Maintained by Jay Howard, 20 Sept 2002
Yes, indeed: Our CAP A-level Students Can Succeed
by Tom Ott
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Mike McColl's article is a welcome response to those written by Bruce Watson and Bridget McFadden in last year's Spring issue of ViewpointS. It is welcome as a reminder that disagreement and public discourse may occur simultaneously absent of unrelieved nastiness; it is welcome also for its thoughtful presentation of issues germane to the mission of the College. Community College of Philadelphia may be the most important public institution in our city, and a reasonable question is whether we are able to meet the challenge of that singular role. As college tuitions escalate beyond the reach of even the moderately well-off, let alone the one income household, more and more college bound young people will see us if not as the college of choice then certainly as the college of necessity. As training for employment advancement becomes increasingly linked to new skills acquisition, more and more employers and workers will turn to us to provide that training. As crushing poverty, almost insurmountable social problems, and ongoing political and economical struggles continue to militate against sustainable improvement in our city's public schools, it is we who will have to compensate for the educational abandonment of so many young people. We must do all these things and more because we are not just a college, at least not in the traditional sense of privileged liberal arts institutions. We are a city institution with a diverse, complicated mission and a responsibility to serve. In 2001-2002, this college graduated 1445 students. Of that number, 214 began that long journey toward academic success in CAP. Of the 214, spread over twenty-seven curricula, 60 began in CAP A-level. So Mike McColl's assertion that our A-level students can succeed (and graduation is only one measure of success) is absolutely correct, and I can surely hear Bruce Watson and Bridget McFadden applauding as well. Yet, data show that this number is a small percentage of those who began in A-level;* and Mike's assertion that "We need to devise interventions to work toward ever higher success rates," while certainly consistent with my sentiments, seems not to account for the many resources and interventions currently provided this population. Additional resources are, of course, always welcome. Yet I wonder if more money for counseling services, learning lab support, course requirements, and programmatic initiatives will, by itself, make the difference that Mike is seeking. Mike writes that his 097 students were "stunned, then angry and frightened" when he shared the Watson/McFadden articles with them. I was glad to hear that, for such a response is a conscious act rather than the narcotic of a "dream." I do not allude to Mike's use of the phrase "a dream of education" to belittle his welcome hopes for our students nor their own desires. Yet a dream without purposeful consciousness is simply an indulgence. Two things must happen to transform the dream to reality. First, our students must choose to accept the rigors of preparation for passage into college. Second, the College must make clear to them what it means to make that choice. Of course, it is our responsibility to first make clear what we mean by passage into college, for how else may our students make their choice to attempt that work? This, I think, is an important question, perhaps even a defining one. If we are to meet the challenge of our mission in all of its complexity, what it means to be ready for English 101-currently the gateway experience to most of our collegiate offerings-must be securely understood. Our placement practices are mature and, in the absence of more than general muttering about student unpreparedness, apparently more than satisfactory. When we place students into English 101 and endorse their readiness for the full range of collegiate work (not just English 101), we are generally confident that we have accurately calibrated that readiness. Further, the Assessment Center is prepared to develop ongoing review to test the soundness of that endorsement. Yet Developmental students do not gain the college via a placement process but rather through the assessments of their English Department instructors. Whether for good or not (and this is a question that we should address), that assessment is based neither on a standard curriculum nor an objective college exit/entrance instrument, but on the individual course design and judgements of the well over 150 full and part-time faculty teaching Developmental English. I have great faith in my colleagues, in their talent and their concerns for our students, and I have no interest in constraining the creativity it takes to teach well; but I wonder how many of us might be more confident and comfortable if we knew precisely what we should be teaching at each Developmental level. I wonder also if that confidence and comfort would be shared by our students if they were secure in what was expected of them. Neither Bruce nor Bridget would preempt the possibility of success for any student, and Mike's article speaks wonderfully to the passionate belief that Community College of Philadelphia can make a difference in the lives of our students. The issues raised by all three have resonance for our collective work and for the questions we must ask and answer if our work is to be successful. We are a complicated institution with a diverse educational mission that only we can undertake. Not all of our students in Developmental Education will begin college work; and so we must make judgements about who will gain access the college and who will not, for collegiate level work must require rigor if it is to have any meaning at all. And yet, Mike is certainly right about this: How awful are those judgements if our students do not know clearly (consciously) on what they are based? Our responsibility in Developmental Education should be to articulate clearly what it means to enter college based on a defined curriculum and to offer secure endorsement of readiness for each student moving from Developmental courses to collegiate offerings. Perhaps developmental students should be required to again take and pass a placement test to demonstrate their readiness for collegiate reading/writing/mathematics, especially as the consequence for those students who enter the college not fully prepared is yet more failure. If not that, then how best might we design a curriculum and assessment measures that are clear both to us and our students as well as consistently reliable? And for those students who either do not wish to enter the College or are unable to demonstrate readiness for collegiate level work, we must develop the alternatives described by Bruce and Bridget, for that is also a part of our mission. Indeed, it is time to cease talking about the complexity of our mission as an impediment to defining what we are as an institution. We are and will be as many things as necessary to serve the educational needs of the people of Philadelphia, and I think Mike, Bruce and Bridget would all agree that there can be no excuse for serving less than well. |
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Maintained by Jay Howard, 20 Sept 2002 |