New York
In a starting pronouncement, New York City Mayor
Rudolph W. Giuliani called on the city’s six community colleges late
last month to halt all remedial education.
Giuliani contends that under-prepared students do not belong in a
college setting and he threatened to yank all city funding if the
two-year institutions refuse to comply.
It was not immediately clear what impact such a move might have on
the six City University of New York (CUNY) community colleges, which
have a combined enrollment of nearly 70,000 students. But the mayor’s
office says putting a stop to remediation at the schools would reduce
the number of students in the system by at least 75 percent.
“There comes a point, after fifteen years of tragically plummeting
graduation rates and a total evisceration of standards, that somebody
has to say, “This isn’t working,'” Giuliani said.
The proposal piggy-backs remarks the Republican mayor made earlier
in the month in his “State of the City Address” in which he called for
an end to open enrollment at the six colleges.
Giuliani’s remarks trouble some educators, who fear that the final
outcome here in the nation’s largest city may become a bellwether for
what happens elsewhere across the country.
