SINKING JUNIORS

Midpoint Test Now Winnows CUNY Students (KAREN W. ARENSON, July 5, 2003, NY Times)

Hundreds of students at the City University of New York are quietly being bounced out of college because they could not pass a test intended to gauge whether they have reading, writing and thinking skills appropriate for students halfway through college.

CUNY started the test two years ago to demonstrate that it was not letting students steal through without mastering skills widely expected of college graduates. But the test - sometimes referred to as a "rising junior exam" because it is usually taken by college students finishing their second year - is only beginning to have bite. [...]

"Rising junior exams have become very politically popular," said Peter T. Ewell, a vice president at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, a nonprofit consulting firm in Boulder, Colo., that studies higher education policy. [...]

"This, to me, is tough love," said Matthew Goldstein, CUNY's chancellor. "This is not an easy exam. But the university has an obligation to make sure that our students write clearly and that they are good analytical thinkers. If they can't do that after so many attempts, they ought to be thinking about doing something else with their lives."

Mr. Goldstein wins "most honest statement of the year" so far. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 5, 2003 7:07 AM