There are
subtle forms of racism remnant in American society today. The CUNY
Pathways Project has at its core a recognition of this and, in its
acquiescence to it, the initiative carries on a pernicious form of
racism as it is continuing some of the most harmful insinuations of
racial differences that further debilitate those already victims of
racism through disparity in opportunities and supports. Structural
racism is a defining feature of contemporary American society, and
the Pathways Project is one more example of the problem. It is the
burden of this work to make evident this ugly feature of the
Pathways Project that efforts to conceal have hidden beneath
rhetoric intended to be politically pleasing.
While proclaiming that the
Pathways Project is all about improving on the transfer of credits
from one college within CUNY to another and that the curricular
reforms are about increasing academic rigor, the truth lies
elsewhere from those repeated declarations. A careful analysis of
the proposed changes will indicate that Pathways Project waters down
the curriculum, and that while it may increase graduation rates, it
leaves too many CUNY students less prepared for the rigors and
expectations of the modern workplace. In effect, it makes too many
CUNY graduates "second class citizens" in a competitive
marketplace. And most of those so left behind, or at lower points
in their possible careers, will be the poor and people of color,
Black and Latino, those already disadvantaged with the weakest
academic preparation and weaker in the Liberal Arts and Sciences.
There are
the repeated claims that the Pathways Project was made necessary due
to problems with the transfer of credits from one CUNY college to
another which two previous policy actions of its Board of Trustees
had not remedied. Those focal claims are accompanied by the
repeated claims that the changes wrought by the Pathways Project
will increase academic rigor in the degree programs of the
University. This repetition is a technique of merchandisers,
publicists and propagandists throughout history. It is a public
relations achievement that the Pathways Project has been effectively
presented by its creators as being pro-student while actually, and
in a most cynical manner, it is anti-student as it adversely impacts
many students and, in particular, those already most disadvantaged
in American society and in the university. The repetition thwarts
the exposure of the “soft bigotry of lowered expectations” George W.
Bush warned against when speaking of the nation’s educational
programs. Yet, no matter how often repeated, a careful examination
reveals not only that the evidence will not support those claims but
will also reveal the structural racism supported by the Pathways
Project as it will adversely impact those in the lowest economic
classes.
GRADUATION RATES AND NOT TRANSFER
In a
publically declared and accentuated effort to resolve problems with
the transfer of credits from one unit in the university to another,
the CUNY has instituted a massive change in the basic curricula of
its Associate and Baccalaureate programs. The number of Liberal
Arts and Sciences courses required in degree programs has been
reduced to a mere handful totaling eight or nine classes of a total
of forty where before there had been as many as twelve to twenty in
degree programs that included insuring graduates were fluent in more
than one language and had some understanding of both World and
American History. Why was this done?
In the
Pathways Initiative the CUNY Board of Trustees passed a series of
resolutions. One in particular would appear to solve any problems
with the transfer of credits. It reads as follows:
Resolved,
that all courses taken for credit at an undergraduate CUNY college
be accepted for credit at every other CUNY undergraduate college,
regardless of whether a specific equivalency exists at the transfer
college, to an extent consistent with grade requirements and
residency rules at the transfer colleges, and be it further…
Why then
are there nine (9) other resolves in the action taken by the Board?
The reason is that the resolves were needed to alter all
undergraduate education programs in the CUNY in order to increase
the rate of graduation through a simplification of its curricula
through their reformulation to offer fewer required courses and
fewer demanding courses while defecting attention from these
intended consequences of the resolves. Thus, these measures were
proposed and enacted while CUNY proclaims repeatedly that there is
the intention to increase academic rigor in its programs.
The CUNY
has offered no attempt to respond to the notice of the conflation of
transfer resolution with General Education reform as it has offered
no argument and no evidence to establish that curricular reform was
the only method or even the better or best method to accomplish
resolution of the remnant issues with transfer. The CUNY has
repeatedly focused on the need to improve on transfer making the
process more efficient and economical while eliding the targeting of
all curricula for reformulations. In so doing the values of an
educational institution to transfer knowledge and develop new
knowledge and develop intellectual skills was supplanted by the
institutional values of economy and efficiency in producing
graduates. The social good of producing an outcome of an educated
student who is a well rounded and contributing member of society is
being replaced by quantifiable outcomes: graduates and graduates
who are employed. In so doing the CUNY has not attempted to
articulate just what it is hoping to produce that is of value to
society other than sending more graduates into a social setting in
which most people who find employment will change both employers and
fields several times within their first two decades of employment
and again before retirement. In an economic order with considerable
flux t hose with the broadest of educational backgrounds tend to
fare better as they mature and gain in experience through several
positions. The broader exposure to and some depth in the Liberal
Arts and Sciences now being eliminated will produce the intended
result or “outcome” of more graduates regardless of the educational,
social, or ultimate cost that it will entail for many of those
graduates and for a society that has need of not only simple
employees but also people who are well informed and capable of rich
social interactions who are prepared not merely for employment but
for success in a world now characterized by multiple orders of
change.
INCREASE IN ACADEMIC RIGOR.
There are
the repeated claims that the Pathways Initiative will increase
academic rigor in the programs of the CUNY and yet no effort on the
part of the CUNY to support those claims. There is no evidence that
CUNY has even begun an effort to design, let alone carry out, a
study to establish the current level of rigor, whatever that might
mean. Far from it, there has been and continues to be the frequent
repetition of the claim that in some way the Pathways Project
represents an increase in rigor, without definition of the term nor
measure of current levels. Why is this so? In clear light of the
reduction of required college level courses in Science, Mathematics,
Foreign Languages and Literature the repetitions of increasing
academic rigor appears more as intentional deflection of attention
from careful examination of what is actually being done and any
consideration of the long term consequences for those graduates who
will receive the least remediation of their K-12 under-preparedness
for college and who are in large part in the lower and lowest socio
economic class and people of color.
REDUCTION IN BREADTH AND DEPTH OF LIBERAL ARTS
EDUCATION
Arriving
at the CUNY through the public policy of open admission of all high
school graduates those who are underprepared need to have additional
support if they are to succeed in college level programs of study.
Reports indicate that there is an extremely low rate of graduation
for those in greatest need of academic assistance to remediate their
under preparedness. There are also reports within the CUNY that
there are particular courses , deemed to be “killer courses” by
some, that appear to be most difficult for those who are
underprepared so that they often cannot accomplish the learning
outcomes of those courses and so fail to progress to graduation.
These courses, including those in Mathematics and Science, involve
higher order cognitive skills and levels of abstraction for which
those with the lowest orders of college readiness appear most
challenged. If the number of such challenging courses, are reduced,
then the stumbling blocks to graduation are reduced and the CUNY
graduation rate should increase. Here is that “soft bigotry” at
work.
Other
courses that pose real challenges for the underprepared would be
those offered at a higher level than introduction to a discipline
and the second course in a discipline for which a prior course was
set as prerequisite. If the number of higher level courses in
challenging fields of study that are required for graduation are
reduced then graduation rates should increase.
The
Pathways Project clearly reduces the number of required courses in
the Liberal Arts and Science core of all CUNY Associate in Arts and
Associate in Science and Baccalaureate degree programs. It actually
bars CUNY colleges from requiring that students take more than one
course in the same discipline within the new streamlined, smaller
core. It reduces the number of Science courses to a single course
and reduces the study of Mathematics to a single required course and
one for which a less demanding curriculum can substitute for the
traditional courses associated with college Mathematics. It aims to
increase the freedom of students to choose the least demanding
courses, given their backgrounds and to avoid the development of
their intellectual skills through a program of study of some depth
in more than one particular field or academic discipline. If the
Pathways Initiative is not to be described as a “dumbing down” of
the curriculum it can be described as a “narrowing and shallowing”.
The CUNY
will be able to give prominent attention to and public notice of the
few who do excel, who do earn scholarships and fellowships and
awards, mainly in Mathematics, Technology, Engineering and the
Sciences. There will continue to be the few of a total of 270,000
students who will receive effective support and guidance that
nurtures their growth. Public display will make their number
appear larger and more typical. Nevertheless, the long term success
in life of CUNY graduates, not immediately evident or easily
measurable nor quantifiable, will not be put on display let alone
comparisons with the graduates of colleges with deeper and richer
curricular requirements in the Liberal Arts and Sciences. The CUNY
will display the results of studies showing maturation increases in
the basic rudimentary skills of reading, writing and critical
thinking over a period of 3 to 6 or even 8 years associated with
CUNY course work. It will intend for these reports to be taken as
indicators of what students have learned at CUNY while showing no
evidence of the exact knowledge a typical CUNY student has upon
entering as compared to when leaving CUNY as a graduate, let alone
the breadth and depth of knowledge of a CUNY graduate.
What does
any of the alteration of intellectual rigor and intellectual skills
development matter if the overall graduation rates at the CUNY
increase? Is it not the desire of the public to have such an
increase? Does not the public demand an accounting of the use to
which its support is directed and the results? Is it not a social
good to have more people graduate college? It is undeniable that
there are fewer college graduates unemployed in difficult economic
times, but there are still unemployed college graduates, only fewer
than non-graduates. It is also undeniable that jobs that previously
required only a high school diploma are now going increasingly, and
in some positions exclusively, to college graduates. It would then
be rather obvious that increasing the number of college graduates
would be a social good and a benefit to those graduates. But what
of achieving higher graduation rates as CUNY is proceeding to do?
IMPACT on the ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED and
PEOPLE OF COLOR
Reports
indicate that the percentages of those who are underprepared for
college work are higher in high schools in minority neighborhoods.
It is not uncommon to have critics of the public school system point
out the disparity in preparation for college work and the high
school graduation rates amongst economic groups. Calls for redress
most often are directed to improving the amount and quality of
instruction to narrow and eliminate the disparity. Indeed, there
were efforts to insure that no children would be “left behind” due
to disparity in effort, some of which is born of disparity in
appraisal of their abilities. Most observers would not accept
dissolution of the gap through a process of social promotion whereby
children are moved along year to year and then graduated without
necessarily accomplishing the educational goals of the curricula.
The “soft bigotry” was not to be tolerated. Nonetheless, while
graduation rates from high schools, already dismally low, may have
risen the percentage of those graduates who are deemed “college
ready” has not. This exposes the painful reality of a disparity in
preparation and a disparity that too often correlates with race and
socio-economic class.
While
minorities are, on the one hand, the apparent recipients of easier
pathways to graduation by being required to take less challenging
and fewer courses that will broaden their knowledge, on the other
hand, they are the less prepared for the social interactions in
adult life that will support their continued intellectual growth and
their esteem in the eyes of others that often leads to positions of
higher rank within institutions and in employment. The Pathways
Project is a plan for education that has been developed by people
who are already rather successful that will subject the poor of any
race to an education that is not of the caliber of the colleges and
universities associated with leaders of industry and the nation. Of
course, students of any background who will make effective use of
academic advisement will receive a rather good education in CUNY,
but many will not, as the Pathways Project will impact more
significantly those who, as already and presently economically
disadvantaged , must seek a quick and easy graduation from college
for their own sakes and that of their families.
And just
how is the Pathways Project a racist program? In the acceptance of
the disparities in college level preparation the CUNY program
accepts the consequences of the disparity in resources and efforts
to assist those traditionally victimized and rather than redress the
disparity the CUNY alters its programs of study to create another
less obvious form of “social promotion”.
The CUNY
undertook no study to estimate the social impact over time of the
Pathways Initiative on minorities and those who are economically
disadvantaged. No attention was directed to the long term
consequences on its graduates of such sweeping reforms of its
curricula. No light was to be shed on such matters by the University
perhaps because there has been an acceptance on the part of some,
perhaps many, with political influence that the CUNY is for the most
part not going to produce many of the leaders of industry or leaders
in any of the major components of society. That task is to be left
to the Ivy League caliber universities that will accept those with
broader and deeper preparation in the Liberal Arts and Sciences as
prerequisite to enter such Universities which then expect their
students to go further and even deeper into studies that will
prepare them not simply for employment but for leadership positions
and for making more significant contributions to society than do the
basic employees of any enterprise.
CONCLUSION
And so now
we come to the racism inherent in the Pathways Initiative. The
large numbers of students entering CUNY at this time who are the
most underprepared are students within groups that are under
supported and even victimized by the legacy of the racist past and,
some would add, present. They are the students who face the
greatest academic challenges. Rather than expend resources on their
support to succeed at the highest levels of study or even at the
basic level that offers genuine college level work, the leadership
of CUNY appears to accept that these students are simply not up to
the challenges of the curricula of the 1960’s or even the 1980’s and
so the curricula must be changed to accommodate “them” and graduate
“them”.
If the
faculties of CUNY resist this obvious concession to the lowest
denominator, then force it upon them through a top- down set of
impositions from the Board of Trustees and Chancellery. Make it
appear as if theirs is not a principled opposition to the changes
due to concern for the proper preparation of students for
intellectual and social advance and exercising their best academic
judgments but instead make it appear as if their opposition is
motivated by self interest in the preservation of the status quo
that supports their teaching positions.
If
society will not provide for the support needed for effective
education and true college ready level of preparation in high school
graduates and will not provide the CUNY with support to effectively
remedy the K-12 deficiencies in many of the entering class of
students then what is to be done to produce more graduates other
than to alter the level of academic challenge in the programs of
study?
Throughout
its history the CUNY has been seen by far too many people of
influence as a place where the immigrants and the sons and daughters
of immigrants can get an education for employment but not a place
where the country can expect to get its leaders. The CUNY has been
seen as an opportunity for economic advancement but not for social
advancement. Numbers support that as CUNY has become more a place
for people of color it has been increasingly undervalued and so
underfunded. Expectations for CUNY have been diminished. Now, in
effect, that downgrading has extended within CUNY with those who
would raise graduation rates for the sake of public appeasement of
the need and demand for employable graduates and drastically
diminish the programs of study that might better prepare its
graduates for long term success beyond mere employment and for a
life that might include achieving leadership positions within their
place of employ and within their neighborhoods and within society.
For such success the languages of the Liberal Arts and Sciences are
the common tongue. CUNY graduates will need to speak those
languages amongst communities of leaders to gain their esteem and
their support. The Pathways Project’s social debilitation of many
CUNY graduates will fall disproportionately on those people of color
who are already victimized by poor K-12 preparation and social
promotion, less skilled in command of the languages of the Liberal
Arts and Sciences. Employers will learn of the diminished or
limited potentials of CUNY graduates and look elsewhere for those
from whom they expect long term advancement and leadership.
The attempt to make
perspicuous the racist implications of the Pathways Project will be
resisted by those who conceived them, constructed them and presented
them to the Board of Trustees. They will claim that there was no
such intention as to discriminate against any groups and that
minorities will be advantaged by the Pathways Project as they will
increase graduation rates for all groups. These claims will have
ample support for their veracity. However, it is the “soft bigotry”
racism that manifests in the consequences of actions and not in the
intentions. The failure to consider the long term consequences or
the impact of the Pathways Project on CUNY graduates is the index of
racism. Examination of all the documents located at these sites:
UFS documents relating to the
Pathways to Degree Completion
http://cunyufs.org/A/
offers
nothing that considers the impact of the Pathways Project on
minorities or those groups with more people who evidence severe K-12
under-preparedness for college level work. There is no discussion
of what the long term consequences might be for those who have a
reduced exposure to the Liberal Arts and Sciences not only in the
competition for jobs but for lifelong success and advancement and
for leadership in their institutions of their employment as well as
those of society.
The “soft
bigotry” racism inherent in the Pathways Project will be buried in
the public relations efforts that will focus attention on the basic
graduation rates and attention on those few who will achieve great
academic success and recognition and success in their fields. The
proportion that such celebrated graduates will represent of the
total number of graduates will not be studied and cannot be
publically acknowledged. The CUNY will thus acknowledge that it
knows its place in the pantheon of academic institutions and its
place within society as the supplier of base level employees and
occasionally a success or two beyond the CUNY norm. CUNY will know
its place in acquiescing to the current patterns of differentiation
based on race and class in academic preparation of graduates and
members of society. Some in CUNY are reported to have made
statements to the effect that the great books curricula and strong
Liberal Arts courses are for the sons and daughters of the rich and
not for CUNY students.