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Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

latimes.com

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Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#81

Post by tzs »

Nickersf wrote: post #59

Let's just drop meritocracy all together. Everything is subjective, right? Seriously though, I'm worried about our future as a spieces. The knowledge and technologies we have developed, which require nurturing. We nurture modern civilization by making sure the smartest get into positions where they can express their intellect. Part of that process needs to be keeping rigours standards in place when it comes to educat…

Nowhere does the article say they are lowering standards. They are just changing how they handle students who need extra preparation in English or math.

Before: give them standard English and math tests, and if they do not pass make them take a year of non-credit remedial classes before letting them take any credit glasses.

After: everyone can take credit classes. For those that need extra work in math or English there will be programs that work concurrently with or as part of credit classes to catch them up on math or English.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#82

Post by aphextron »

userbinator wrote: post #19

The hope is that these efforts will also help students obtain their degrees sooner — one of the public university system's priorities. Cal State has committed to doubling its four-year graduation rate, from 19% to 40%, by 2025. The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar to keep grades and graduation rates…

>The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar to keep grades and graduation rates high."

No. You are completely missing the point here. Graduation requirements have not changed. Students still have to pass the same amount of classes. What this will do is allow students to have a shot at taking actual credit courses rather than being forced into noncredit remedial classes they may not actually need. Remedial courses put an undue financial and time burden on students who would be better served with a bit of motivation and support to get through actual 101 level courses.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#83

Post by WillPostForFood »

digitalzombie wrote: post #76
oculusthrift wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhh.. this is a really messed up comparison considering UCLA is the most applied to college in the world.

> UCLA is the most applied to college in the world. That's just your opinion really. It is a good school. Most applied in the world doesn't mean anything. A trade school could be more applied than UCLA. But UCLA does have Alan Kay, creator of smalltalk, and Terrance Tao one of the most famous mathematician. Also their med school is nice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-college-made-histor...

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#84

Post by aphextron »

The level of elitism in this thread is staggering. Should kids that are not at the top of their class be left to work in the salt mines? Do we just abandon the idea of educating people and make all universities a private "smart people only" club? The CSU system's mandate is to provide accessible education to all Californians. Ragging on them for working towards that goal makes no sense. The UC system is still the most prestigious, selective public university system in the world, and this will not affect that.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#85

Post by vostok »

aphextron wrote: post #82
userbinator wrote: post #19

The hope is that these efforts will also help students obtain their degrees sooner — one of the public university system's priorities. Cal State has committed to doubling its four-year graduation rate, from 19% to 40%, by 2025. The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar to keep grades and graduation rates…

>The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar to keep grades and graduation rates high." No. You are completely missing the point here. Graduation requirements have not changed. Students still have to pass the same amount of classes. What this will do is allow students to have a shot at taking actual credit…

Is there a real issue here?

First of all, isn't failing the placement test prima facie evidence that you need remedial courses?

Second, at least my school generally gave you enough rope to hang yourself if you wanted to. You want to take arguably the hardest undergraduate math class in the US? Well go ahead...

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#86

Post by camus2 »

aphextron wrote: post #84

The level of elitism in this thread is staggering. Should kids that are not at the top of their class be left to work in the salt mines? Do we just abandon the idea of educating people and make all universities a private "smart people only" club? The CSU system's mandate is to provide accessible education to all Californians . Ragging on them for working towards that goal makes no sense. The UC system is still the mo…

> Should kids that are not at the top of their class be left to work in the salt mines?

This is the canonical definition of a strawman argument.

How about looking the issue differently: what can education do to make students better at Math and English? Focus on these two disciplines.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#87

Post by vostok »

aphextron wrote: post #84

The level of elitism in this thread is staggering. Should kids that are not at the top of their class be left to work in the salt mines? Do we just abandon the idea of educating people and make all universities a private "smart people only" club? The CSU system's mandate is to provide accessible education to all Californians . Ragging on them for working towards that goal makes no sense. The UC system is still the mo…

> The UC system is still the most prestigious, selective public university system in the world, and this will not affect that.

Is the UC system more prestigious than Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, or top prepas/grandes ecoles? Even the most jingoistic American wouldn't argue that the UC system is more prestigious than Oxford or Cambridge for undergraduate studies.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#88

Post by cbhl »

vostok wrote: post #85
aphextron wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar to keep grades and graduation rates high." No. You are completely missing the point here. Graduation requirements have not changed. Students still have to pass the same amount of classes. What this will do is allow students to have a shot at taking actual credit…

Is there a real issue here? First of all, isn't failing the placement test prima facie evidence that you need remedial courses? Second, at least my school generally gave you enough rope to hang yourself if you wanted to. You want to take arguably the hardest undergraduate math class in the US? Well go ahead...

> First of all, isn't failing the placement test prima facie evidence that you need remedial courses?

No. An anecdote:

In my tenth grade science class, they had a quiz where you have to memorize the name, atomic number, and atomic size of the first 20 elements of the periodic table. You then fill in the blanks on a table with each of these fields in the columns, and some elements in the rows. I passed this test.

In the first week of my eleventh grade chemistry class, we were presented with the same quiz. I knew I had previously passed this test, so I didn't study for it -- and got an F (~40%, IIRC). My Chemistry teacher -- concerned about my poor performance on this "placement pre-test", asked if I was sure I wanted to take his course. I replied yes, and went on to be the second or third highest mark in the class (an A).

(Of course, then I went into Software Engineering in University, and the lack of labs in our Chemistry courses completely ruined my passion for the subject.)

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#89

Post by samcodes »

I TAed at a Cal State and worked in the math tutoring center. If the tests were like other standardized tests I encountered there, they probably were not a very good measurement of anything. And the remedial courses, best I could tell, did not help.

Some people seem to be interpreting this as lowering the bar. That position supposed that these tests are more accurate measurements than grades and SAT scores. I believe you are putting way too much faith in these tests. Also, the plan of "stretch" courses seems like a better one - motivation is a large factor in performance, and students will be more motivated in classes that count towards their degree, and don't tell them they preemptively failed.

K-12 education needs lots of improvement. But the Cal State system can't affect that. This is a change they can make, and it seems like it will help bring the kids who need it up to speed faster.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#90

Post by cbhl »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #54
userbinator wrote: post #19

The hope is that these efforts will also help students obtain their degrees sooner — one of the public university system's priorities. Cal State has committed to doubling its four-year graduation rate, from 19% to 40%, by 2025. The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar to keep grades and graduation rates…

As far as I can tell from the article the goal is to reduce the number of classes the students need to graduate. They are not say that that graduates will not meet the graduation requirements for math and english but that they have better ways to get them to learn what they need to learn to graduate. I have no doubt that every extra class that a student needs to take makes it less likely that he/she will graduate. It…

The Khan Academy is a great resource for those students. Ideally we would fix the system, but in the meantime we can point them to how they can use software to catch up with (and eventually surpass) their peers.

Fixing high schools for real would require us to get engaged with politics -- that's at least three more years of hard work ahead of us.

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