editorially /peaking Remediation The demographic trends in the American educational system described on this Daee in the nast few months sueeest that there is, or will he, ;shift in ihe classical responses to problems within that system. For example, knowledgable demographers expect that colleges and nniversities will hegin to enroll significant numbers of less able students because of the decreasing numbers of potential college students in the next decade. This, together with the renewed academic efforts to improve retention a t the college level as a means to keep enrollments up, suggests that many institutions that normally did not worry about such efforts will be forced to consider remediation more as a way of life, rather than a minor key heard only by a few people. Remedial programs are not a new phenomenon in the American svstem of hieher edncation. In the nineteenth century, as &day, high sihools did not necessarily offer all of the precollege instruction expected in an idealized system of education. Many American colleges and nniversities operated "preparatory departments" to provide instruction in Drecollege subjects notoffered in many secondary schools a t t h e time. Although today we might expect more uniformity in the precollege curriculum of secondary schools, the expansion of higher education in more recent years has led to an increased diversity of incoming stndents in terms of their interests. Hopefully the recent recommendations of various national and state commissions have stimulated reforms in precollege schools, hut these results will not he obvious in the short term. and hieher education will have to live with this diversity for somr time to come. In a "perf~.ctsystem" a studrnts' precollere work would flow smoothlv into the first college coirse andthen on to the subsequent college courses. Unfortunately, discrepancies between college work and precollege work will always exist. For example, what is to he done with the first-year college student who has not had access to a high school chemistry conrse hut is in a college program requiring chemistry? The content of the average modern college general chemistry conrse undoubtedly would give even the very best high school student difficulties if the stndent had not had an introductory course. What should be done if the "preparatory course" has not been made avail-
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able to the stndent, for whatever reason-good or bad? Logic and fairness dictate that it be made available in the collige en\.irmment. A numher of other options are available. We can bemoan the state of affairs and dodge the problem by forbidding colleges from offering remedial work. We can offer ~erfunctorvremedial Droerams. Or. we can make remedial programs work while iespecting thk standards for college-level performance that should he the basis of the hacca1a;reate degree. Obviously, the high, hut difficult, road is the last option. Remediation programs must recognize certain consequences that stem from their existence. Just as was the case a century ago, the student who enters college in need of remediation may take longer than average to earn the haccalaureate, a process whichls contrary t o t h e perceived ideal, four-year curriculum. Recall that this "ideal time" does not really occur often today. Moreover, if achievement is the ultimate purpose of edncation, stndents should move a t their own pace through the system. Of course we need to he sensitive to the observation that immature minds often invoke unacceptable delavs in their ~roeress-thev . " . nrocrasti. nate. So, the-paring must he honest andchallenging to maintain the integrity of the baccalaureate. Manv institutions currently do n o t allow remedial courses to count as credit toward the degree. However, there is evidence that students may actually learn more from such courses if they are taken for credit. Thus to make remedial courses maximally effective, faculty a t many institutions will have to make critical decisions with respect to the difficult program of awarding credit for remedialcourses. On the one hand, the faculty may feel that they are protecting the integrity of their curriculum, yet i t is illogical to expect a stndent without the proper hackground-for whatever reason-to he as successful as a student with that background. The challenge to the facnltv is to provide a method of protecting the curr~culumthat does not discriminate against the underprepared stndent. The final solution may require that this student spend more time than "usual" in the program. This result should not. of conrse, he held againsithistudent-even indirectly-bythe institution or its rules. JJL ~
Volume 63 Number 4
April 1986
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