Posted on 08/31/2023 2:08:44 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Diego Fonseca looked at the computer and took a breath. It was his final attempt at the math placement test for his first year of college. His first three tries put him in pre-calculus, a blow for a student who aced honors physics and computer science in high school.
Functions and trigonometry came easily, but the basics gave him trouble. He struggled to understand algebra, a subject he studied only during a year of remote learning in high school.
“I didn’t have a hands-on, in-person class, and the information wasn’t really there,” said Fonseca, 19, of Ashburn, Virginia, a computer science major who hoped to get into calculus. “I really struggled when it came to higher-level algebra because I just didn’t know anything.”
Fonseca is among 100 students who opted to spend a week of summer break at George Mason University brushing up on math lessons that didn’t stick during pandemic schooling. The northern Virginia school started Math Boot Camp because of alarming numbers of students arriving with gaps in their math skills.
Colleges across the country are grappling with the same problem as academic setbacks from the pandemic follow students to campus. At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents. More students are being placed into pre-college math, starting a semester or more behind for their majors, even if they get credit for the lower-level classes.
Colleges largely blame the disruptions of the pandemic, which had an outsize impact on math. Reading scores on the national test known as NAEP plummeted, but math scores fell further, by margins not seen in decades of testing. Other studies find that recovery has been slow. …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
But not the 12 years of primary and secondary education.
I remember seeing, years ago .. some reports of “teachers” that couldn't pass some basic skills tests .... so , they just dropped the requirements ..
That could have some effect ..
Wearing a mask and getting the Jab was not a good move for the many.
He struggled to understand algebra
Wow. I hope he gets a firm grasp on this discipline.
I mean, we use Algebra everyday.
Not...
I dealt with this issue back in 1990 when I was an academic advisor at a major university. That is of course well before COVID. The problem is that primary education left teaching real math, science, reading, writing, and history a long time ago. Instead it’s all about indoctrination (there are of course exceptions). And it has been getting worse since then. A lot worse.
Well only if you want to say build anything that requires any engineering or physics. Little things like cars, roads, bridges, airplanes, every piece of military equipment, and well basically everything in your home and that you encounter in the world.
The pandemic had nothing to do with it. Overzealous government actions had a lot to do with it.
EC
Dems always wanted their slaves dumb and uneducated.
To add: also computers and mobile devices like the one you are using to see this site, pretty much all business analysis besides the most basic, etc. etc.
Short version: knowledge of even basic math matters, and that’s clearly not being taught the way it should if at all.
Exactly
So they could use it as an excuse to keep importing more of the 3rd world to replace them.
Notice the Associated Press doing the now well-honed "personal story first" opening gambit. Poor Diego Fonseca, "who aced honors physics and computer science in high school...."
That's the whole story. No one "aces" physics and computer science but cannot grasp basic high school level math.
Too bad this Diego wasn't the OTHER Diego Fonseca who did not go through America's crumbling public education system.
"I'm a Phd student of mathematics at Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) interested in Robust Optimization, Markov decision process, Machine Learning, Neural networks, Stochastic process and Dynamical Systems. I did my undergraduate studies at Universidad Nacional de Colombia.Ass-ociated Press won't be featuring the OTHER Diego Fonseca, as a 'compare and contrast' article, because.....Source: https://math.stackexchange.com/users/165639/diego-fonseca
I agree.
Until you get used to it, thinking hard--really concentrating--is painful. It makes your head hurt in a way.
But that's math.
Math requires thinking and hard thinking at that. The better you get at it, the more you have to think. With practice, your brain starts to adapt and get better and better at the kind of logical thinking that math requires. After a while, it even becomes fun...a lot of fun.
BTW math isn't just important for the use of numbers. It also trains the brain to think logically and rationally about non-numerical problems.
Math makes a person smarter, and more capable of good, sound decisions. That may be the reason the Left doesn't like it.
How did he “ace” an honors physics course if he can’t handle basic algebra? Please.
Immigration is job security for the teachers unions and the public education/government industrial complex.
“Aceing” means showing up everyday...zoom or in person.
exactly, maybe because they don’t teach algebra or physics. In those classes they indoctrinate wokeness.
Also, fractions are taught in 2nd and 3rd grades, way before the scamdemic for these kids; as well as algebra should had been before the scamdemic.
I call misdirect and lying to hide bad teaching before scamdemic.
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