Finding remedy for remedial education

By STEVE RAY

Texas spends about $75 million a year providing remedial education to Texas school kids who want to go to college but don't have basic English, reading and writing skills.

That's up from almost $18 million a year in 1988, and still no one is sure whether remedial education is doing any good.

Frankly the statistics aren't encouraging. A Higher Education Coordinating Board study took a look at 128,893 students who entered Texas colleges and universities as freshmen in the summer or fall of 1990.

Forty three percent of them required remedial education. Five years later only 11 percent of those taking remedial courses had received a bachelor's degree, an associate degree or some sort of certificate.

Degree statistics for Texas university students who didn't need remedial education weren't much better. Only 32 percent of them received some sort of degree or certificate in the same period.

Now Texas senators have voted to limit the number of remedial courses students can take at state expense, but it is a proposal some fear will hurt minorities and efforts to educate minorities.

State Education Committee chairman Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, who authored the legislation, questioned the wisdom of continuing to spend state resources on a student who could not perform at college level after taking six remediation courses.

He said he hoped limiting the courses would give colleges and universities an incentive to develop remedial education that works. But no one knows exactly how to measure whether it is working.

"It depends on how you describe working," said Coordinating Board spokesman Ray Grasshoff. "It's hard to tell because you don't know at what level these students are coming in at. If they come in with no skills at all and gain some skills, some would say that was a success. If you're looking at those who come in and ultimately go on and get a doctorate, numbers are not quite as high."

There are hundreds of anecdotes around the state of students who have taken remedial education and gone on to become successful university students and citizens.

Many of those stories are about minority students - some who needed remedial help coming into universities because of a disadvantaged educational background.

Many minorities are the first in their family to attend colleges. Others go to public schools who cannot afford higher salaries that would attract the best teachers and provide the best educational resources for such programs as science and math. Others come from families where their first language is Spanish.

As many as two-thirds of minorities fail the Texas Academic Skills Program test the first time they take it. University students must take that test before they can take upper-level college courses. Those who fail take remedial courses.

State Sen. Carlos Truan, D-Corpus Christi, and an opponent of limiting remedial courses, fears the proposal could keep minority students out of college.

"It would appear students would be punished for not having been adequately prepared from the time they were in public school," Truan said. "My concern is that we not discourage young people from continuing their education."

Abilene area universities and colleges receive millions of dollars each year for remedial programs. Tarleton State University receives $629,821 for remedial education every two years, over 5 percent of it's total lower division state funding.

Western Texas College in Snyder, Howard College in Big Spring, Ranger College and Cisco Junior College also get huge cash infusions for remedial training.

The schools are trying to help students who might not otherwise get a college education despite criticism from some who wonder if it is working. Supporters say they are helping Hispanics - the state's fastest growing population - to get the experience needed to meet the needs of a fast-changing state economy.

No state senator is suggesting remedial courses be discontinued. But they note the cost is high and continuing to climb.

Without it, the cost to Texas could be even higher.

Texas must find a way to produce the type of workforce need for the high-tech 21st Century. In West Texas and throughout the state that means giving minorities and other economically and educationally disadvantaged students the help they need to meet those goals.

Texans should hope that doesn't take more than six remedial courses, the limit under the Senate proposal.

If it does, the prospect raises serious questions about how we are educating our kids in both secondary schools and universities.

But without the needed help, Texans will soon be faced with burgeoning welfare rolls that are already overcrowded and a demand for educated workers that cannot be met.

Steve Ray is chief of the Harte-Hanks Austin Bureau.