After Open Enrollment: CUNY's New World
Published: November 26, 1999
To the Editor:
The controversy on admissions of students who need remediation to the senior colleges of the City University of New York (front page, Nov. 23) misses a vital point: what goes on inside the colleges.
Huge grade curves are the order of the day, to push failing students into a passing grade. This is the university equivalent of ''social promotion'' in the high schools.
Our department conducted an assessment of the large lecture courses in basic economics last spring. The average grade curve was 15 points, making the passing grade 45 percent. In a four-choice multiple-choice exam, the average knowledge required to achieve this score is 26 percent (with the rest achieved by guessing).
New York, Nov. 23, 1999
The writer is a professor of economics at Baruch College, CUNY.