CUNY trustees institute new English writing requirement

Students claim the required writing test is an inaccurate measure of their English The trustees of the City University of New York are embroiled in a legal and political conflict with students at the system's community colleges over a new requirement that students pass an English writing test in order to graduate. Anne Paolucci -- the new chairwoman of CUNY's board of trustees -- said the trustees are insisting that the six community colleges in the CUNY system withhold diplomas from students who have not passed CUNY's Writing Assessment Test. The requirement was aimed at Hostos Community College -- a bilingual community college in the Bronx where Spanish is the primary language of most students -- but would also affect approximately 200 students at three other CUNY institutions. Students who had not passed the test were allowed to participate in commencement exercises last month, but officials noted that they can still withhold diplomas from these students because diplomas are not actually given out during the graduation ceremony. Diplomas are mailed to students weeks or months after they graduate, once all fees have been paid and transcripts have been certified. Hostos used to require students to pass the Writing Assessment Test in order to get credit for a remedial English course, but so many students were failing the test that the school decided to institute its own easier version last year. When dozens of Hostos students protested that the test should not be the only measure of English proficiency and refused to take the test last month, college officials agreed that it would only count for 30 percent of their grade in remedial English. In late May, the trustees voted to require CUNY's community college students to pass the Writing Assessment Test and barred any Hostos student who had not passed the test from graduating. 104 Hostos students were forced to take the test as a result, and only 13 passed. The test -- which involves writing a short, coherent essay on a broad topic, such as whether America still the land of opportunity -- is graded on the basis of organization, sentence structure, spelling and punctuation. Critics of the test claim that students who grew up writing Spanish may need more than the allotted 50 minutes to compose a coherent essay in English. CUNY Chancellor Anne Reynolds -- who has been denounced by New York Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for "tolerating low standards" and "making excuses for poor performance" -- initially claimed Hostos was the only community college in the system that did not require the test. But further investigation revealed that the new requirement could also affect students at at least three other CUNY schools. Officials said that LaGuardia Community College had over 100 students who had not passed the test, while Borough of Manhattan Community College had 66 and Bronx Community College had 47.

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