or when "equity" meets reality
The University of California at San Diego found out the hard way what happens when it lowered standards while high schools inflated grades: Too many kids simply do now know how to do basic math.
Faced with a surge of remedial math students, the university commissioned a team to study the problem. After completing its work, the team made some rather candid observations in the final report.
The report spells out the magnitude of the problem:
Over the past five years, UC San Diego has experienced a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students -- particularly in mathematics, but also in writing and language skills. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of students whose math skills fall below high school level increased nearly thirtyfold; moreover, 70% of those students fall below middle school levels, reaching roughly one in twelve members of the entering cohort.2 This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools. The combination of these factors has produced an incoming class increasingly unprepared for the quantitative and analytical rigor expected at UC San Diego... We can only help so many students, and only when the gaps they need to overcome are within reach...
Unfortunately, the kids were not just deficient in high school math subjects, so poorly educated were they:
Alarmingly, the instructors running the 2023-2024 Math 2 courses observed a marked change in the skill gaps compared to prior years. While Math 2 was designed in 2016 to remediate missing high school math knowledge, now most students had knowledge gaps that went back much further, to middle and even elementary school. To address the large number of underprepared students, the Mathematics Department redesigned Math 2 for Fall 2024 to focus entirely on elementary and middle school Common Core math subjects (grades 1-8), and introduced a new course, Math 3B, so as to cover missing high-school common core math subjects (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II or Math I, II, III; grades 9-11). (KF: No surprise. When I used to tutor Algebra, it was amazing how many students did not know how to do fractions.)....
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Naturally, the pandemic is partly to blame:
Beginning in the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced both K-12 and higher education institutions to conduct classes online, leading to a well-documented decline in student preparedness...
Blaming the pandemic, however, only masks the bigger problem. The university junked the SAT and ACT requirements in 2021 with predictable results:
In 2020, the University of California Board of Regents, against the advice of the report by the Academic Senate’s Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF), voted to eliminate the SAT and ACT from admissions consideration. Beginning with the cohort entering in 2021, standardized test scores were no longer used in the admissions process. (p.17) The decision aimed to broaden the applicant pool, based on concerns that otherwise qualified students were deterred from applying by standardized testing requirements. The elimination of standardized testing resulted in more reliance on high school grades even though the STTF report notes the worrisome trend of grade inflation in many schools that had already been substantial in 2020.8 During COVID, grade inflation and lowered standards in California high schools likely accelerated. The disruption created by COVID made it very difficult to objectively evaluate students. Many classes moved from letter grade to pass/fail for that period, and teachers often felt compelled to lower grading standards in acknowledgement of students’ special challenges.As a result, the quality of the information UC received from school transcripts became less reliable as a gauge of how well a student will succeed if admitted.... The elimination of standardized testing together with COVID resulted in a mismatch between students’ course level/grades and their actual levels of preparation, with far-reaching implications for determining math readiness and course placement.
The report does a nice job of diagnosing the problem. However, reality runs into social justice in the report as it struggles with serving the disadvantaged who are unprepared for college while providing a college education:
Given that, as a public university, we are charged by the Board of Regents to serve all segments of California’s college-aged students, we cannot simply admit only from better-resourced schools, this would replicate privilege and fail to support our mission as an institution that promotes social mobility. From a more practical perspective, we would also be unable to meet our enrollment targets. This situation goes to the heart of the present conundrum: in order to holistically admit a diverse and representative class, we need to admit students who may be at a higher risk of not succeeding...
The report recommends implementing several measures:
* Calculating a math-only GPA for graduates whose majors will require a "strong math preparation."
* Create a "math index" that considers basic math courses taken (Algebra I & II, Geometry), more advanced math courses, quality of high school, math GPA, and average grade in non-basic math courses
* Administer a math placement test by June 1, before the freshman fall semester. This allows university to place students in remedial math courses during the summer term.
* Advise schools there is "evidence of grade inflation" and inferior math instruction.
before casting social justice by the wayside:
The majority of the workgroup recommends that our representative on the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) should advocate for a systemwide reexamination of the possible return to standardized testing, following the lead of some other institutions that have recently reinstated such measures. This recommendation follows directly from the findings in this report that high school math grades are only very weakly linked to students’ actual math preparation. In fact, for more than two decades the Mathematics Department has found that out of all available student data, the single best predictor for math placement has been the SAT (math section) score, with the ACT score being an equally good predictor. The Math department still uses these scores as the best predictor for math placement if the student provides this data after they are admitted...
It is noted several California universities took the same path but changed course and reinstated SAT and ACT requirements after they experienced similar problems.
The report is a warning for those who want to lower standards in the name of equity. Meanwhile, the Chinese are kicking our ass in education.
32 comments:
I knew public schools suck but wow!
I have a theoretical degree in physics and I use ChatGPT for all of my calculations. I just need the paper to get my foot in the door.
Garbage in? Garbage out. I was reading this and literally shaking my head. As if they are actually ignorant of the cause and effect or willfully blinding themselves to it in order to keep from admitting mistakes. What reasonable person doesn't read this and go "Yup! There's yer problem!"
“The decision aimed to broaden the applicant pool, based on concerns that otherwise qualified students were deterred from applying by standardized testing requirements.” Exactly how were the students “otherwise qualified” if unable to meet standardized testing requirements?
This is the real world, and it is time for EVERYONE to admit that college is not for everyone. Society needs skilled tradesmen, i.e plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc more than it needs more people with "well meaning social justice" degrees that provide nothing for the common good. Let's be real here - who are you going to call when your heat and cooling system goes on the blink, a kid who did not go to college but knows how to fix your problem or someone with a "feel good" degree who can't realize a problem exists.
Racist math
Racist English
Racist science
Racist history
Racist P.E.
Racist driver’s ed
Racist food pyramid
Racist ID’s
Racist immmigation enforcement
Racist Bible
Blah, blah, blah….
Everything is freaking racist unless it makes you broke, fat, stupid, lazy, or even dead; like…
UBI
Legalized marijuana
Safe injection zones / free needles
Planned Parenthood / abortion on demand
EBT
Free public transportation
Free slummy housing
NPR/PBS
Open borders
Go woke, go broke/unemployed/unemployable.
4:07, I would not want a carpenter, electrician, or plumber who lacked elementary math and reading skills.
That's a good way to wind up with a house that is structurally unsound, floods, then gets burned down by an electrical fire.
Gotta be able to blame someone for your inability to function in society.
UC San Diego’s acceptance rate this fall was 28.4%, so this is supposedly the top 30% of students we are talking about. If anyone was wondering what the effects of woke culture are, here you go.
The highest state income tax rate in the US and the worst school system in the US (worse than Mississippi), yet California is many billions in debt. Super majority and every statewide office in the states are held by Democrats.
The problem begins in elementary and middle schools and becomes toxic by high school and college. There must be a standard and ALL children must meet that standard whatever their background. The truly sad reality is that experience has shown that when absolutely required most of these otherwise failing students can and will achieve the requirements. Teachers unions and pandering politicians have sold the notion that high standards are not "fair" and that only fairness counts. By the time their unfortunate victims discover that only performance counts it is too late. But they don't give a damn.
"Grown Ups" don't exist anymore.
Your fatigue is real...and felt by billions. People will soon no longer be affected by being called racist, and then the end game will really begin.
"Red means run son, numbers add up to nothing."
People with personal agendas have no business working with children.
It would seem California still leads the nation in failed social and educational experiments.
4:18 for Post of the Year.
Read about the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire; this country is in its last days as the global leader.tp This is just another example.
:Yeah, Well The World Needs Ditch Diggers Too"...
Mississippi's policy of holding back low-performing third-graders removes them from the fourth-grade NAEP testing pool, artificially inflating scores.
The bigger issue is these kids are admitted to medical school, become bridge engineers and fly planes. Then people die for muh diversity.
This is why we don’t want any Californians here
Retarded. Holding someone back doesnt "artificially inflate scores" sometimes a child really does need to repeal a year. You probably should have been he'd back several times.
There is no time to teach math in grade school because their priorities are wokeness, DEI, progressive dogma, antisemitism, TDS, open borders, etc.
You don't need any math skills when your major is Social Justice Warrior.
Be careful...UC San Diego isn't where the smartest California kids go. You might have them compare their scores to those of Mississippi's state supported institutions. Only 2 MS state supported schools have Phi Beta Kappa chapters. The other one is at Millsaps. 8:03 am doesn't know that statistics is a required course in political science and in sociology at most universities. What, pray tell was your major and did you go to one of the 3 highest ranked in MS or not? Have you read a non-fiction book since graduating or do you depend on the media?
It is a very real issue that educational outcomes vary drastically based on socioeconomic factors. The answer isn't "make everyone dumber" but I guess that's way easier.
The year 2000 I went to work for a new company to our area that required all applicants to take a tape measure test, a general reading aptitude test and a very general math test (lining up decimal points, adding/subtract double digit numbers, 3rd grade level fractions). I had to review test scores and select applicants for interviews. I never considered myself much of an academic and ranked myself near the bottom average in math skills but man, I was simply dumbfounded grading most of the tests. We actually thought people were trying to fail tests looking over their answers. People got 0% of the answers right. Many people simply wrote “I don’t understand this” on their tests. Locally some people took to social media and criticized us for being an unfair employer because they couldn’t pass our simple test. As I recall the failure rate was around 80% and it encompassed people aged 18-60 to f all taces and genders. I never realized how uneducated that many people were where I lived. It was actually embarrassing to know our public schools were doing that terrible of a job.
Grade inflation isn’t just at public schools. Check out the lower tier private schools where your kid can have a 4.5 GPA and a stellar 19 on the ACT. The difference between those two is more than “test anxiety”. What is intriguing is how universities plan to calculate that “quality of high school” metric when said school is private and not required to release any data.
Yeah. That Idiot president F. King dropped the standards at LSU and surprise, there are students who have no business being there.
This is what happens when we set standards according to the lowest common denominator.
But people don't understand what that means if they can't "do fractions."
We hire social workers to be teachers and judges, then we're surprised when the primary concern is emotions, instead of performance and conduct. And we condition parents to play therapist with their children, instead of teaching and disciplining them.
Nothing against social workers, but they aren't a Swiss Army Knife for all of society's problems.
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