Community Colleges May Drop Racist Algebra

Front Page ^ | July 21, 2017 | Daniel Greenfield

[detective]

A little reminder.

Turning college into the new high school will make its degrees just as worthless. Maximize enrollment, particularly of unready students, and you'll need promotion to move them through the system. And then you can argue that any class they can't pass is unfair.

It starts with community college. It'll end at Yale.

Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads.

[ladyjane]

"... this is also something that plagues all Americans — particularly low-income Americans...

A Chancellor of the California Community College system said this? All Americans? What a maroon. I loved algebra. My best childhood memories are of doing algebra problems with my father, trying to see if I could beat him.

[Alberta's Child]

These are the math subjects I took in high school alone:

Algebra (two years)
Geometry
Pre-Calculus
Calculus
Trigonometry

Yes, I know ... I am a geek. :-P

[ilovesarah2012]

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/21/college-writing-center-proper-grammar-perpetuates-/

[Alberta's Child]

Sounds like you went to my high school. LOL.

[Riley]

I found out late in life that Albert Einstein was able to visualize the concept first, and then the wall of math came later to prove it. I’ve always had a layman’s interest in theoretical physics, and I wish I’d known that at 14. My life would have been a lot different.

[IrishBrigade]

I took algebra in 8th or 9th grade and finished high school calculus in 11th.

I took algebra in 9th grade, and just about limped to the finish; 10th grade, I threw in the towel with plane geometry...in my humble opinion, being able to use arithmetic, including the more involved aspects of it, is sufficient for the typical student...

[I want the USA back]

So then what good is a degree?

This is a corollary of the Noble Savage Delusion: The savage can’t learn math, so drop math so no one will notice that the savage is really stupid, and multiculturalism will be safe once again!

[Jeff Chandler]

I always figured it was a money making scheme anyway

Yep. Proof of that is when College profs frequently change a few paragraphs to quash the used textbook market.

I can't wait for the day the Internet smashes the brick-and-mortar monopoly.

[Savage Beast]

"If you think about all the underemployed or unemployed Americans in this country who cannot connect to a job in this economy — which is unforgiving of those students who don't have a credential — the biggest barrier for them is this algebra requirement. It's what has kept them from achieving a credential."

What a moron! It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that these "students" should work harder.

[Fred Hayek]

Intelligence is irrelevant
Reason is futile
You will be assimilated into the Idiocracy.

[Fred Hayek]

Used to be that machinists had to be fairly good at math. At least that was what I gathered from a Machinery’s Handbook that I had since junior high.

[IrishBrigade]

‘If a company is looking for good candidates to hire, simply ask them to write a few paragraphs about themselves in cursive, then take a 10 question algebra quiz.’

I would fail that test miserably; I haven’t written script in years, and even when I did, it was terrible...algebra, dead before I even started...

[ladyjane]

If a company is looking for good candidates to hire, simply ask them to write a few paragraphs about themselves in cursive, then take a 10 question algebra quiz. Nothing crazy, just some standard first year stuff.

There is even a shorter test that would work. The cursive is important and then give them a few decimals and ask them to pick out the largest and the smallest values. If that is too difficult for them, try a few fractions.

Believe it or not - many college students have no understanding of fractions or decimals. Algebra? fugetaboutit

[wally_bert]

Algebra was the only F I ever made. It never made that much sense to me.

I was an A/B student that barely opened a book for all the other subjects.

To this day, I don’t recall ever needing it.

[Fred Hayek]

They stole it from the Indians, much like the way they stole so called “Arabic numerals”. The other contribution by the Indians was zero being a defined value.

[Altura Ct.]

Racist against whom?

[Jeff Chandler]

I had an engineer show me how using his own methods.

It's getting worse. Common Core math wastes time attempting to teach a deep understanding of math when what the kids need are the old-school methods, which are actually practical shortcuts.

A Carpenter needs to learn how to swing a hammer, not how to forge one.

[Jeff Chandler]

The problem was with the teacher, not you. I could teach you basic Algebra in 10 minutes. It’s so logical it’s ridiculous.

The problem being addressed in this article, though, is the fact that the students they are trying to “help” can’t learn Algebra because they never learned basic arithmetic. If you don’t know arithmetic, learning Algebra is darn near impossible.

[Jeff Chandler]

It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that these "students" should work harder.

That probably wouldn't help if they lacked a grasp of basic arithmetic.

[shove_it]

I liked the story problems, e.g. ...

if a man and a half can dig a hole and a half in a day and a half, how long will it take a peg-legged parrot to kick the seeds out of a dill pickle?