Editorial: Dialogue may reverse trend

Tuesday, May 31, 2005 | 9:19 a.m.

It's disappointing for teachers in Nevada's colleges and universities to discover that 40 percent of their freshmen students are ill prepared academically. That was the average percentage of incoming high school graduates in 2004 who needed remedial classes in such core courses as math, science and English. The number came from a report early this year by the Nevada System of Higher Education, which prepared it at the request of the Legislature. The Legislature was concerned partly because the cost of remedial education for unprepared college and university students topped $3 million last year.

The percentage of students needing remedial education at UNLV last year was 45 percent, higher than the state average by 5 percent. The number reveals a concerning trend. In 2001 the percentage of students entering UNLV needing remedial work was 39.4 percent. Something is very wrong for that percentage to have grown 5.6 percent in three years. If a strong program to counter this trend is not adopted, UNLV in a few years could well see fully half of its freshman students arriving on campus unsuited for the class work ahead. The trend is similar at the Community College of Southern Nevada. In 2001 30.2 percent of its incoming students needed state-funded remedial classes. The percentage increased to 34.7 percent in 2004 (the current national remedial rate is 30 percent).

These alarming numbers are what motivated Jim Rogers, a longtime local supporter of higher education who now heads Nevada's universities and colleges as chancellor, to send a letter last week to the Clark County School Board. He asked its members to consider a program recently adopted by the Washoe County School Board, which oversees K-12 education in the Reno area. Responding to the remediation issue, the board mandated that all of its high school students take four years of math and three years of science -- amounting to an extra year of each -- beginning with the fall 2006 semester. It would take a request by parents to remove students from this schedule.

There are legitimate concerns with this approach. Will there be enough math and science teachers? Will this extra pressure lead more students to drop out? Should the district instead wait to see the results of new programs already in place, such as making algebra a prerequisite for graduation beginning with the class of 2007? Gov. Kenny Guinn last week signed a bill allowing school districts to devote more classes and time to remedial education, at state expense. Should that program be given time to work?

These are the kinds of questions being asked, and we're glad to hear them. Rogers' suggestion may have invigorated an ongoing dialogue between the school district and the university system about how best to address the growing remedial problem. It's the kind of dialogue that can lead to real progress.