Racial Gap On Remedial Help
But Aid Needed In Many Districts
A new study shows that a higher percentage of the state’s black and Hispanic high school graduates enrolled in the states’ regional public universities and community colleges need remedial help when compared to their white peers, but the same report reveals that even the state’s highest performing districts produced students who need remedial classes in college.
In addition, the report, which was prepared by several state agencies and presented to the state Board of Education Wednesday, also shows that a higher percentage of the state’s minority high school graduates enroll in the state’s public colleges and universities, including UConn, compared to white high school graduates.
State Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell said the report contains some “powerful” data, including a high school by high school rundown on the percentage of graduates that need remedial classes if they enroll in a state college or university.
“I would just love to see local boards of education making use of this report, becoming aware of it, reviewing it,” Wentzell said, “and then asking questions about why is it at such and such a high school that is very high performing, do we have kids graduating and then needing extra support at our state universities?”
Estela Lopez, vice-chairwoman of the state Board of Education, noting
that math is very often the area in which a student needs remedial help, said the schools need to review the data and ask, “Are these students taking the core curriculum? Did they take the right courses in math? Did they take math in the tenth grade and then not take it again until they go to college? … We know that math skills are a very good predictor of college success.”
Lopez, who was interviewed after the meeting, said a high percentage of students who study at Connecticut's public universities and colleges settle down in the state.
“The better job we do, the better citizenship and workforce we are preparing,” she said. “It's very important.”
Research has shown that students who get to college and need to take remedial classes are more likely to get bogged down and not graduate. In 2012, the legislature revamped the state's system of community college-level remediation in an attempt to reduce the time students were spending on non-credit-bearing remedial work.
The students considered in this study, which was prepared by the state Department of Education in collaboration with the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, UConn and the Department of Labor, graduated with the high school classes of 2010, 2011 and 2012. Unless they waited a couple of years or more before enrolling in college, this group of students were unlikely to be affected by the new law.
The new study showed that of the nearly 39,000 students in each of those three graduating classes, about 40 percent enrolled in a Connecticut public university or community college within 16 months of graduation. That includes both the UConn and the CSCU system, which includes the four regional state universities and 12 community colleges.
If considered by racial and ethnic groups, the percentage of minority students enrolling in state schools is higher than the percentage of white students. For instance, among Connecticut high school graduates in 2011, 43 percent of African American students went to state colleges and universities, compared to 43.9 percent of Hispanics, 50.7 percent of Asians, and 39.2 percent of white students.
Ajit Gopalakrishnan, chief performance officer with the state education department, said he thinks the higher percentage of minority graduates attending state schools has to do with “affordability and accessibility.”
Of the approximately 13,000 students in each of the three graduating classes attending a CSCU university or college — UConn is not included here — nearly half of them took a remedial course within the first two years of enrollment, with slight declines over the three year period from 49.8 percent of the students graduating from high school in 2010 to 46 percent for students graduating in 2012.
African American students were also more likely to take a remedial course than their white or Asian peers. Among 2011 high school graduates enrolled at the state universities and colleges, 66.7 percent of African Americans took a remedial class, compared to 65.2 percent of Hispanics, 44.3 percent of Asians and 38 percent of white students.
From the Class of 2010 to the Class of 2012, all four racial and ethnic groups saw a decline in the percentage of students taking a remedial class.
The report also looked at credit attainment, assessing how many students had completed a year's worth of credits — 24 credits — within two years of enrollment.
This measure, which included UConn as well as the state universities and community colleges, showed that 79.7 percent of Asians in the Class of 2011 acquired the credits within two years, compared to 70 percent of whites, 53.9 percent of Hispanics and 51.1 percent of African Americans.
The students from the state's struggling urban high schools generally showed a higher need for remedial courses, but as Wentzell pointed out even the highest-performing districts and schools had students who needed the help.
For instance in the Hartford district, 18.4 percent of the 2012 graduates enrolled in one of the four regional universities or community colleges. Of those, 52.2 percent needed a remedial class within the first two years of enrollment. In East Hartford, another challenged district, 38.4 percent of students enrolled in a CSCU school and 54.2 percent needed remediation.
By comparison, in a high performing district like Glastonbury, 25.5 percent of the 2012 high school graduates enrolled in a CSCU school, with19 percent taking a remedial class within the first two years. In Avon, 20.4 percent of students enrolled in a CSCU school, and 31.6 percent needed a remedial class within the first two years.