Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 1, 1993                   TAG: 9309010088
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

1 IN 4 COLLEGE FRESHMEN ILL-PREPARED

But because most of those students attended community colleges, some local superintendents charged that the report reflects nothing more than the obvious.

"Most of those kids were not college-preparatory kids," Pulaski Superintendent William Asbury said.

That, he said, is why they went to community colleges, which are designed in part to help students play catch-up before entering four-year institutions.

Community colleges also provide an alternative for students who hold jobs and those who can't afford four-year colleges.

The report, issued for the second year in a row, provides a summary of the academic performance of first-time freshmen attending Virginia's state-supported universities and colleges. It breaks the information down by high school as an aid to local school divisions, said James Alessio, the council's associate director.

"This is not a finger-pointing exercise at all," he said.

Alessio said the report reveals that Virginia's high school students often fail to plan for a college education by forgoing advanced math or language classes, but shows no evidence they fare poorly in the classes they do take.

"That seems to be the most prevalent factor," he said. "There's no evidence they're coming out of algebra II and not knowing what they took."

Why students fail to plan remains unclear. It could be a lack of parental involvement, poor guidance from the schools or standards that are set too low, Alessio said.

Asbury, however, cautioned against drawing conclusions based on a report that mixes information from community colleges and other post-secondary schools. To be meaningful, the data should be reported separately, he said.

For example, of the 69 Pulaski High School graduates who needed remedial courses last year, all but two attended community colleges, he said.

"What that tells me is for the most part, the kids we planned to go to college were prepared to go to college," he said.

Salem Superintendent Wayne Tripp agreed.

Of the 23 Salem students who needed remedial help, 21 attended Virginia Western Community College, he said.

"Those are students who may not necessarily be our strongest college admissions," he said, "so it's not entirely unexpected that they might need some remedial work."

The report placed Salem and Pulaski students below the state average in college preparedness, with nearly 30 percent of Salem's students and more than 45 percent of Pulaski's needing remedial work. Bland County and Tidewater graduated the largest percentage of students needing extra work, at 83 percent each.

Two schools in Montgomery County - Auburn Combined and Christiansburg High School - also produced significantly higher percentages of students needing help.

But because he had not had time to review the report, Jim Sellers, Montgomery's assistant superintendent for instructional services, said he could not comment.

Neither could Roanoke Superintendent E. Wayne Harris, who likewise had not had a chance to review results showing that 35 percent of William Fleming students needed remediation at state schools last year.

Fleming Principal Alyce Szathmary could not be reached for comment.

Altavista High School in Campbell County produced the lowest number of students who were ill-prepared, with only 4.17 percent needing remedial courses during their first year of college.

The report showed that four-year institutions, while taking a smaller number of remedial students than two-year community colleges, sometimes also enrolled a large percentage of those who were unprepared.

AT Virginia State University, 83 percent of the students needed remedial work. More than half of the students at Norfolk State University needed help, as did 48 percent of the students at Old Dominion University.

In contrast, schools such as the College of William and Mary, University of Virginia and Virginia Military Institute do not provide remedial courses.

The report showed no significant change from last year's results, council spokesman Michael McDowell said. The 25 percent figure also squares with national estimates for the number of students unprepared for college work.

The study defines "remedial courses" as those taken to prepare for freshman-level work and includes English composition, reading, mathematics and English as a second language.