LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD: CALIFORNIA GRAPPLES WITH "REMEDIATION"

<p>This article describes both past and more recent efforts by the California State University system to come to terms with "remediation" as defined by various legislative and system wide bodies. It then goes on to describe recently mandated collaborations between high school language arts faculty and CSU English faculty to reduce the need for remediation. By tracing the momentum within the CSU to reduce the number of underprepared students down to 10% of the entering first-year students by the year 2007, we show the ways in which the needs of basic writers have been defined and delineated by political bodies uninformed by recent scholarship in the field of basic writing. We then describe an ongoing outreach program that attempts to address the needs of basic writers at the high school level. By relying on a collaborative needs assessment of high school writers structured on Freirean principles of codifications of community situations by community leaders, in this case high school instructors, we document the ways in which high school professionals and university collaborators can work respectfully together to support each other in their professional efforts.</p>