More students = more $. Do you really think they care about whether you pass or not?
I think this is part of the answer. Education is a business like anything else.
Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
101–110 of 278 posts
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 t…
That's a great point. It's certainly possible to design a bad placement test.
It also seems that the now increasingly common format of multiple choice quizzes would be a "railroad" to designing bad placement tests - ones that verify remembering irrelevant details and how things are named/ordered/classified versus ones that verify skills and understanding of core concepts.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#103Earlier 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…
No, you are missing the point. For many years now, admissions standards have been so low that rather than teaching the courses they are scheduled to teach, college professors are forced to offer a remedial review of information that should have been mastered in high school. Many, if not most, high school graduates are functionally illiterate, lacking the basic reading and writing skills we took for granted in the rec…
I am worried that the sense of entitlement to a college education will just continue to dilute the value of a degree to where only those attending the very elite of schools will have anything of value.
Reading through this article reminds me of decades ago approaches to making sure graduation rates for high school went up. they simply changed the requirements and load, put the burden on faculty, and labeled anyone who disagreed as a bigot/racist/etc. So we ended up with students who do not know how to learn and their understanding of basic math, science, and literature, suffered.
Just what type of degree program will these young people actually obtain? Without the base Eskills how can they manage the more difficult subjects to come?
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#104The 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 proper level of education doesn't really mean college education - having 100% people go from high school to college isn't a goal, shouldn't be a goal and is not a desirable thing in any way whatsoever. For many "life paths" that any society needs going to college is a good thing, and for many of them it's a bad thing, wasting many years. This education should be available for the people who choose it, and people shouldn't be excluded for economic reasons; but for many people foregoing this choice wouldn't be a "wasted opportunity" but a good thing.
If anything, the USA education system has a problem with "overeducation" and not undereducation, mainly because weakness of vocational studies causes people to spend many extra years for gaining skills that could have been gained in a much shorter and efficient vocational study program.
It's not a problem for wealthy kids who can afford to spend a few years on the parts of the "college experience" that (in some cases) is less like investment in skills but more like a fancy self-improvement hobby, but we harm the poorer people if we make the education path unnecessarily long and thus expensive; it may make gaining the proper skills unaffordable even if education itself would be free, simply because they can't afford to waste this time without income before starting full time work.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#105The 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…
If a university lowers the bar, it will reduce the value on the job market of a degree from that university - names like Hardvard and Yale and whatnot have a high reputation, whilst they hand out degrees with the same names as other less reputable universities.
This is the only reason Harvard and Yale have any value. You could take the first year student intake at these institutions and distribute them randomly to other universities and the end result would be the same as letting the students study at Yale or Harvard.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#106Let'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…
> Let's just drop meritocracy all together. Everything is subjective, right? You mean it sarcastically, but you are literally correct. What has "merit" in so-called meritocracies is entirely subjective.
Unfortunately not. The reason meritocracy has “won” over the last 200 years is those societies that didn’t embrace it lost the wars that were fought.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#107Let'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…
college and other education should be about adding learning to the recipients and not about measurement.
People should learn things as they want, and not be required to meet arbitrary standards and degrees to obtain societal benefits.
A hundred years ago ~1% of the people went to college. Now it's more than 50%. The societal function of college has changed.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#108Earlier 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…
No, you are missing the point. For many years now, admissions standards have been so low that rather than teaching the courses they are scheduled to teach, college professors are forced to offer a remedial review of information that should have been mastered in high school. Many, if not most, high school graduates are functionally illiterate, lacking the basic reading and writing skills we took for granted in the rec…
Ha thanks. I am from Slovak Republic originally. I don't think our schools are that good to be honest but I think there is a stronger emphasis on math/physics and technical skills in schools in Eastern Europe. Probably historical reasons.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you are missing the point. For many years now, admissions standards have been so low that rather than teaching the courses they are scheduled to teach, college professors are forced to offer a remedial review of information that should have been mastered in high school. Many, if not most, high school graduates are functionally illiterate, lacking the basic reading and writing skills we took for granted in the rec…
Why would that be surprising? Hungary and Slovak Republic are countries with long traditions of strong education.
For a while, isn't that what we prided ourselves in here in America?
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course all kinds of people can land in these remedial classes if they are not prepared. Now, I ask you, which schools do a better job of preparing students for college level work, the schools white kids get to go to or the schools black kids have to go to? If you are wondering, look at the AP classes offered at say Palo Alto high school vs Crenshaw high school: http://schools.latimes.com/school/los-angeles/crensha…
Palo Alto Avg. Income: $126,771 Inglewood Avg. Income: $43,394 Wouldn't it make sense to compare like-to-like, and choose two schools in areas with similar incomes?
Just btw. but in Germany ~43,000$ would be considered a not too bad income, certainly not an income where one would expect people to have ~2.5% math proficiency.