Legislative education committee meets in Silver City

It’s hard to imagine that after graduating and passing high school math, students enrolling in college may have to retake the same math classes, or even lower-level math courses as a remedial student.

However, this is a common occurrence at Western New Mexico University, according to university President Joseph Shepard. Shepard spoke about remedial courses and students to the New Mexico Legislative Education Study Committee during their Thursday meeting on WNMU’s Silver City campus. The committee will meet again today to hear from various schools and universities about problems they face.

Shepard said he feels very strongly that remedial courses are necessary — especially when many of the remedial students taking math at WNMU are only at a fifth-grade level.

He told the committee that half of his university’s student population is over the age of 24, and half are first-generation students. Shepard said three-fifths of each incoming freshman class has to take some kind of remedial courses, especially for math.

“That means you are completing at a fifth-grade level,” Shepard said.

He said when a student has to take remedial courses their freshman year, it could mean a total of 15 extra credit hours over their student career. Shepard said that can be very discouraging to a student, and there needs to be some kind of solution.

“We have to create a unified system from the moment that person is born,” Shepard said.

Additionally, he said, once a student actually gets to college, they really want to get to the core of their degree instead of taking all the prerequisites. Requiring these prerequisites on top of taking the core classes can be very overwhelming to some students, Shepard added.

“At the end of the day, what matters is your sons and daughters, my sons and daughters, and those New Mexicans who are making this a greater state,” Shepard said.

District 21 state Sen. Mimi Stewart of Bernalillo County said she agrees that there needs to be some kind of change. She said, from her own research, high school students in Massachusetts do extremely well on “these standardized tests we all seem to be talking about.” However, once they get to college, about 40 percent of them end up taking remedial classes.

“There’s really a disconnect between college and high school throughout the nation,” Stewart said.

She said that many teachers who begin teaching need to be taught how to teach, because a lot of them do not know how to teach the alphabet or reading.

District 9 Sen. John Sapien, from Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, said he also thinks something needs to be done from the legislative level.

“Legislators need to be educated somehow” on the issues at hand in the various counties of New Mexico, he said.

Remedial classes can really take a toll on a student, according to Shepard.

“They get discouraged and say, ‘Well, why don’t I go work for the mine, or why don’t I go work for Walmart?’” Shepard said.

Sapien also addressed Shepard’s comments about WNMU’s freshman retention rate.

“How do we change that?” he asked.

Shepard said that although the retention rate of freshmen at WNMU is around 50 percent, many of those students are transient. He said that while some may get discouraged and drop out, a lot just use the university as a stepping stone toward other schools or plan on going to other schools later.

However, first-generation students in particular can get discouraged, he added. Shepard said those first-generation students — meaning first in their family to go to college — do not know what to do, and can get lost in the hustle and bustle of the university system. He said they do not have a guiding hand from their family and sometimes end up dropping out because of the stress and confusion.

“We need to reach out to them and guide them through that process,” Shepard said.

In addition to Shepard’s presentation and subsequent question-and-answer portion that kicked off the meetings, the committee also heard from new New Mexico State University Dean of Education Don Pope-Davis, presentations on solutions for at-risk and habitually truant students, and from various other school administrators across the two days in session. The committee continued to meet today, in addition to a dinner meet-and-greet at the Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House on Thursday evening.

Stewart McClintic may be reached at stew@scdailypress.com.