Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM • Hacker News Board

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#121

Post by thinkingtoilet » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #66

john_strinlai wrote: post #3

> “We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” they warned. i dont understand why the teachers would go out of their way to reteach middle-school math. i teach. my courses have prerequisites. if a student somehow makes it into…

Because the like teaching and believe in giving their students/customers the best possible education? I get not wanting to waste the time of the better students, but if too many student are behind, whose time are you really wasting?

But it goes both ways. If a student doesn't have the prerequisite knowledge for a class it is absolutely unfair and decidedly not the best possible education to slow the class down for students who are prepared. If a class requires X, and you don't have X, that's a you problem, not a university/teacher problem.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#122

Post by koolba » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

They got rid of paper because teachers are lazy and do not want to spend time grading things by hand.

I’ve spoken to the head of curriculum at a school asking why when given the choice of paper or digital format of a math exam, they picked the digital. I specifically mentioned it’d be inferior as students would not be able to draw atop geometry problems or cross out numbers when simplifying expressions.

The response I got was, “we encourage students to redraw the entire picture on paper as rewriting the entire question is helpful”.

It’s strictly worse. They know it is. And they do not care.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#123

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #93

What did they expect to happen? Is it one of those things when they say "They may be a professor but they can't tie their shoes!". Surely, they should have seen it coming. I see quotes from faculty there about this being "unexpected", like "the bottom dropped out". Are they just pretending to be surprised or actually surprised...

>What did they expect to happen?

A mixture.

1) They were delusional and thought SAT/ACT scores werent useful signals for selecting qualified candidates.

2) They didn't care and prioritized the ability to admit people based off race and other demographics.

And now they are resolving the dissonance between their mission and admission policy.

Johnathan Haidt detailed this dynamic a long time ago in a lecture at Duke entitled "Two incompatible sacred values in American universities." The incompatible values being "truth" and "social justice."

https://youtu.be/Gatn5ameRr8

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#124

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #113

Ekaros wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also these are most likely the first classes. You can not block most of your entering cohort. Or even any way significant part. At least in the system these professors exist in. In some other systems like say German where getting in easy and getting rid of some is normal would be different.

Do they not have remedial classes for these students? It's been more than 20 years, but back in my day, if you weren't ready for entry level classes (but still got in to university) you took remedial classes first.

The processes for delivering remedial classes no longer work at the scale required. UC San Diego published a detailed report of what's happening at their campus (https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissio...): their remedial math placement grew from 32 students in 2020 to 921 students in 2025, 665 of whom placed into an extra-remedial course covering grade 1-8 math which had not previously been needed.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#125

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #94

Ekaros wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also these are most likely the first classes. You can not block most of your entering cohort. Or even any way significant part. At least in the system these professors exist in. In some other systems like say German where getting in easy and getting rid of some is normal would be different.

This shouldn't be a hard problem to solve. At the state university I'm most familiar with, every incoming Freshman takes a math assessment test. If they don't pass it, they have to take remedial coursework (which does not count towards their degree requirements). And yes, every student takes it, even the ones with high school AP math and high SAT math scores. The only exception might be if they have already completed…

Even my local community college does it this way, I believe for both math and English.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#126

Post by JCTheDenthog » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #87

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In your scenarios, equity proponents would tend to advocate for things like extra testing time, access to tutoring, etc. So you claim, but in reality proponents of equity instituted a system that gave Black students a roughly 450 point advantage over Asian students on the SAT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/white-students-un... Note that the NYT, in their pure, non-partisan spirit of fairness and equity,…

> somehow found a way to describe this as an unfair advantage for White students Make up your mind? If their having to score higher than Black students is unfair, how is "Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites" not also unfair? What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement? As I noted elsewhere in the thread, wealth (translated to parenting time, tutoring acces…

I didn't say it was fair, I was pointing out the NYT being racially biased (as per usual). Imagine at a school that Jenny gets 10 cookies from the teacher, Timmy gets 3, and Johnny gets two. Billy sees all this, but he has a crush on Jenny, so when he tells everyone on the playground about it he doesn't say "Jenny got way more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!" Instead he says "Timmy got more cookies than Johnny, that's so unfair!". That's the ridiculousness that I'm pointing out here.

>What if raw SAT score doesn't perfectly reflect lifelong achievement?

It was never intended to?

>How does one account for that?

It's impossible to account for everything. As much as the thinkers of the Enlightenment and their successors have attempted to quantify and measure everything, it's simply not possible in reality. If someone could devise a better means of measurement than current standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, I would happily welcome them.

But one thing is pretty clear and certain: the SAT is a far better measure of mathematical aptitude that high school grades, and until better measures can be found and implemented I fully support continuing to use it for college admissions and college math placement.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#127

Post by ryukoposting » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

collabs wrote: post #49

something that came to my mind as I was reading the comments here -- the thing is that in the quest for professionalism, we have sidelined a lot of people who would be good at teaching in favor of people who are good at jumping hoops. there is a famous quote saying "when the measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure"

Goodhart's Law (that quote) is actually one of the motivations for moving away from ACT and SAT as college entry benchmarks. "Teaching to the test" is a rampant problem in the US.

UC is seeing flaws in departing from those benchmarks, though. The thing is, % of students getting admitted to college is itself a measure for schools and school districts. If GPA is how you get kids into college, well...

It's not a teacher problem, it's a district and state problem. As a teacher, if kids are failing your classes (which nowadays seems to be "getting anything less than an A") your school district blames you.

To me, it seems that Goodhart's Law is an inherent problem for education in the information era, no matter how you cut it. If there's one good thing that can be said about ACT and SAT, they're relatively difficult for schools to game. GPA inflation is trivial.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#128

Post by DonutATX » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

I suggest you glance at the novel Ananthem by Neal Stephenson. The core plot device is about "universities" stripping all worldly items away from the students, so they are left with simple clothes and chalkboards. Fascinating topic, well executed by Neal. One of my favorite books.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#129

Post by elteto » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #14

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #7

>Critics call the SAT inequitable and say high school grades are a good predictor of college success. I mean, it seems pretty clear from the last 6 years of experience by professors and others that grades (or at least grades in isolation) aren't a good predictor at all for this. The problem is removing the use of standardized tests here was done for ideological reasons. You can already tell by the use of the word "in…

> the public believe that we should push for equal outcomes ("equity") over equal opportunity (usually referred to as simply "equality") This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_equity Providing a hearing aid to someone hard of hearing so they can learn is equity. Their outcomes aren't guaranteed; an obstacle to achieving them is…

That all sounds great in theory but in practice it devolves not into only giving extra help to those in need, but also to _take away_ from those perceived to have some sort of advantage. See for example NYC's idiotic plan to close gifted and talended kindergarten programs in public schools.

The truth is that it is a hell of a lot easier to lower the bar for everyone than to raise it. I.e. it's a lot easier to make dumb kids than to make smart ones, so in the name of equity we shall have dumber ones.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#130

Post by shakna » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:12 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #118

snazz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how you restrict it with MDM profiles, it’s distracting compared to pencil/paper.

Can’t it run restricted to a single application in kiosk mode? Unless the application itself provides distraction, what would be distracting?

Blue light changes the way you think. Makes it easier to focus on the thing emitting the light, than the rest of the room. Just having a screen, with perfectly locked down control, can distract.