Colleges Misassign Many to Remedial Classes, Studies Find

New York Times ^ | February 28, 2012 | TAMAR LEWIN

[PapaBear3625]

The math SAT has fewer women scoring high, and fewer blacks. Considering that the public school system is heavily female, you're going to see a lot of complaining.

Over here are 1992 SAT scores broken down by race and sex. Number of white males scoring 700 or above on math SAT: 22,388; number of black females scoring 700 or above: 131.

[9YearLurker]

I was in high school in the late 70’s, when basic geometry and algebra 1 and 2 were commonly followed by pre-calculus and then, if you were in an upper-middle-class school with AP-type courses, calculus. Thus, if you were even on a regular college-prep course in an average high school you should have been ready for calculus 1 to start your freshman year of college. No math or science major credit would be awarded for anything less than that.

Since then AP has become much more common, but on the lower end, endless terms of “college algebra” (which are no such thing and should make one think of linear algebra) seem to have become the norm.

[fatboy]

A math major (associate degree program) at my local community college would start at calculus and take a total of 4 semesters of calculus & Analytic Geometry . Anything less, college algebra, trig and or basic statistics will not count towards the major. The prerequsites for calc. are college algebra and trig, if you don’t have them in HS or score high enough on the SAT you start there and turn a 2 year program into a three year program.

The problem in the US is not the colleges, it’s the public school systems, they don’t teach math, they don’t impress onthe students the need to know math, they pass kids that don’t have any math skills. But then there are those kids who for some reason love math. This group would include my two kids and they have shamed me into learning math, which by the way I’m going to be a student of for the rest of my life. Talk about an overreaction!

[Oberon]

At most community colleges, a majority of entering students who recently graduated from high school are placed in remedial classes, where they pay tuition but earn no college credit.

...and what harm does this do to the community college business model? None whatsoever. In fact, they make pretty good money running those remedial classes, and if a student in them goes on to graduate, that student will have spent more money toward his Associate's degree than he otherwise would have.

This is the bottom line. There's no cash incentive for a school to do it any other way.

[9YearLurker]

Congrats—the kids may have motivated you, but you’re being a great model for them!