CA Colleges can partner with schools, not blame them

By Michal Kurlaender, especially for CalMatters

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From where we sit at UCLA, it has long been easy for educators to complain that too many freshmen arrive academically unprepared from their K-12 schools.

The latest version of this appeal took shape in the last UC San Diego Faculty Senate Report that 1 in 8 students arrive needing math remediation, among other deficiencies.

A media frenzy quickly followed suit. As a UC faculty researcher who has studied student preparation and success for the past two decades, I am both encouraged by the renewed focus on a long-standing problem and horrified by the instinct to blame.

This problem will only be solved if we move from finger-pointing to cross-segment collaboration. Together with our educational partners in the K-12 transition, we must address the root causes and build shared strategies to serve students who face the greatest barriers to college.

First, we must fully admit the role of the pandemic. The students highlighted in the UCSD report spent critical school years online, often with teachers who had uneven support, and in households with varying degrees of Internet connectivity and parents who struggled with public health fears, job loss and economic uncertainty.

None of the consequences should surprise us—widespread learning loss, especially for students who already face structural disadvantages. Predictably, students in more affluent communities endured the period with fewer interruptions, extending the well-documented opportunity gaps.

While the UCSD report nods to this reality, it hesitates to recommend a troubling new shortcut the university could use to identify “underprepared” students — labeling those who attended “LCFF+ schools” as essentially less prepared.

LCFF refers to the state Local control funding formulawhich sends extra money to schools that serve high-needs students. These schools enroll the highest concentration of low-income English language learners and foster youth — those who have had the most difficulty obtaining college degrees.

This power of attorney is both wrong and unfair.

Many students from affluent high schools also do not meet UCSD’s readiness benchmarks. Reliance on LCFF+ status risks becoming, at best, a lazy indicator, and at worst, a discriminatory mechanism to reduce enrollment of the very students who stand to gain the most from a UCSD degree and the economic mobility it can provide.

The deeper problem is the persistent lack of concerted collaboration between the K–12 and higher education systems.

Students are paying the price—through mixed messages, redundant and high-stakes assessments, expensive remedial courses, unnecessary barriers to financial aid, and complicated and burdensome paths to college success.

These barriers and inefficiencies are not inevitable; they are the result of outdated practices and siled systems that refuse to talk to each other.

California engaged in efforts to bridge this divide by creating a grading system in high school which is aligned with academic standards across the country and applies to all public high school students. Research shows that using these grades as indicators of college readiness—at least for placement, if not admission—would send a clear and consistent message: The best preparation for college is mastering the curriculum taught in California’s K-12 schools.

This alignment will reduce mixed signals and increase transparency for students, families and educators.

Other promising efforts include UC- and CalState-developed high school courses in expository reading/writing and mathematics, along with professional development for K-12 teachers.

A stronger partnership between UC and K-12 schools should go further by actively engaging high schools in reviewing aggregate assessment data, clarifying expectations for college majors, expanding on-ramps rather than controlling areas of study, and building stronger connections with teachers and schools serving students with the greatest needs.

If UCSD and the UC system are serious about providing access, collaboration is the way forward.

The moment is ripe. Instead of allowing this report to fuel deficit narratives, UCSD can choose to lead by example. She must work alongside K–12 educators to ensure that California students are not disadvantaged, but supported in achieving the futures they deserve.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.