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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

#141

Post by logicchains »

yorwba wrote: post #129
danieltillett wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes wars have been won and lost for many reasons over history, but since the development of meritocracy (last 200 years) those societies that have embraced it have won all the important wars. Do you really think the nobility just rolled over and gave the middle classes all the power because they asked nicely? Edit. Actually that is exactly what merit is. Meritocracy is not rule by the just, but rule by those most lik…

Can you give examples of societies that have embraced meritocracy? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Singapore was explicitly created as a meritocracy, when it was granted independence from Malaysia by England. This was a deliberate contrast to Malaysia, where the government did and still does explicitly promote policies that benefit the Malay minority at the expense of the more economically successful Chinese minority. Singapore is now one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

Fun fact: the first president of Singapore was senior wrangler at Cambridge, which according to Wikipedia has been described as the "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain"[1].

Singapore also has one of the world's most liberal immigration policies, allowing practically anyone in who can get a reasonably paying job, instead of privileging the employment of its own citizens like most countries do.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Wrangler_(University_of...

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

#142

Post by danieltillett »

yorwba wrote: post #129
danieltillett wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes wars have been won and lost for many reasons over history, but since the development of meritocracy (last 200 years) those societies that have embraced it have won all the important wars. Do you really think the nobility just rolled over and gave the middle classes all the power because they asked nicely? Edit. Actually that is exactly what merit is. Meritocracy is not rule by the just, but rule by those most lik…

Can you give examples of societies that have embraced meritocracy? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

All the ones that speak the language you just wrote in.

More seriously any society not ruled by a hereditary nobility is a meritocracy. The nobility did not embrace this change - they just lost the war with the middle class.

I should say that no society is a perfect meritocracy and that the past winners are always conspiring to keep out the new, but overall most current societies in the modern world are a vast improvement over the old, inbred-nobility ruled alternative.

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

#144

Post by davidreiss »

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…

Saying college students should be able to pass remedial math and english tests isn't elitism.

If you can't pass a basic remedial test in basic math and basic english how are you going to take college level courses?

Where are you getting elitism from? Having some basic minimum standards isn't elitism. It's having standards.

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

#145

Post by VLM »

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…

Subjective is not an allowed thought with respect to politics, see recent events at google. My suspicion is loosening STEM requirements is a reaction to tightening political belief requirements.

My point is its not so much a weakening, as its a redirection back to the traditional place of a college for indoctrination of theology.

In a community of extreme political intolerance, algebra matters very little compared to political purity.

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

#146

Post by gruturo »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #95
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…

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…

> US students ranked 38th out of 71 countries in math, and 28th in science. Kids in Hungary and the Slovak Republic outranked us.

I understand the spirit of your example, but mentioning esp. Hungary is quite out of place. I work in an international context and have many colleagues from all over Europe - and the Hungarians absolutely kick major ass (Apologies to the HN community for the choice of language).

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

#147

Post by greeneggs »

metaphor wrote: post #140
mamon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you distributed the students admitted to Harvard among other universities their education would be impaired by the fact that the professors would have to dumb down the material taught in their classes to their less bright colleagues. Not to mention that the professors themselves would not be as smart and accomplished as Harvard professors.

A distinct flavor of hubris arises from self-proclaimed brilliance being so easily impaired by a silver spoon that isn't quite as shiny.

Yet it is certainly true. More than the professors, I think the peer group matters in pushing students to their full potentials.

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

#148

Post by VLM »

mamon wrote: post #115
danieltillett wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. If you distributed the students admitted to Harvard among other universities their education would be impaired by the fact that the professors would have to dumb down the material taught in their classes to their less bright colleagues. Not to mention that the professors themselves would not be as smart and accomplished as Harvard professors.

"the professors would have to dumb down the material taught in their classes to their less bright colleagues."

A fascinating side effect of open courseware and online lecture videos is the elimination of that peculiar historical belief. For example, per video evidence, the kids in Professor Strang's linear algebra classes are definitely not observably smarter than the kids I met in my linear algebra class. There is a small measurable quantitative difference, but in practice there is no observable qualitative difference. The much maligned concept of human biological differences observationally do not extend to mere ivy-attendance.

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

#149

Post by kfriede »

yeukhon wrote: post #66
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But then the change contradicts your statment that the purpose "is to reduce the number of classes the students need to graduate" because if a student readiness for Math and English are low, then it doesn't make sense for them to move ahead. I agree with your final point. I also believe if the current mandate is to ensure students are prepared for upper course load, then at least the entry to admission perhaps need t…

Exactly. And sticking them in a 101 level class when they really should be in remedial can end up having taking the same amount of time if that student now needs to take the class twice (or more) to pass.

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

#150

Post by dsfyu404ed »

crispyambulance wrote: post #131
40acres wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the US wouldn't have this issue if we had a strong vocational program culture.

Yes, I suspect that the real reason the students "don't need" remedial programs to complete their degrees is that the specific degrees are actually vocational rather than academic. An incoming student that can't write a cogent essay or do basic math problems simply isn't ready for any traditional degree program. The best they can do, if they're not going to grind through remedial courses, is to start training for a j…

>Yes, I suspect that the real reason the students "don't need" remedial programs to complete their degrees is that the specific degrees are actually vocational rather than academic.

x2. The more academic requirements of a 4yr degree are not strict necessities of those fields. If college is going to stand in for vocational school then it's a waste of time/effort/money to make those students take what amounts to academic fluff.

The problem is that until colleges acknowledge their vocational role every department will be pushing for every other department to require students to take a few of their classes on the basis that it is a requirement of a well rounded education (which is not the kind of education students in the more vocational programs are seeking).

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