Less than half the freshmen who enrolled at California State University, Channel Islands, in the fall met CSU proficiency standards for mathematics. Barely half of them met the proficiency standards in English.

Almost 55 percent of the Camarillo campus' freshmen needed remediation in math, nearly 20 percent more than the statewide average for CSU. The English results were almost equal to the state average.

Systemwide, 63 percent of CSU's freshmen were proficient in math and 52 percent were proficient in English in fall 2003, according to statistics released Wednesday by CSU.

The systemwide numbers held steady from the previous year, though the number of students proficient in both math and science rose 10 percent, CSU officials said. This is the first year CSUCI has admitted freshmen, so the school has no numbers to compare to previous years.

CSUCI President Richard Rush said he was dismayed by the results. He plans to convene meetings with education leaders and community members to discuss the results and how they can be improved.

"Since this is our first time, we want to start off on the right foot and see what, together, all of us need to do. I don't want to go in and claim to have all the answers."

Rush said it was too early to know where the problem might lie or what might need to be done to address it.

"This is really not a time to assume somebody's at fault, but to say what's the problem here," he said. "This is a time to make sure our young people are prepared to be successful."

Low math proficiency often is a sign of students not taking math as seniors in high school and their skills getting rusty, said Allison Jones, assistant vice chancellor for student academic support at the CSU Chancellor's office in Long Beach.

"By the time they take the (placement) test, they haven't been in the classroom for a year," Jones said. "That may be the issue for Channel Islands."

English proficiency is a more complex problem, Jones said. The biggest deficiency is in reading comprehension. Students who learned English as a second language also struggle more on the placement tests.

"Systemwide, over 40 percent of our students come from homes where English is not spoken as the primary language," Jones said.

To determine proficiency, students entering CSU are given placement tests in English and in math. Students are considered proficient and therefore exempt from the tests if their scores on certain advanced placement tests or college entrance tests such as the SAT and ACT are high enough.

CSU has been working to improve proficiency for several years. CSU trustees had hoped to reach 74 percent proficiency in math and 78 percent proficiency in English by 2004, and want to have at least 90 percent of freshmen proficient in both English and math by 2007.

CSU officials say they need to catch students earlier in high school, so they have more time to become proficient. To aid in that effort, they have developed an early assessment program in collaboration with the California Department of Education, State Board of Education and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

The assessment program uses an extended version of the California Standards test in English and Mathematics. The extended test, which is voluntary, was used in a pilot program last year and will be available to all high school juniors this spring.

"We believe the key to their success is assessing students' strengths and weaknesses early in the process, at the end of 11th grade," Jones said. "The early assessment is where we really think we're going to make significant changes."