Posted on 12/18/2022 10:11:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Kansas universities may soon dispense with their algebra graduation requirement because too many students fail the courses.
NPR Kansas recently reported: “About one in three Kansas students fails college algebra the first time around. Some take it several times before they pass. Others get so frustrated that they drop out altogether. And that cuts into university graduation rates.”
NPR added that this prompted the Kansas Board of Regents to consider alternative requirements under what’s called “Math Pathways program.”
Regent Wint Winter (yes, that's his name) said the new Pathways program is critical as a way to fight declining enrollment.
He stated: “It’s incumbent on us to be aware of all the roadblocks that are out there for students … reasons why they’re leaving, reasons why they’re not graduating. So I would urge us all to … find ways to find the bandwidth to keep this moving along.”
If graduation rates are now more important than what students are taught, than why not only offer gender and women’s studies courses…and underwater basket-weaving? Is algebra—algebra!— really too hard for today’s young scholars to handle? In my day, many of us took advanced placement calculus…in high school no less…with credits often transferring to the college of our choice. If calculus, geometry, and even algebra are too difficult for those enrolled in bastions of “higher education” today, perhaps the schools can offer Remedial Addition and Subtraction in their Math pathways programs, assuming they can find “the bandwidth.” What do you think about that, Regent Wint Winter? (Not to be confused with Regent Summ Summer.)
Higher education’s emphasis on enrollment over substance and mission is sadly of a piece with Christian churches’ abandonment of traditional doctrine in favor of a policy of “we must do whatever the hell it takes to put more butts in the pews,
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Algebra?! It's an eighth grade subject!
Why not just offer Bachelor of Pseudoscience degrees with no work required? The ego is stroked, employers are warned, and universities and students alike can save a lot of money and time.
Find the bandwidth?! WTF? Find some smarts and a willingness to work and learn.
We could….but then parking at the airport is difficult sooooo…it would be just like algebra.
“Now move 3x to the other side.”
“That’s way too difficult.”
Later, I had to learn basic trigonometry to learn land surveying (before it became computerized) and simple equations to run a fire truck (before that became more programmable). To me, it's more practical to teach people the math they actually need than having them take years of it just to say they took it.
Most College Graduates These Days Are Women
I bet they won’t drop the foreign language requirement.
The Algebra requirement probably has an adverse impact on women and some minorities.
True. But they are swimming upstream in our public education system.
Haha. Great graph. You will be called a Nazi just for citing this.
You used it; you just don’t realize you did!
And you use forms of it all the time and don’t realize it.
The reason you may find what I say baffling is because algebra is so poorly taught!
That’s it! I demand having my calculus grade changed from a B to an A. That cost me a 4.0 my senior year…lol.
8-year-olds can understand and solve Balance Benders and related problems - which are about 80% of algebra, but without the alphanumeric symbols.
Not "probably". "Certainly".
And a $500 contribution to his college fund.
Kansas must be much more diversier than I previously thought
“ As and employer I am nearly at the point of considering a college degree completely useless.”
I don’t hire Ivy League grads, with the exception of MIT.
Does this include for engineering majors?
Possibly the best algebra book every written!
Written for those who just want to do algebra, not written to try and turn K12 students into budding mathematicians.
https://www.amazon.com/Realm-Algebra-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0449243982
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