Saturday, April 11, 1998 | 10:24 a.m.
BILL HANLON is a school district administrator and a member of the State Board of Education. He can be reached on the Internet at bhanlon@ accessnv.com.
UNIVERSITIES ARE often categorized by their admission standards as "very competitive," "competitive" and "noncompetitive. Judging by a report just released this week as a result of the Nevada Educational Reform Act, it appears that some at the University of Nevada System are hellbent on having UNLV and UNR recognized as "noncompetitive."
That's too bad, since the previous administration spent a great deal of time, effort and money to change the image of the local university. Great strides were made to make the state universities more appealing to our state's best and brightest students.
While I support the Nevada Educational Reform Act, there are sections in it that bother me. One such section calls for a study to determine the number of students needing to enroll in remedial classes in post-secondary education. The only way that type of item would have found its way into the reform measure is by someone at the university level complaining of the quality of students entering the system. While, at first blush, that may seem to be a legitimate concern, after a few more seconds, you should realize the flaw in the logic. I believe this remedial identification is something that comes straight from the cattle ranch.
While nobody at the university level wants to acknowledge a role in speaking with legislators about these concerns, it does not take a brain surgeon to figure out who is testifying for more funding on the university system's behalf. That additional funding needs reasons. I wonder. ...
Knowing that high school students interested in attending college usually take college preparatory classes, why would a four-year, accredited university admit students who did not meet its entrance requirements? It just seems logical to me that, if you knowingly admit students that do not have the prerequisite knowledge and skills, you will have added remediation to your plate. Are standards at the university being lowered?
My second question revolves around the perception of quality. Just a decade ago, many of Nevada's best and brightest students went out of state to college. That, I thought, was turned around forever. If the University of Nevada System is now knowingly admitting students that do not meet its own admittance requirements, does that not make the degrees of students who do qualify less valuable? That's attractive!
Maybe the reason students are taking remedial classes has to do with the classes required for their program. It was my understanding that students entering four-year universities were required to take at least three years of math in high school, which included two years of algebra and one year of geometry. Why, then, would degrees be offered to students who take algebra in college as part of their degree program? Shouldn't college algebra be a remedial course, since all students admitted to the university should have studied those concepts in high school? Could university students be enrolling in remedial courses because that is all that is required of their university program?
I find it interesting that remediation needs are up at the university at the same time enrollment is up. Somehow, I bet this enrollment increase has something to do with funding and remediation. Could these be connected?
Solving this problem seems pretty straightforward. The university system should examine the high school transcripts of its applicants to make sure they enrolled in and successfully completed required course work. That information, along with students' SAT scores should determine admittance and would result in less remediation.
On the other hand, if the universities are admitting students who were not taking college preparatory classes in high school, then insinuating to legislators the K-12 system was not preparing them well is tantamount to lying. Typically, students, who don't have the course work needed for a university or are looking for a more vocational type of program, attend community college.
It just seems that universities that have increased remediation needs are more concerned with numbers than education. After all, unlike two-year institutions, they select their students. The university system should be embarrassed about this issued, they brought this problem on themselves!
Hopefully, these short-sighted policies won't chase our better students out of state. The Nevada Educational Reform Act's call for higher academic standards in the state will result in more students taking appropriate course work in high school. Nevada ranks at the bottom in the percentage of students going to school after high school. By requiring higher academic standards, more students will have the class work that will allow them to determine if college is the right choice.
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