this slumped to 54.79 per cent by the 2006 census. In the same period, Catholic school enrolments grew from 23.7 to 33.21 per cent and the "Other Non-Government" category grew from 8.4 to 12 per cent. Across NSW, government secondary schools had 67.1 per cent of all enrolments in 1996 - but this has shrunk to just 60.83 per cent. In raw numbers, about 46,000 students have vanished from public primary schools and 19,000 from public high schools over the decade. There have been similar changes in areas such as Camden, Hawkesbury, Wollondilly, Liverpool, Bankstown, Holroyd, Sutherland and Warringah where public school market share has dropped 10 per cent or more.

The popularity of low-fee private school enrolments indicates why Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has abandoned previous ALP policy to reallocate private school funding. Even in suburbs such as Canada Bay, Waverley, Marrickville, Manly, Lane Cove and Randwick parents have been moving away from public schools.

But it's not all bad news for public education. In Sydney's inner-west, Strathfield Public School enrolments have bucked the trend, surging from 39.35 to 49 per cent. Public school enrolments in nearby Ashfield and Burwood have also increased. In Baulkham Hills, the Blue Mountains, Pittwater and Ryde previous losses have been stemmed.

An Education Department spokeswoman said the public schools sector realised they now operate in an environment where "greater emphasis is being placed on choice". She said the most recent trends were positive for government schools. Kindergarten, Year 3, Year 8 and Year 11 market share had all slightly increased this year, reversing the declining trend over many years. Schools singled out as success stories include Ku-ring-gai High, Cherrybrook Technology High, Wattle Grove Public School, Arthur Phillip High, Rouse Hill Public and Parklea Public.

But Christian Schools Australia, which represents dozens of newer private schools, says its enrolment growth across NSW has increased by 25 per cent in five years. "There's no doubt people are making a choice," chief executive Stephen O'Doherty said. "Many families have gained prosperity under Howard and are using the extra income to move to affordable non-government schools. He said much of the enrolment growth in swinging seats would help determine the federal election later this year.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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