Slightly less than half of the freshman students who attended SF State last fall were proficient in reading and writing, while 43.3 percent needed remediation in math, California State University officials announced late last month.

The system wide proficiency for CSU remained steady, with 46.7 percent freshmen needing remediation in math and 51.8 percent were in need of remedial English.

The Board of Trustees 2004 mid-point goal called for a math proficiency of 74 percent and an English proficiency of 78 percent. While last fall’s numbers came up well short of the goal, the trustees are still pushing for the 2007 goal of a 90 percent proficiency level in both subjects.

It’s estimated that the CSU spends $10 million annually on remediation. A cost the trustees have been trying to cut by preparing students earlier for college level work.

At SF State, there are three programs designed to help Bay Area middle school and high school students get the proper preparation for their future collegiate career.

“The job was lets get them earlier, lets go help, but not be disrespectful to the teachers by saying we how do this and you don’t,” said Brett Smith, director of the Undergraduate Counseling Center.

The Pre-Collegiate Academic Development Program (PAD) and Collaborative Academic Preparation Initiative (CAPI) were funded through CSU, while the University and College Attendance Network (U-CAN) was funded by SF State. Due to the budget cuts, the latter program has been suspended indefinitely and the former two have been phased out in favor of the Early Assessment Program, which includes an augmented California Standards Test in English and math.

The test will be optional for 11th grade students, but is highly recommended for those who are planning to enroll in college, since the scores to the augmented tests results will be available each August, allowing students to know whether they are exempt from taking the CSU English Placement Test and Entry Level Mathematics Exam.

This way, students who fail the test will be able to take the appropriate classes during their senior year to prepare for the CSU placement tests.

“The intent is lets see if we can’t bridge this gap early on and make sure the students don’t actually need to remediate,” Smith said. “We were doing some early testing, but it wasn’t to the level this supposed to be."

The low proficiency percentages can be disheartening at first glance, but it's still an improvement. Over the last five years, the need to remediate students in math has dropped 16.7 percent and 2.3 percent in English.

“I think this is a very positive sign,” said Jo Volkert, SF State's associate vice president for Enrollment Planning and Management.

In addition, there was also a 3 percent increase of first-time freshmen enrolled who needed remediation and then went on to gain full proficiency before their second year. In fall of 2000, 81 percent of remediation students accomplished this, by fall of 2002 the number rose to 83 percent.