A lightweight news hub to help decentralize the fediverse load: mirror and discuss headlines here so the giant instance communities aren’t a single choke-point.
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University of California professors are pleading with leadership to reinstate college-entrance exams ... claiming that incoming students barely have a middle-school level understanding of math and other subjects.
The fact they got rid of basic entrance standards is crazy; it results in exactly this type of outcome. I feel bad for the students trying to learn calculus while professors are forced to teach middle-school level math. This is a disservice to every student there.
Wait when the fuck did they get rid of entrance exams????!!!
Honestly, if you can't do the work, they should just stick you in remedial classes until you catch up. I took a couple of gap years and had to take remedial algebra when I went to college. Yes, it sucked, but the folks in the more advanced classes were able to learn their stuff, and I could learn it too once I caught up again.
Unfortunately in the US, the parents/students (aka “customers” at this point) will bitch about paying for extra classes that delay graduation. Standards will keep sinking until the complaining stops. That being said, I’m a big proponent of the community college route with a transfer in after finishing whatever prerequisites you can. Get caught up for a fraction of the 4-year price and knock out those pesky intro-levels while you’re at it.
I've seen people in college taking classes that were more akin to elementary math than even middle school math (generally middle-aged or older people going to school). Of course this being a community college where classes are far more affordable. I feel like there were occasionally people there who possibly could have benefited from starting one class lower. They eventually could get through the work, but that required several hours a day of getting extra help outside of class during a normal semester.
This is not new. I am 20+ years out of high school and many of my peers are math illiterate and were read to out loud in class instead of being required to read on their own time. I taught 3rd year college students in an intro statistics course who often had abysmal English language and writing skills and only basic math skills. Now I get college students who have never worked with Excel and can't handle lit reviews without chatbots.