The Programs Saving Students From The Failures of Remedial Math
“They say they’re not cut out for this,” Jessica Mingus, the director of CUNY Start at Hostos Community College, tells The New York Times in the article Ending The Curse of Remedial Math by David L. Kirp. Mingus continues, “We remind them that they passed their New York State Regents exams, after as many as five tries. We tell them that’s a great accomplishment, and you can do the same here.”
The ‘here’ she is referring to is a City University of New York (CUNY) Start program, where students who did not receive high scores on CUNY’s math or English language tests play catch up, so they can enter the university’s necessary college-credit programs and achieve an associate degree.
The program is saving students from dropping out, restoring confidence in their abilities, giving them new ways to think about problem solving, and allowing more than half enrolled in the program to move on to college after just a single semester.
Students who join the program are immersed in the subjects exclusively, for 25 hours a week. In addition to the subject focused attention, students are also assigned a counselor who they can confide in about the struggles in their lives. In the NYT article, Kirp reports that this is essential for the success of the program, because many of the students have struggled, or currently struggle, with difficult life situations such as homelessness, abuse, abandonment, and trauma.
The counseling, in addition to CUNY’s unique teaching methods, help erase messages these students may have received that they are lost causes, or hopeless. Over the course of the semester long program, students are taught new ways to think about numbers and problem solving.
Erica Fells, teacher at one of CUNY’S community colleges, tells the NYT that there is more to math then memorization. “I teach them how to investigate problems — how to think,” Fells says. “The first sentence on the first day is a question. We start by making a connection to real life and slowly build a foundation of knowledge for more abstract algebraic problems. I never say you are right or wrong. The answers come from them.”
Once the student’s move on to college credit courses, their learning experience with CUNY is not necessarily at an end. Three-quarters of eligible students enroll in the CUNY initiative Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). In this program, students are granted access to financial aid, one-on-one advising, and customized class schedules. The NYT reports that 64% of ASAP students earn a degree within six years.
The success of these CUNY’s initiatives is undeniable, and other colleges are taking note. Universities as far as Ohio and California are launching ASAP programs. Meanwhile, a pilot program in New York is training teachers in the methods of CUNY’s Start program — this will help students gain the skills they need in high school to eventually take college credit courses, and thus get a jump start on their higher education goals.
These programs are a welcome respite from limiting remedial math programs that all too often leave under-served students behind with little recourse or support. Schools the nation over could learn a lesson or two from CUNY.
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