September 24, 1998 - Guiliani: Out For Blood Regardless Of The Vein…I’m All Tapped Out!

By Jennifer Del Castillo

In May, some unexprected news about Assesment tests came from the Board of Trustees, due to what many view as unfair pressure from Mayor Guiliani. Whereas CUNY students previously were “allowed” to attend any city university (if accepted), regardless of whether or not they had passed all three required tests, now, according to the dictated standards of Guiliani, if you don’t pass the test , you should not get a decent education

            Not to knock Bronx Community College, but some students decided to go the college with a somewhat higher level of education and a greater challenge.  Some students decide to attend Lehman rather than going to Bronx Community, but as of September 1999, if you fail any of the three tests, you will no longer have a choice. Only community colleges will be offering any remedial classes, so as a student, you will have to sacrifice your desires, goals and personal preference, once again.

            The three tests are given in Reading, Writing, and Mathematics, (the RAT, WAT and MAT).  These are basic tests that show your basic level of high school education, which in the city isn’t normally too great.  The problem is, they’re punishing students for not having what they weren’t given to retain.  And despite the fact that all students have to pass these tests sooner or later to graduate, the Board of Trustees, by passing this new law of sorts, is making the assumption that people are taking these tests seriously.

            The problem with the test is that most people don’t really know how to student for them…so they don’t.  NUT, when they do fail the tests, they take part in tutoring programs, and classes that help students’ study for and better understand these tests. I for one failed for my mathematics assessment test.  When I heard the news, I enrolled in a free tutoring session in the Gillet Hall Math Lab. I like most Lehman College students, came to school because I wanted to be here.  Who has time to neglect work and party?  Nobody I know on campus at Lehman College. It’s about doing what has to be done.  So, for me, like many other students, there was no problem studying for the test, going over my mistakes, and learning something from them by the time I had earned my 61 credits.  The current alternative though, deprives me of this option.  I think if this rule has existed back when I first enrolled in 1995, my college career probably wouldn’t have ever existed.  

            Not that I want to speak on my own behalf, it’s just that I’m the perfect example.  I know for a fact, that the time when leaving the atmosphere of high school, I was not ready to go right into an unpleasantly similar scene.  If it had come down to going to a community college or coming here, I probably wouldn’t have even come to school.  And look at me now.  I am a college senior with a 3.0 etc.  GPA, and enough professorial residue lurking about inside my head to actually feel like I’ve learned something.  I find this to be the better alternative than a 50 cent raise every six months.  But we don’t really matter.  And what do the efforts of daily tutoring sessions mean when you have a point about how much slack you exactly can pull.  Shoving weight around when he can’t even lift it. Guiliani pulls a muscle trying to look at the burdens we carry every day.  

            And it’s not just a few people who will suffer because of this new rule.  Up to 13,000 entering students fail at least one of these tests per year.  And with the already lacking situations that most Community Colleges face, many are wondering how these schools are possibly going to be able to carry the burden.  “I don’t know where we will put them,’ said Carolyn Williams, the President of Bronx Community College.

            Schools enacting the new rule in September 1999 are Baruch, Brooklyn, Hunter and Queens Colleges.  Other schools will be enacting the rule in September 2000, such as our very own Lehman College, John Jay, Staten Island, New York City Technical, and City Colleges. Last but not least, Medgar Evers College plans on enacting the rule in September of 2001.  

            The supposed reasoning behind this that they want to abolish all remedial courses at senior colleges.  And since City Universities are trying to establish themselves as academic contenders to other people, they’re forgetting exactly who it is that they’re supposed to be serving.  They’re relying on sacrificing the education of one man, to show the already learned man something he already knows, but doesn’t much care about anyway. 

            Many people are calling it discrimination based on the fact that CUNY is a 70% minority system with 40% minorities failing all three of the tests.  I call it another case of Fooliani striking again, after midnight, during the day, it doesn’t matter, as long as he gets his point across.  We can wear our garlic necklaces or stock up on silver bullets, the choice is ours.

Rudy Giuliani made controversial changes to CUNY’s assessment and admission polices in 1998.