Tucked inside Gov. Jerry Brown’s projected 2016-17 budget is a proposal for an unusual state-funded competition to address a long-standing challenge facing high school seniors: getting them better prepared for college-level math.We won't even teach Algebra 2 at my school anymore. We teach integrated math. Maybe this proposed course should prepare students for "integrated math 3".
Brown is proposing spending $3 million for a competition to develop a year-long math course that is closely aligned with the California State University’s expectations for incoming freshmen, and will help students avoid having to take remedial classes when they get there.
In higher education circles, educators increasingly refer to these classes as “developmental classes,” in part to remove the stigma that may be associated with the “remedial” label.
The governor’s budget proposal noted that a high school course already exists to better prepare students for college-level English – the Expository Reading and Writing Course – which is now being taught in most high schools in the state...
The additional high school course would mesh with the Common Core State Standards, which envisage a three-year sequence of math courses but also strongly recommend a fourth year, without specifying what that fourth-year course should be...
In particular, the new math course could help students master Algebra 2. WestEd’s Finkelstein noted that Algebra 2 is a hard, discouraging experience for many students in the 11th grade, leading them to abandon math entirely after taking the class. He estimates that 30 percent of students don’t take any math in the 12th grade. Other estimates put that figure as high as 40 percent. That means that large numbers of students are likely to arrive in college unprepared for college-level math, and that they will have to take developmental classes to catch up. It might also disqualify them altogether from admission to most UC campuses.
Read the entire article at http://edsource.org/2016/gov-brown-proposes-competition-to-create-new-high-school-math-course/94051.
2 comments:
And, since states that signed on to Race to the Top are required to assume that any student that graduates from a Common Core school is ready for college math and must be placed in credit bearing non-remedial math classes in public colleges, there should be no more need for remedial math classes. The problem is solved!
I predict the same type of math illiteracy that we now see in twenty somethings who were taught to read using Whole Language.By the way, Congress is simply renaming Common Core, not eliminating it.
Post a Comment