120 REMEDIAL STUDENTS FLUNK OUT OF CSUN.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

Letters informing 120 CSUN freshmen they are being kicked out for failing remedial math and English went out Friday, marking the final implementation of a controversial crackdown on the promotion of ill-prepared students.

The executive order intended to reduce the burden of remediation at the college level allowed California State University, Northridge, students three chances to pass remedial classes by the end of their freshman year.

``We're going to stick to our standards,'' said California State University Chancellor Charles Reed.

Some students have fallen so far behind that the last chance of summer school would not be enough to catch them up before the fall. Others are being dropped for failing to attend classes or turn in assignments, said Robert Danes, director of undergraduate studies at Northridge.

``There's some in that group that just haven't made a sincere attempt,'' he said. ``We don't feel we're obligated to hold hands past a certain level.''

Of 1,157 students admitted on the condition that they pass remedial English and math at the beginning of the year, fewer than half - 562 - passed the remedial classes and will be allowed to go to their sophomore year.

An additional 275 students will be notified that they must complete more remedial courses - 119 must complete both courses, while 156 have only one more to go. And 200 dropped out on their own.

``They're much lower than some of the numbers being bandied about very early in the semester,'' said CSUN President Louanne Kennedy. She said university administrators had estimated during the spring semester that about 400 students were likely to fail out or have to take summer classes, slightly more than the 395 who fell into those categories.

Student groups protesting the policy suggested as many as 800 students might fail out or have to take summer classes.

Reed said he would not know until November, when final summer school grades are tallied, how many students throughout the CSU system face expulsion for failing remedial classes. About half the system's 28,000 freshmen had to take the classes this year.

At California State University, Long Beach, administrators have sent out 315 letters advising students that they need to complete their remedial requirements in summer school. California State University, Los Angeles, on a quarter system rather than semesters, does not plan to send letters to students until the end of the summer quarter notifying them whether they can continue in the fall, said spokeswoman Carol Selkin.

A group of CSUN students have protested the new policy, which they say blames them for the failures of their high school educators. Some said they were shocked at being placed in remedial math and English classes last fall despite having been A and B students in high school.

Camisha Morris said she was a 3.0 student at George Washington High School and that geometry was the highest math class she took. She advanced in the fall semester from a basic remedial math class to the more advanced remedial class but failed that one. Now she's expecting a letter telling her to enroll in the class again in summer school. The 18-year-old said her need to work and difficulty getting from her home in south Los Angeles to Northridge mean summer school is not an option.

``I'm just going to have to quit,'' she said. ``I'm not going to go to a junior college because that's a step back. It's just postponing a person's life.''

Jacqueline Batti, 19, said she tried and failed the basic remedial class in the fall, tried to take that and the more advanced class in spring and failed both. She said she was one of several students who couldn't grasp the course materials despite tutoring.

``We just can't get it,'' she said. ``There's a lot of us who are struggling.''

Batti can't afford to take both again.

``I don't have $1,400 to take two classes.''

Students taking remedial classes in summer school will have to pay only the costs of materials, said CSUN spokesman John Chandler. The courses will be state-subsidized.

The university said it is offering tutorial workshops for students as part of their last chance to pass this summer. Incoming freshmen for the 1999-2000 school year have a chance to complete remedial courses early in classes offered jointly by CSUN and Valley College.

The letter to students being expelled encourages them to consider community colleges and that the university would stay in touch with them to keep the possibility of re-enrollment open.

The letters begin, ``Just because you were unable to complete remediation in your first year, it does not mean that you are unable to earn a college degree.''

The 1996 executive order holding college level students to more rigorous standards predates the strategy to end ``social promotion,'' the policy of moving students up regardless of achievement in public schools.

In March, the Los Angeles Unified School District board tightened graduation requirements in an attempt to end social promotion. New high school requirements include taking four years of English and two of math, including geometry and algebra.

The tougher standards mean the number of students held back a year could rise tenfold to 10,000 students per grade level, said Joan Evans, administrator of the LAUSD Standards-Based Education Unit.

``We know we've got a problem,'' she said.