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

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

#581

Post by dyauspitr »

maxglute wrote: post #409
dyauspitr wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

PRC has affirmative action points on gaokao for "underperforming" minorities, well it's been phased out to economically disadvantaged minorities last few years to mitigate privilege stacking. So system not incompatible with affirmative action, but even then tier2 PRC schools the affirmative action floor is still like 95th percentile tier1 closer to 99.9 percentile, i.e. not something that can be gamed like in US by 7…

How is underperforming/disadvantaged minorities not diversity?

Also, I don’t think there’s a problem with using athletics as a criteria for admission.

Other than that, I completely agree with you.

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

#582

Post by Henchman21 »

smcg wrote: post #282
RealityVoid wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My grades were OK (except in bio, where I refused to acknowledge young Earth creationism) but not amazing. This is... Wild.

It's very common in US private schools.

Please provide a reference to this.

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

#583

Post by pasttense01 »

Something many people here miss: UCSD is a selective institution. UC San Diego’s most recent published first-year acceptance rate is about 28.4% for fall 2025, based on 136,740 applicants and 38,846 admits. UCSD’s own admissions page also summarizes this as a 28% admit rate. The lousy students aren't even going to apply since they know they will be rejected. So we are not talking about an open enrollment institution where you would expect a significant number of students to need remedial math help; we are talking about the cream of the crop of California high school graduates many of which don't know high school math.

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

#584

Post by econ »

CalRobert wrote: post #495
econ wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to set the curriculum is a much bigger deal than given credit for. So many teachers complaining about the shit they have to teach. I remember one who didn't necessarily disagree but wondered why Al Gore should be the one to decide what goes into the [mandatory] documentary (in the Netherlands)

An inconvenient truth was mandatory viewing in NL?

That's what she said.

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

#585

Post by jknoepfler »

If you're admitting students to Berkeley who can't figure out how to independently close gaps in their own knowledge quickly (formal or otherwise), you have bigger problems.

I self-taught a bunch of remedial math when I went back to University after many years out. Khan Academy exists. Math tutors exist. They don't just exist, they're amazing.

If I can self-teach basic sequences and series or polynomial factorization or whatever at the age of 30 while juggling a full time job and a full computer science syllabus, an unemployed Berkeley freshman shouldn't struggle with it unless they have a legitimate disability or something.

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

#586

Post by thinkingtoilet »

delusional wrote: post #259
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it's helpful to be that rigid about it. Both the teacher and the student has an interest in the student learning something. Sometimes we have to give each other a bit of leeway to get to the destination. There's a whole "philosophy of education" discussion I'd like to avoid, but the goal of education isn't really to educate one person to their maximum potential, but rather to educate as many people as w…

This isn't high school. This is a college, specifically for STEM majors. At what point does this not apply? Can someone take a high level Spanish course without having spoken a word of Spanish and expect the teacher to cater to them? If not, why not?

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

#587

Post by chasd00 »

nradov wrote: post #407
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Preparing for the SAT requires a book and an internet connection. Sports frequently just requires a ball or a place to run. In both scenarios, you can still purchase better equipment/training. There are very expensive, effective SAT prep options out there for the wealthy.

That's not the reality for most youth sports anymore. It's gotten much more competitive. Participating in school sports isn't enough. They generally can't develop the level of skill necessary to gain advantage in college admissions without paying a lot to participate in travel club teams and for private coaching. And I'm not talking just about NCAA recruited athletic scholarships but even for the sort of regular extr…

A friend of mine brought his girl up in club soccer, he was starting to travel to different states for tournaments when she was about 8 years old. It was insanely expensive. The only thing i can think of crazier than club soccer is maybe club cheerleading. Youth sports is completely bonkers if you've never been exposed to it.

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

#588

Post by ModernMech »

ceejayoz wrote: post #4
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…

Professors who fail large swathes of their classes get in trouble.

I was hired in my current role to replace one such professor who was fired because he insisted on giving a majority of his class failing grades. And honestly, it was the right call; he was being kind of unprofessional about it. He was teaching a very difficult subject -- C++ -- as an expert, and then getting mad that people weren't also experts at C++ within 3 months. So I agree that professors should have more control and authority over their classes, but also at the same time those professors who fail large swathes of their classes can be really unpleasant.

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

#589

Post by cindyllm »

freediddy wrote: post #576
Catloafdev wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it isn't in your personal best interest to consider switching your kids out of public schooling. The problem is that the public schools need to be fixed, not abandoned. There's a difference between "I choose to send my family to Charter schools because the public schools are in bad condition" and "we should close down public schools rather than fix them to make room for more profit in the child educati…

You fix public education by kicking out the fascist left agenda, that believes that high achievement is only from white supremacy, and lowering standards for Black and Brown kids so that they pass but leave high school completely uneducated. For reference, over 50% of Black and Brown kids that graduate from high school in San Francisco Unified School District can't read properly. That is about as racist an outcome as…

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