Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by wl » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:12 PM UTC

ebola1717 wrote: post #159

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #95

Earlier 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…

Those studies are based on high school students... Yes lower-ed degree mills are a huge issue, and need regualating, but that hardly applies to CalState, which is a top tier public school: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/cal-state-la-1140

CSU is literally middle tier in the scheme of public post-secondary education in California, being sandwiched between the junior colleges on the lower end and the University of California on the higher end. While certain campuses like Cal Poly punch above their weight, the system as a whole is not selective.

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

#192

Post by matt_wulfeck » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

midnitewarrior wrote: post #138

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…

It matters if they have professors that grade on a curve. Take all of those students who wouldn't pass the math entrance exam and put then in the same College Algebra class. They are all terrible students but the curve grading passes 80% of them. > allow students to have a shot at taking actual credit courses rather than being forced into noncredit remedial classes they may not actually need If the placement tests ar…

> If the tests are flawed, fix the tests, don't eliminate them.

The tests are fine and we know it. The students are bad and so are their parents, who were also bad students.

Source: I was a bad student who had to change a lot in life. Magically when my attitude towards school changed so did my grades. Teachers can only do so much yet burden almost all of the blame.

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

#193

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

bloaf wrote: post #8

This is part of a long and slow change in the role of higher education. Previously, college was seen as being for people who academically deserved it. College was not for teaching high-school level concepts, it was for teaching advanced concepts to students who had already demonstrated some bona fides. Now, it is seen as an extension of high school; the onus is on the college to mold all comers into more educated and…

College was not for teaching high-school level concepts, it was for teaching advanced concepts to students who had already demonstrated some bona fides ... the onus is on the college ... even if that means re-teaching the basics.

If I put on my tinfoil hat, I start to think that the UC change is intended (at least in part) to avoid exposing the failures of California's primary and secondary schools. If they stop doing these tests, it becomes more difficult to demonstrate that the education up through high school was a failure.

EDIT: formatting

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

#194

Post by nradov » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #179

rtpg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the US system has its issues relative to other places, but I have never seen research showing that people are in fact worse going out. In fact, I feel like I've seen a study showing that the "new math" teaching methodologies that get parents so mad nowadays end up with kids being better at math...

Funny, my kids' math teachers have all stated to me, in public not whispers, they hate the "new math" and it is inhibiting them from teaching math correctly. Since I wasn't educated in the "new math" as a kid I have difficulties helping my children with their homework, which the teachers also admitted to being a problem. Typically I just show them how to solve the problem the way I learned and they pick it up much qu…

The Common Core math curriculum is actually quite good and based on solid academic research on how to best teach those concepts to the majority of kids. Most of the parents complaining about it just haven't taken the time to read through their children's textbooks and understand the alternative techniques.

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

#195

Post by matt_wulfeck » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:19 PM UTC

It's easy to get trapped in those courses. I took the placement test and tested way lowered in math because I basically wasn't very good. The class was extremely difficult for me. I remember being required to solve square roots by hand without a calculator ("show your work!"). Probably fun for some people but I was going to be there forever, and programming was a breeze.

Instead I simply studied the placement exam, retook it and passed into college level math and dropped my other classes. Higher level math classes are much easier in my opinion because there isn't the same emphasis on process but instead on competency. This is also the biggest difference between high school and college classes in my opinion.

Later on life i do enjoy solving square roots by hand for fun.

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

#196

Post by michaelchisari » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

orbifold wrote: post #110

michaelchisari wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An average 1 bedroom in Inglewood ranges from $1350 to $1600 a month. An average 2 bedroom ranges from $1650 to $2000 a month.

Someone making $43k a year would end up with $2,667.51 a month as take home pay. This would not include health insurance, which could run anywhere from $100 to $400 a month (and potentially much, much higher).

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

#197

Post by wl » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #188

talmand wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, my kids' math teachers have all stated to me, in public not whispers, they hate the "new math" and it is inhibiting them from teaching math correctly. Since I wasn't educated in the "new math" as a kid I have difficulties helping my children with their homework, which the teachers also admitted to being a problem. Typically I just show them how to solve the problem the way I learned and they pick it up much qu…

Does Common Core use what we called "the new math" back in the 1960s? (Tom Lehrer's song is probably as good an intro as any.) Good math teachers seem to be hard to find. That was true in my school days also.

There's some similarities. The old new math was all about learning abstractions early. The new new math is all about approaching math problems from many different angles to build a sense of when you'd use certain techniques and why they work. The common thread is a lack of emphasis on rote application of algorithms without explanation of how they work. Arguably, that's less important in the era of pocket calculators and computers.

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

#198

Post by mannykannot » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

From the executive order:

Students whose skills assessments indicate academic support will be needed for successful completion of general education written communication or mathematics/ quantitative reasoning courses shall enroll in appropriate college-level, baccalaureate credit-bearing courses that strengthen skills development to facilitate achieving the appropriate general education student learning outcomes. Supportive course models may include, among others, co-requisite approaches, supplemental instruction, or "stretch" formats that extend a course beyond one academic term. In these approaches, instructional content considered pre-baccalaureate may carry a maximum of one unit and shall be offered concurrently with a college-level, baccalaureate credit-bearing course.

Taken at face value, this says that the academic burden will be increased for the weakest students. Excuse me for being skeptical (that this will work or that this is how it will actually be done; take your pick.)

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

#199

Post by toast0 » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:38 PM UTC

I know someone who teaches (or taught, I guess) remedial math at CSULB. From what I've heard, her students do seem to need the classes. A large number of the students don't show up to class, and many of those that do attend have trouble with the class and may not pass. There has been a lot of pressure from administrators to increase the pass rate.

I wasn't aware they didn't allow taking courses for credit before passing the remedial classes though. It seems to me that you could take some general Ed or major courses, but science and engineering without math requirements is hard, and humanities courses without paper writing skills is also hard.

It doesn't make any sense to me to pay CSU level tuition if you're not going to get credit if you pass the course. It would be better to redirect these students to a community college, where the costs to the students are lower, and offer a guaranteed spot for them to transfer in when they can earn credit. Some amount of connection to the CSU may help with student motivation.

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

#200

Post by agentgt » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 3:39 PM UTC

purple-again wrote: post #189

agentgt wrote: post #186

You might be asking how one fails the state testing (then gets put in remedial class) but gets accepted to college (particularly a CA state one). Let me tell you a funny yet embarrassing story. I went to GaTech and I failed the English Regents test not once but twice! Now at first I thought it was my fault. I didn't really take the test seriously. However I was seriously embarrassed. After all this was Georgia not Ca…

I feel that this story needs a date to make any sense. 2015? Wow that's completely ridiculous and infuriating. 1984? Yeah that makes sense, handwriting was a critical skill for effective communication in the college setting.

I believe it was circa 2001. My whole life I have had terrible penmanship but most teachers still had the ability to read my writing.

There were a couple of other problems that exacerbated the situation. I believe you had to use their pencils and their blue notebook. This was a problem for me because by that time I had gotten quite accustomed to typing and when I did write I used a high end mechanical drafting pencil.

I didn't find out about the illegible part till I had my college's dean check out why I had failed it yet again.