'The Rhetoric of Remediation'
Remedial education has long been a political football on campus -- and far beyond. Universities complain that high schools are sending them underprepared students; high schools say it isn't clear what the standards are, or how they can be met; community colleges grumble that everyone expects them to function as a second round of the 11th and 12th grades. Meanwhile, lawmakers just want to see more students graduating (but more quickly, and for less money). And everyone agrees that remediation is an expensive headache that, too often, drives students away before they ever reach credit-bearing courses.
But those debating the present and future of remedial education may know little about its past -- a past that offers some surprising insights into the issues of today. In a new book, The Rhetoric of Remediation: Negotiating Entitlement and Access to Higher Education (University of Pittsburgh Press), Jane Stanley delves into the long history of remediation at the University of California at Berkeley, finding that remedial students -- with their nebulous Schrödinger's-cat status as both good enough and not, accepted to the university but not acceptable to the university -- have played a crucial role in allowing the institution to navigate its own discordant position as both elite and public.
Stanley, who is associate director of college writing programs at Berkeley, responded via email to questions about the book.