Posted on 08/23/2012 5:31:40 PM PDT by wintertime
HetchingerEd is offering a rather radical proposal to increase the number of American students who graduate college: dump math. Specifically, the argument is that since many college students, a disproportionately large number of them of an African-American or Hispanic descent, are unprepared to tackle college-level mathematics courses, they might be stymied by a requirement that all those receiving a degree from a particular institution must pass the freshman version of the course.
A fifth of students entering a four-year college don’t have the needed math skills to pass the course and are forced into remediation. Nearly half of community college freshmen find themselves in a similar situation. This delay makes it much less likely that they will be able to graduate on time — or graduate at all. Only a tenth of community college students who take remedial college courses finish their college programs in 3 years, and only a third of four-year students complete theirs in 6 years.
Those statistics come from a report on remediation published in April by Complete College America. The report’s numbers suggest that math requirements may be the primary obstacle to graduation for many students: In many states, a larger percentage of students enroll in remedial math courses than in remedial English courses.
These numbers ignited a debate among education experts with many calling for better algebra preparedness in high school, while an increasingly loud minority suggesting that colleges do away with universal math requirements altogether.
(Excerpt) Read more at educationnews.org ...
Understand math,understand the Universe (except Women)
That means they have had > $120,000 spent on them by twelfth grade. AND THEY CAN'T COUNT!!
Fire every teacher and start over (with vouchers if you want them to learn anything).
yes women are only visiting this universe!
lol,
as a math geek with little to no understanding of women, I approve this message.
Just “deem” kids college graduates upon birth.
Well...at least the ones that survive birth.
It is awful thay they were forced into remedial courses in college. Would it not be better to avoid this stigma? Let them take the regular courses, fail them and let them be kicked out of college for subpar academic performance. But at least they are not stigmatized and humiliated.
I like the direction Hillsdale college has taken.
They no longer offer teaching degrees without a 4 year degree in something solid. We have too many teaches who know how to teach but no nothing about the subjects they teach.
If your basic education system, K-12, is turning out graduates that can not handle college level mathematics then you have only two viable solutions:
First, go back to the K-12 system and force it to produce graduates that have competence in college level mathematics, and I don't mean entry level course for a degree in math. But this would upset too many unionized teachers and their associated union overheads.
Or, you reduce the number of high school graduates seeking to enter college to just those who have passed college level entrance mathematics tests. But this would reduce the number of college professors and their associated union overheads.
Or, get rid of the union overheads and improve the level of education at both the K-12 and college levels.
But, then that ain't going to happen either - too many union jobs lost.
Printing diplomas on the back of cereal boxes will increase the “grad” rate, too.
Damn! I knew Art History was the ticket.
What college major would you not need math?
I was a phych/poli sci major and had to take a year of statistics. I needed college algebra to be able to take that class, high school algebra would not have cut it.
Do they think that Americans aren’t testing low enough and need to be brought down even more?
Frankly, I have an idea- separation of school and state.
Why not just sell a degree? See? No academic requirements!
The teachers and principals should be ***criminally***charged for fraud for having LIED to the taxpayers, the student, and his parents on **official** government documents ( report cards and high school diploma).
Also....The teachers and principals should be **sued** silly by aggressive malpractice attorneys. Teachers and principals do have malpractice insurance. In any other profession it is **MALPRACTICE*** to lie to a client or patient and fraudulently fill out government forms.
By the way, my own children were in college before they were old enough to drive, therefore, I met **MANY** community college students ( high school graduates) who were literally learning how to add and subtract two digit numbers,, and the multiplication and division algorithms were still a complete mystery to them. For these students to have gone so far as to GRADUATE from high school they had to have had teachers and principals who ** CRIMINALLY**LIED **to the taxpayer, the student, and the parents.
Yeah! I am yelling. I am disgusted. Where are the class action attorneys when kids really need them?
Printing diplomas on the back of cereal boxes will increase the “grad” rate, too.
This is a fantastic idea. Next to the diploma can be a little coupon that you can take into your school and they could get new computers or books.
I don’t know,,,,, interesting question. I can see some disciplines that would require nothing more than basic Math. History, English, Languages, etc., shouldn’t require a lot of Math. But I don’t think they do. As an Architecture major, I had killer math/engineering requirements. I hated the course called “Statics!” “Put the front wheels of a 25.6 ton tractor trailer, 9.4 feet onto a steel truss bridge. What is the tension or compression on a strut 100.8 feet away?” Problems took two hours to solve,,, with a damn slide rule! I was a designer. I wanted to take my designs to the engineering department and say, “Here’s my design. Figure out how to build it!” Sheesh! That course was abdo-lute Hell! You’d get one problem as homework. I’d get an A one day, and an F the next. 3/4s of the way through, TI introduced the first pocket calculator. Man! What a relief! I actually put a bullet through my slide rule!
Men are Real. Women are Complex.
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