The College Board last week recommended that all college-bound students demonstrate “basic learning” in six fields of study before they advance to college.
It offered a detailed list of skills in those fields that it suggested every student aiming for college ought to master. The proposals, which came on the heels of a series of national reports urging educators to demand more of the nation’s high-school students, marked the first time that the College Board--which oversees the country’s largest standardized testing programs--has attempted to specify the competencies that curricula should foster in students.
The guidelines, announced at a press conference, urged that college-bound students meet specific goals in English, the arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and foreign languages.
To meet the minimum standards in mathematics, for example, college-bound students would have to show that they are able to perform certain specific operations in algebra, statistics, computing, geometry, and functions.
College Board officials said that setting such specific goals would be a significant departure from educators’ current policies on academic standards. Most colleges require prospective students to earn a certain number of credit-hours in several disciplines, and most current efforts to upgrade education are based on increasing the number of required hours.
But because the quality of courses varies, the officials said, completion of the required courses is not always an adequate measure of students’ academic accomplishments.
The new report is part of the nonprofit organization’s 10-year “Educational EQuality Project,” which was started in 1980. The College Board will follow through on the report with a campaign to convince high schools and colleges to adopt such goal-oriented standards, said George H. Hanford, the organization’s president.
Although the recommendations were designed to improve the preparation of students for college, students who elect to enter the work force rather than continue their education should have similar goals, Mr. Hanford said.
In addition to the “basic learning” in the six academic fields, the College Board added computer literacy to a list of “academic competencies” that students need to succeed in college.
The board’s report, asserting that “a revolution in communications and information technology is making the computer a basic tool for acquiring knowledge, organizing systems, and solving problems,” said students ought to be able to use computers for self-instruction, collection and retrieval of information, word processing, problem solving, and programming.
(The other competencies, which were described in a 1981 report, are reading, writing, speaking and listening, mathematics, reasoning, and studying.)
Educators involved in the board’s study interviewed more than 1,400 college faculty members, high-school administrators and teachers, parents, and business people to canvass their opinions in the preparation of the guidelines.
The College Board recommendations come at a time of increasing interest in improving the education system. In the past three weeks, the President’s Commission on Excellence in Education, the Twentieth Century Fund, and the Education Commission of the States all have issued reports and recommendations on the subject.
The College Board report differs from the others in setting specific remedies for the perceived decline in basic skills, Mr. Hanford said.
If adopted on a broad scale, the recommendations could change the way students are evaluated and placed in various programs of study, the educators involved in the study said.
Mr. Hanford said new tests might be needed to assess students’ mastery of the academic subjects. He declined to elaborate on when and how such tests might be developed, stressing the need to first convince educators of the validity of the goal-oriented approach.
Alice Cox, assistant vice president for student academic services at the University of California, said the goal-oriented approach might also give greater flexibility to the time that students spend in high school.
Ms. Cox said some students who demonstrate early mastery in all subject areas and in a set of “academic competencies” that were outlined by the College Board earlier, might move to college-level study before completing their K-12 career.
That might mean taking college-level courses in high school or enrolling in college earlier, she said. Eventually, the goal-oriented approach could blur the separation of grade levels, she said.
Mr. Hanford said he was confident that the recommendations of the report, entitled “What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do,” could be realized. He said the involvement of college and high-school officials in the study assured that the plan would be practical and current.
Ms. Cox added that high-school teachers have frequently asked her what specific areas students should study before entering college. The thing they want to know is ... , ‘What do [colleges] mean by these course requirements?’” she said.
The College Board’s proposals have already had an impact, said Ms. Cox and Sidney Estes, assistant superintendent for institutional planning and development of the Atlanta public-school system.
Ms. Cox noted that the “competencies” that the board recommended in 1981 are now part of the California State University System’s minimum requirements. Mr. Estes said the Atlanta system is considering using the guidelines in its curriculum development.
Adrienne Y. Bailey, vice president for academic affairs with the College Board, said the committee attached “particular” importance to achieving balance between the humanities and mathematics and science.
The need to pay attention to subjects such as English and social studies is greater now, she said, because “enthusiasm for science and technology seems to be paramount in the minds of so many educators.”
She said the committee decided to make the arts a major area of study even though they are “not always thought of as part of a basic core curriculum.”
If a school or college were to adopt the arts guidelines, students would be expected not only to understand how various cultures have expressed themselves artistically, but would also to “express themselves in one or more of the arts.”
The guidelines also emphasize the subjects that students will need to succeed in an increasingly “multi-lingual and multi-cultural world,” Ms. Bailey said.
Social studies would give greater emphasis to world geography and culture than it has in the past, and to having a working knowledge of a foreign language.
Students would also be expected to understand the method of empirical research and analysis—such as statistical analysis of social problems.
The areas of knowledge required to meet the science requirement are the most specific.
Students would be expected to have a background in mathematics and skills in laboratory and field inquiry, as well as an understanding of such concepts as cell theory, geological evolution, organic evolution, atomic structures, chemical bonding, and energy.
The English requirement would set minimum standards for reading and analyzing literature, peaking and listening, writing and researching, understanding grammar.
For a free copy of the full report, write to Office of Academic Affairs, The College Board, 888 Seventh Ave., New York, N. Y. 10106.
