The percentage of students not academically prepared for college-level coursework at Arkansas’ public campuses has dipped to 43.2 percent, the lowest since 1988 when the state began requiring entering freshmen to meet placement standards, according to a new report.
The remediation rate has fallen steadily over the past five years, from 55 percent in 2009. The report, released by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, shows 8,667 of 20,064 test takers needed a remedial college class in 2013.
The report gauges the number of first-time students who scored below 19 in at least one area - math, English or reading - of the ACT college-admissions test and were required to complete noncredit, remedial coursework before taking traditional classes.
The Higher Education Department report showed a decline in remediation rates on all three test areas for 2013. The number of students requiring remediation in math fell from 38.4 percent of 23,240 in 2012 to 31.1 percent of 20,064 in 2013. Numbers in English remediation fell from 29 percent of 23,240 in 2012 to 26.8 percent of 20,064. Reading remediation dipped from 24.9 percent of 23,240 students in the previous year to 22.1 percent of 20,064 in 2013.
The lower numbers are encouraging, but Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Shane Broadway said celebration is premature.
“Even though the number keeps coming down, it is still too high,” Broadway said.
He added, however, that the fact that all of the state’s education and political leaders have banded together to address the issue in an aggressive way is something in which Arkansas can take pride. Broadway gave credit to the Arkansas Legislature and Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell for placing greater emphasis on reducing the remediation rates.
Kimbrell, who runs the Arkansas Department of Education, credited the state’s public schools, teachers and administrators for “stepping up their game.”
“I don’t think we in K-12 took any ownership of that in the beginning. We dodged that and said we don’t agree with those indicators. Now we have accepted the fact that it is what it is and we are taking ownership,” Kimbrell said.
The lower remediation rates, Broadway said, could also be attributed in part to declining enrollment numbers for the fall 2013 term. In fact, the number of test takers this year went down from 23,240 in 2012 to 20,064 in 2013, a drop of 3,176 students.
The largest percentage of the decline in the number of first-time students tested for the fall 2013 semester was seen in the two-year institution total, which fell from 8,393 test takers in 2012 to 6,139 in 2013 - a drop of 2,254 students.
Four-year institution totals fell from 14,847 test takers in 2012 to 13,925 in 2013, a drop of 922 students.
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville saw the largest decline in the number of four-year-college admissions test takers, going down by 275 from 4,575 in 2012 to 4,300 in 2013. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock was down by about 200 test takers.
In fact, only two of the state’s four-year colleges actually saw an increase in the number of first-time students. Southern Arkansas University at Magnolia increased by 60 test takers in 2013, going from 590 in 2012 to 650 in 2013. Likewise, the University of Central Arkansas jumped by 22 test takers, going from 2,155 in 2012 to 2,177 in 2013.
All public four-year colleges in the state, with the exception of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia - saw decreases in the number of its 2013 fall test takers requiring remediation. HSU went from 45.2 percent in 2012 to 45.4 percent in 2013.
UA-Fayetteville had the smallest percentage of students who needed a remedial class in 2013 - 8.4 percent of 4,300 students.
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff topped the list with the largest percentage - 78.2 percent of 557 - of its students that required remedial coursework in the 2013 reports.
Although UAPB has maintained its historic last-place standing among four-year colleges when it comes to the large percentage of remedial students, the college showed the greatest improvement of all four-year colleges over 2012 numbers.
UAPB had about 85.2 percent of its 575 fall 2012 students who required remediation coursework.
At 67.2 percent of 506, University of Arkansas at Monticello had the second-highest percentage of fall 2013 students requiring remedial courses. The college also saw a significant drop in remediation, however, falling from72.9 percent in 2012.
Likewise, Arkansas Tech University fell from 50.6 percent in 2012 to 45.2 percent in 2013. The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith fell from 41.1 percent in 2012 to 36.1 percent in 2013.
The drops are made even more significant by the fact that universities such as UAPB and UAM have open-admissions policies. Those campuses typically admit under-served students regardless of test scores or high school grades.
Jacquelyn McCray, UAPB interim vice chancellor for academic affairs, credited the improved statistics to the college’s increased efforts to work with area high schools and improvements in its comprehensive enrollment management program.
Students enrolling at UAPB are still expected to earn a 19 or higher on the ACT exam, but they can be admitted conditionally with a score of 15-18 if they have a high school grade-point average of at least 2.0. Students with an ACT of 13-14 can be admitted conditionally if they earn a minimum of 62 in reading on the Act Compass exam.
Those conditional students are required to sign a contract with the college’s enrollment management program agreeing to improve their academic standings and must attend workshops and tutoring sessions.
UAPB also works with the Jefferson County Adult Education Center that offers tutoring for the Compass test, a series of untimed computerized placement tests developed by American College Testing.
The college has also increased its concentration on its 2008 initiative, the Learning Institute and Opportunity for New Students. The summer LIONS program - named after the school’s mascot, the Golden Lions - works with high school students to improve test scores and reduce the need for college remediation.
“We still have a long way to go, but we are committed to serving our traditional clientele. We are developing more programs and pre-college workshops to help bring the number down even further,” McCray said.
Kimbrell praised UAPB’s efforts and said the Higher Education Department’s remediation reports give power to the state to improve.
“Knowledge is power. The knowledge is there that this is an issue that we need to address,” Kimbrell said. “UAPB began saying ‘How do we get these kids ready?’”
UAM Chancellor Jack Lassiter said that its open-admissions policy will mean that UAM’s remediation rate will always be higher than those institutions with more stringent requirements. He added, however, that he strongly believes that “academic excellence and opportunity don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
“These are encouraging numbers and we are pleased to see the need for remediation dropping in all areas.One of the challenges of maintaining a policy of open admissions is that while we admit students regardless of their test scores, we do not guarantee success. It takes an institution-wide commitment from faculty and staff to nurture and encourage academic achievement,” Lassiter said.
UAM Provost Jimmie Yeiser echoed the chancellor’s sentiments and credited the university’s faculty for the drop in the remediation rates.
“Our faculty know on the front end that many of our students are the first in their families to attend college and many come from broken homes without strong parental influence or they grow up in an environment where education is not valued. It provides both a unique challenge and an opportunity for our faculty,” Yeiser said.
Broadway said the remediation report does not fall squarely at the feet of the K-12 schools and the quality of its high school graduates. The main, “Anytime” report encompasses all students, regardless of whether they graduated high school last year or 20 years ago.
The more telling numbers, he said, come from the report’s 1-year remediation rates, which gauge the remediation rates of only the 2013 high school graduates. The 1-year remediation rate for 2013 was 37.2 percent of 20,064 test takers - 6 percent lower than the anytime rate.
Broadway said solutions to the issue have to address both ends of the spectrum - from K-12 education and adults returning to college after a lengthy absence.
He cited the growing number of initiatives around the state, including adult education programs, grants that allow the K-12 school system to provide test preparation programs, and early identification measures to remediate students before they graduate high school.
Clark County School District identifies those students at risk for possible college remediation and buses them on Saturdays to Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden. The college remedial courses the students take there count as a half credit on their high school transcripts.
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville - which has some of the most stringent admissions policies in the state’s four-year college system - holds a five-day ACT academy each summer and its recruiters also hold ACT prep classes throughout the state through the year.
“Test preparation is the number one most important strategy,” said Suzanne McCray , vice provost for enrollment at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. “A lot of students don’t do well simply because they just didn’t get the test, not that they didn’t get math or English. One of the things we are trying to do is to get students to address those issues before they get here. Take classes at home or come here during the summer to work on your English and math. Use that time where it is all you have to focus on in the summer. Try to get it behind you.”
Addressing the college remediation rate, Broadway said, directly impacts the state’s economic bottom line as well as meeting Gov. Mike Beebe’s goal of doubling the number of Arkansas degree holders by 2025.
U.S. census data released last year show that only 19.8 percent of Arkansas residents older than 25 hold bachelor’s degrees.
The less a student has to take a remediation course, the more likely they are to graduate with a degree, Broadway said.
“It does not do any good to point fingers. It will take all of us working together,” Broadway said. “We need to look at it collectively and ask, ‘What do we need to do ?’”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/27/2014