The Bridge Partnership is helping college-bound West Warwick High School students be better prepared academically.

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, May 10, 2004

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

WEST WARWICK -- Every fall, Tim Chace rounds up the roughly 300 members of the freshman class at West Warwick High School and tells them to stand up. Next, he tells the first three rows of students to sit down.

"You guys have no interest in college at all," he says.

Chace, the director of student services at the school, tells more and more freshmen to sit down until only about 40 students -- 15 percent of the class -- are left standing.

"You," he says, "are the kids who will graduate [from college] with a bachelor's degree."

Many students fail to make it through college because they are unprepared to handle college-level work.

At the Community College of Rhode Island, nearly 60 percent of the 2001 freshman class took at least two remedial classes, according to a study by Peter McWalters, the state commissioner of higher education. Thirty percent did not return the following year.

The Community College of Rhode Island is trying to figure out a way to not only keep students in ollege, but also to keep them from needing remedial courses when they get there.

CCRI is one of 20 community colleges nationwide to participate in the Bridge Partnership, which will bring college and high school faculty together to figure out why students enter college ill-prepared for more rigorous work.

The college is working with West Warwick High School, which is classified as a low-performing school, to bridge the academic gaps between secondary school and higher education. Last month, 60 sophomores volunteered to take the placement tests that CCRI uses to determine whether new students need remedial help in reading, writing and math.

The good news, according to West Warwick School Supt. David Raiche, is that 20 percent of the students are already capable of doing college-level work. The sobering piece is that almost half of these students, even the college-prep ones, need serious help with math skills.

Raiche said the early testing gives students the "opportunity to see how they're doing while they have the time to do something about it."

The partnership couldn't be more timely. High schools across the state are in the middle of revamping their graduation requirements. In four years, seniors will have to demonstrate mastery of specific skills through a portfolio of their work or some type of senior project.

Holly Susi, an assistant professor of English at CCRI and the Bridge project's director, said this will help the high school's guidance counselors identify students who are having trouble with English and math before it's too late. And it should help students figure out their strengths and weaknesses so they can plan their classes accordingly.

Both Jonathan Myers and Kayla Cruz aced the writing portion of the computerized test but were disappointed by their performance in math.

"We're both in the high-level math class, but we're not learning at the speed colleges want," Myers said. "They really should raise the bar."

Another sophomore, Emma Savall, said she decided to take the test to find out where she stands: "I do have two more years," she said. "Now I know that I need to work hard on my math."

Tim Chace hopes it will be a wake-up call to students who think they can sit back until their junior year, only to find that it's too late to take all the courses they need to get into a four-year institution.

"The system we have educates about 30 percent of our kids," he said. "The rest are trained for industrial jobs that no longer exist. Look around at all the closed factories and broken windows in this town."

Students were offered an incentive to take the test: pass any portion of assessment now and CCRI will waive it later. This year's sophomores will be tested again next year to see what progress they have made.

Testing is only the first step, however.

"We can change a path that a student is on because we have gotten this important feedback," Susi said. "We can challenge kids to think more about their future. And we can get faculty talking to one another and parents thinking about their kids' futures."

College and high school math faculty will meet later this spring to discuss how best to offer remedial math to high school students and what kinds of professional training might be useful to math instructors. CCRI might offer a basic skills math course at West Warwick High or it might allow high school students to take college classes free of charge. The most advanced math class offered at West Warwick High is a college-level calculus class taught by an adjunct professor from Rhode Island College.

One of the partnership's goals is making sure that the high school curriculum teaches the skills students need in college, such as the ability to communicate clearly, to think analytically and to solve problems.

According to a study conducted by Stanford University, students graduate from high school under one set of standards and, three months later, are required to meet different standards in college, depending on the students' majors.

Raiche hopes that the first of those meetings between CCRI and West Warwick faculty will take place this summer.

Getting the word out to parents is the final piece of the puzzle.

In the past, Raiche concentrated on getting students to graduate. Now, he's starting to ask more of his students. Students must complete four years of English and a minimum of three years of math in order to graduate, but the high school will increase its requirements next year for those students who wish to participate in the Rhode Island Scholars program sponsored by the Education Partnership, formerly the Business Education Roundtable.

"I'm concerned that we're part of a K-12 system that produces kids who aren't ready for college," he said. "Just graduating from West Warwick High School isn't good enough anymore."