[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Education is really screwed up.

I am grading tests from my entry level prealgebra class at a local Community college and better than half of the students cannot handle simple fractions!

It is very distressing!

[FITZ]

I am grading tests from my entry level prealgebra class at a local Community college and better than half of the students cannot handle simple fractions!

Not just at the community college level. Here the 4 year "university" has 60% of it's students in remedial programs. I've seen with my own eyes a college graduate have to sit and use a pencil and paper to figure out the average between 44 and 46 ----add together and divide by two. I can see why businesses now come up with their own tests to screen their applicants ---even those with a diploma.

[Fury]

I am grading tests from my entry level prealgebra class at a local Community college and better than half of the students cannot handle simple fractions!

Agreed. The college I am assigned to has seen a real uptick over the last 5-10 years in students taking remedial courses. This would seem to cast doubt on the touting by K-12 folks that they are readying these students for college, trade schools, etc. The facts are clear, at least within this college - the number of students taking remedial courses is rising.

The good thing is that people will eventually get ticked off enough that more questions will be asked. Parents and students will not be happy when they find out they'll be paying for 3 credit hours for courses of a *remedial* nature. Those costs add up and in some cases, these courses cannot be applied to the degree the student is seeking.

[KC_for_Freedom]

In our district, which included the very wealthy (started HS in geometry), the middle class, (started in algebra), and the poor, (started with bonehead math, fractions, percent, etc).

The third of the kids from this poor neighborhood usually still were working on fractions up to graduation. We had a relatively easy test to graduate even then, and I taught the bonehead kids, the teachers aids, and other math teachers how to do fractions and use them to solve percent problems. That was in 1978, now with grade inflation, they are getting to college without this ability. How sad.