Minority Students Excluded from CUNY -- Again
[Bill Crain (letter below) is a highly respected psychologist and chair of the CCNY faculty senate. He has been a voice in the wilderness versus our right wing CUNY board's determination to cut back remediation for and thereby exclude precisely those students who have been previously cheated in their NYC public school educations. He has documented the fact that such students, given the chance to catch up in our senior colleges, do nearly as well as those not needing remediation. When rerouted to our community colleges such students are set on an entirely different career track -- if they don't get discouraged and drop out.
I know a bit about educational theory as a philosopher. We have been aware for more than 60 years in this country that SAT type tests do not determine academic potential -- only how good a prep one has had for them. Even in my day in the 1950s at Yale we would watch the preppies slide behind as those with lesser preparations in public schools pulled ahead after a year of adjustment.
We faculty at CUNY are disgusted with this state of affairs, but our board was co-oped by the equivalent of academic neocons appointed by Giuliani and Pataki -- virtually none having either academic experience or interest in higher education. It is difficult even to get quorums in their subcommittees, but as a major urban university we do our best and it is a shame to have our minority students being cut off at the pass once again.
I watched first hand the difference between the before and after of open enrollment at CUNY -- in the 1960s I could not get students into CUNY who were being accepted at Yale where I was urging them to apply. We had a heavy bar against both minorities and blue collar family students (Irish, Italian, etc.). It was a coalition of both of these constituencies that forced the doors open. I was an aide then to J. Raymond Jones, the "Harlem Fox," who had had his own higher education aborted when the U.S. took over the Virgin Islands, canceling his all island scholarship to study in Denmark. With Kenneth Clark, and the blue collar union heads, Ray pushed CUNY to expand its colleges and open the doors in 1970. At Hunter where I had taught full-time for 3 years in the late sixties I had one African American student (two brothers with Ph.D.s) and two upper middle income Latinos. At Brooklyn where I started in 1970 we welcomed in all of the excluded who have done remarkable things -- one of mine a Rhodes Scholar.
I fear we have battles on our hands across the country now against those who would restore their special privileges and exclude others. Ed Kent]
..............................
August 10, 2006
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
To the Editor:
Re “CUNY Reports Fewer Blacks at Top Schools” (news article, August 10).
Since 2000, The City University of New York has disproportionately rejected African Americans and other people of color from its senior colleges solely on the basis of standardized test cutoff scores. All the evidence indicates that the tests are weak or worthless predictors of success at CUNY, making this test-dominated policy very unjust.
CUNY should develop a more holistic admissions process based on students’ overall records, including letters of recommendation. And because even the best sets of admissions criteria are imperfect predictors of college achievement, the theme of CUNY’s admissions policy should be to give students a chance. As data from the open admission era showed, the students will frequently achieve stunning success.
William Crain
Professor
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
I know a bit about educational theory as a philosopher. We have been aware for more than 60 years in this country that SAT type tests do not determine academic potential -- only how good a prep one has had for them. Even in my day in the 1950s at Yale we would watch the preppies slide behind as those with lesser preparations in public schools pulled ahead after a year of adjustment.
We faculty at CUNY are disgusted with this state of affairs, but our board was co-oped by the equivalent of academic neocons appointed by Giuliani and Pataki -- virtually none having either academic experience or interest in higher education. It is difficult even to get quorums in their subcommittees, but as a major urban university we do our best and it is a shame to have our minority students being cut off at the pass once again.
I watched first hand the difference between the before and after of open enrollment at CUNY -- in the 1960s I could not get students into CUNY who were being accepted at Yale where I was urging them to apply. We had a heavy bar against both minorities and blue collar family students (Irish, Italian, etc.). It was a coalition of both of these constituencies that forced the doors open. I was an aide then to J. Raymond Jones, the "Harlem Fox," who had had his own higher education aborted when the U.S. took over the Virgin Islands, canceling his all island scholarship to study in Denmark. With Kenneth Clark, and the blue collar union heads, Ray pushed CUNY to expand its colleges and open the doors in 1970. At Hunter where I had taught full-time for 3 years in the late sixties I had one African American student (two brothers with Ph.D.s) and two upper middle income Latinos. At Brooklyn where I started in 1970 we welcomed in all of the excluded who have done remarkable things -- one of mine a Rhodes Scholar.
I fear we have battles on our hands across the country now against those who would restore their special privileges and exclude others. Ed Kent]
..............................
August 10, 2006
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
To the Editor:
Re “CUNY Reports Fewer Blacks at Top Schools” (news article, August 10).
Since 2000, The City University of New York has disproportionately rejected African Americans and other people of color from its senior colleges solely on the basis of standardized test cutoff scores. All the evidence indicates that the tests are weak or worthless predictors of success at CUNY, making this test-dominated policy very unjust.
CUNY should develop a more holistic admissions process based on students’ overall records, including letters of recommendation. And because even the best sets of admissions criteria are imperfect predictors of college achievement, the theme of CUNY’s admissions policy should be to give students a chance. As data from the open admission era showed, the students will frequently achieve stunning success.
William Crain
Professor
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 8:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home