Posted on 05/13/2008 7:03:24 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Five years ago, California took a bold step and began requiring algebra of every graduating high school senior. The grumbling ran deep. The work was hard. The underlying equation came through loud and clear:
More math in high school would equal more students prepared for college.
For many, it hasn't added up.
In a pattern that has area math professors scratching their heads, some community colleges are seeing an increase in the numbers and proportions of entering students who can't do algebra, or even basic arithmetic.
At Sierra College in Rocklin, for example, of the 199 sections of math being taught this year, 68 of them – 34 percent – are arithmetic, pre-algebra or beginning algebra. Most students seeking a two-year or four-year degree must master those levels of math and in many cases go beyond.
Five years ago, the percentage of remedial math courses at Sierra was 28 percent.
Last year at Cosumnes River College in Elk Grove, 40.8 percent of incoming students who took a math placement exam tested into arithmetic or pre-algebra, up from 38.1 percent two years earlier. The proportion of courses in beginning algebra, pre-algebra and arithmetic at Cosumnes has marched steadily upward, from 43 percent in 2003 to almost 52 percent this year.
"It's the million-dollar question," said Mary Martin, math department chair at Cosumnes. "We are asking more of our high school students, so why isn't it transferring over to college?"
California high schools have responded to the monumental task of getting students through algebra, Martin and other math professors say, but the push is falling short.
It has educators concerned because algebra is considered a key subject for developing critical thinking skills. It provides the language and foundation for numerous fields, from nursing to the sciences to architecture.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
You got it!
Back in my high school in the 70's, the 4 year math program was: Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry (a proof-oriented course, not a formula-memorizing course), and Calculus in senior year
I was not aware of that. News to me.
When and where I went to high school, the requirements were four years of math. Algebra l, ll, Geometry, Trigonometry/Calculus.
Sure. Teaching self-esteem is essentially kicking back and chatting with the students. How much easier that than actually teaching them skills!
And really, it’s all about the pensions and benefits and nothing about the education.
Wonder how many members of Congress have passed calculus?
in a high school college prep curriculum that is still the case, but not everyone takes college prep courses, i imagine.
What you are calling for is education in personal finance with the math to back it up...and I could not agree with you more!
In our society, understanding these things is as essential as learning to read. It IS basic education.
Lot’s of young people cannot manage their finances because they were never taught how, and they get into trouble that could be easily avoided.
Yep, same here. And that was for everybody! I don't have kids so I had no idea that this was not being taught in high school. We are indeed in deep trouble as a nation -- the kids are brain dead.
How true, and nobody wants to hear it. I slept through my first few college math classes and got an A since they were just a repeat of what I'd learned in high school. These people have no business being in college if they can't pass beginning college math courses.
This may sound condescending, but it's not because I have respect for any real trade and I've worked in some of the most menial ones myself, but:
The world still needs ditch diggers.
it is easy to rationalize not learning what one should.
as for plastic pipes, I seem to recall a big push a while back for plastic pipes. They were indeed sheaper and easier to work with than copper, but after a few years they became brittle and would burst since they were under pressure. a whole lot of people who trusted the so-caled experts lost a whole lot (imagins the pipes bursting when you’re at work - huge amounts of water damages)
IIRC AFTER a class action lawsuit, the company that made the stuff settled by refunding the purchase price.
I don’t know, I had quite a few white students in the class I taught (see above) and they were pretty darn dumb. Maybe it’s not right to call them dumb because certainly next to NOTHING was expected of them. They were there to get college degrees and they were paying for it - it was almost an offense to ask any of them to do any actual real studying.
I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks to algebra is the shortage of good math teachers at every level. My oldest daughter struggled with math, especially algebra all through school. She went to college and called me very excited one day about 6 weeks into her first semester- she said “I am not stupid! I got the greatest math teacher and she has taught me more about math than all the teachers I had before her put together!” My daughter went on to excel at every math class she has had since, and is now a math tutor at her nursing school. Many math teachers I have had could do the problems, but could not explain how to others to save their life.
Exactly. Basic algebra is not that hard. It follows specific steps. Once you learn how to do the steps, you just plug in the numbers. I think the problem is that there is nothing “creative” about Algebra. The schools teach all these alternate and confusing ways to solve basic math problems, so the kids can’t do the basic math in the Algebra problem. You throw an unknown in there and it throws them all off.
I will have to take your word for it, and, again, I am not an expert in the education of low-IQ children, but what you are describing is way, way, way beyond the bounds of any kind of achievement I am familiar with.
[If I may be so bold, my best guess is that your brother probably had an IQ more like 95, rather than 80 - from what I understand, on average, with an IQ of 80, he'd be lucky to learn how to sign his name.]
My mom never got past algebra two in high school but she saw that my siblings and I got a good solid math foundation right up through trigonometry - by using solid curriculmn that taught how to do the problems, not how to feel about them.
Replace every copy of “Rainforest Math” with Saxon’s Algebra 1 and scores would go up. Guaranteed.
He also goes to a school specifically for kids with disabilities taught by people who won’t accept “oh, they can’t learn” for an answer. Amazing what that can do. Tells me a lot of the problems in government schools is that they accept mediocrity.
Look, while it's true that the modern world has manifestly deleterious effects on human learning [no kid is ever going to reach his full intellectual potential if he plays Grand Theft Auto for 10 or 12 hours every day], it's also true that 100 is only the average IQ for Caucasians.
Half of all Caucasians have IQs in the 90's, 80's, and below, and the educational situtation for them is pretty hopeless.
Again, though, the really catastrophic fact we are facing is that, because American Blacks and Aboriginal/Mestizo Hispanics have average IQs down around 85, half of them are even stupider than that - half of all American Blacks and Aboriginal/Mestizo Hispanics have IQs in the low 80's, the 70's, the 60's, and beyond [down into the 50's & the 40's, to the extent that numbers like "IQ 50" even have any meaning].
The real problems are 1) that the high school curriculum still assumes that students have the sort of intuition about arithmetic that is built up by doing problems by hand, when in fact they have used calculators, and 2) that most K-8 teachers are math-phobic.
To address the first, either calculators need to be forbidden until the courses normatively taught to college-bound high school juniors, or the curriculum from the early grades on needs to teach in a more thoroughgoing way what is really going on when you use a calculator and how to do estimates mentally so you can tell if you’re getting rot from your calculator because you pushed a few wrong buttons, then exploit the ease of calculator use to give more extensive work both applied and theoretical as a way of building up mathematical intuition.
I teach mathematics at a large midwestern state university, and I don’t really care which of those alternatives is pursued.
To address the second, I’m afraid the several states need to revoke the monopoly on teacher certification given to Colleges of Education. That’s where the rot in American education is at it’s worst, not (suprisingly) in the teachers’ unions, bad though they are.
I bet that costs a small fortune.
I'd be curious to learn more about their approach, and whether they have any statistics on the long-term persistence of [former] student performance.
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