The University of California Changed Its Math Standards. Some Faculty Aren’t Happy (Chronicle of Higher Ed)

[ucbalumnus]

Basic statistics (which AP statistics emulates) typically need algebra 2 or intermediate algebra as a prerequisite, but some community colleges offer a special pre-statistics version with only the content needed for basic statistics.

[Medea1]

Interesting. Locally it replaced algebra 2 at our CC.

[1NJParent]

From The New York Times:

Since 2020, California has led a contentious experiment in high school math.

That year, public universities in the state — including Berkeley and U.C.L.A. — loosened their admissions criteria, telling high schools that they would consider applicants who had skipped Algebra II, a cornerstone of math instruction.

In its place, students could take data science — a mix of math, statistics and computer science without widely agreed upon high school standards. Allowing data science, the universities said, was an “equity issue” that could send more students to college. But it also raised concerns that some teenagers would be channeled into less challenging coursework, limiting their opportunities once they got there.

Now, the California experiment is under review.

On Wednesday, the State Board of Education voted to remove its endorsement of data science as a substitute for Algebra II as part of new guidelines for K-12 schools.
…
A U.C. faculty committee — which controls admission requirements for the state’s entire public university system — announced on Wednesday that it will re-examine what high school courses, including data science, meet the standards for “advanced math.”

The turnabout in California reflects the national quandary over how to balance educational standards with racial and economic equity. Could data science draw students into higher-level math? Or will offering data science as an alternative to algebra divert students from obtaining the quantitative skills required for a range of careers? Should there be a workaround if higher math is blocking some students from attending college?

In California, hundreds of high schools across the state now offer data science courses. The ability to collect and assess data is a valuable life skill, which could benefit every student.

And California is one of 17 states that now offer data science to high school students in some form, and at least two states, Oregon and Ohio, offer it as an alternative to Algebra II, according to Zarek Drozda, the director of Data Science 4 Everyone, a philanthropy-backed organization based at the University of Chicago.

The push for data science is also complicated by the wide racial disparities in advanced math, especially in calculus, which is a prerequisite for most science and math majors. In 2019, 46 percent of Asian high school graduates nationally had completed calculus, compared with 18 percent of white students, 9 percent of Hispanic students and 6 percent of Black students, according to a 2022 study by the National Center for Education Statistics.

“Many educators are justifiably concerned that the calculus pathway institutionalizes racial inequities by decreasing the number of Black and Latino students in college,’’ Robert Gould, the author of a high school data science course, wrote in a 2021 article. Data science courses, he suggested, connect students’ everyday lives to their academic careers, “which one hopes will lead to a more diverse university enrollment.’’

But in a May 2022 letter to the U.C. faculty senate committee, eight Black faculty members argued that data science courses “harm students from such groups by steering them away from being prepared for STEM majors.”

Race isn’t the only issue. Hundreds of faculty members from the state’s public and private universities have signed an open letter expressing concern that substituting data science for Algebra II would lower academic standards. Offering a way around Algebra II, they said, deprives students of their best chance to absorb the mathematical principles increasingly central to many fields, including economics, biology and political science.

There was also dissent from the California State University System. Its academic senate stated in January that the shift “threatens to increase the number of students entering the CSU who are identified as needing extra support to succeed.”

But supporters have argued that data science is important for navigating an increasingly number-centric society and would help more students go to, and graduate from, college. Jo Boaler, a math education professor at Stanford who has been a vocal proponent of data science, argued in an opinion piece in The Los Angeles Times that Algebra II is largely irrelevant for many students: “When was the last time you divided a polynomial?”

Some faculty members said that, at the very least, students and parents should understand that high school data science won’t even qualify a student to take data science in college — because undergraduate data science classes require calculus.

“The messaging is very confusing,” Brian Conrad, a Stanford professor and director of undergraduate studies in math, said. “Who would think that taking a course in high school chemistry would not be useful for chemistry in college?”

California Debates Whether Data Science Can Replace Algebra II - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

[Medea1]

So when they talk about racial equality in math are we to assume the reason black and Hispanic participation in calculus is so low because schools don’t offer them? Almost everybody takes calculus AB in our school irrespective of race. It’s a terminal class of sorts. There are some kids who stop but those tend to be few and not college bound.
Stats quoted in the article are shocking.

[evergreen5]

I am editing here. Random articles in google have a wide variety of percentages - one said 86% of high schools offer calculus, while others said the % of high school students who take calc is somewhere in the high teens to 20%.

Taking calc involves being advanced by one year, as algebra 1 has long been traditionally grade level math for 9th grade.

[citivas]

@neela1

can tell you one thing though, if standards are reduced and they subtract choices, people will gradually leave the state. A lot of those tech people that California is depending on for taxes take the education of their kids very very seriously.

As long as I have been alive I have read about how people will flee California and it will decline. They can usually find some short term stat to over-extrapolate to make the case. Yet California keeps doing fine.

California public schools have been hard hit for almost 50 years since Prop 13 in 1978 gutted property tax funding. Yet we’ve seen multiple tech booms in the state despite that. There’s thousands of private schools in the state and pocket communities people can move to for great public schools. Many people choose their community based on the schools. And as for the colleges, the UC’s have never been so popular not just in the state but nationally and internationally. UCB and UCLA have OSS and international admit rates pretty close to the ivys.

[socalmom007]

I think this article pointed out the critical conundrum. If a student opts to take data science in place of algebra 2 and loves data science, they now can’t study data science in college because that haven’t taken calculus. One could start calculus in college, even pre calculus is offered, but if you haven’t taken algebra 2, you’re out of luck.

[bluebayou]

@evergreen5

Taking calc involves being advanced by one year, as algebra 1 has long been traditionally grade level math for 9th grade.

Bingo. A kid needs to take Alg I in 8th grade and there in lies the rub for many urban schools: 1) the elementary/middle school has to offer Alg 1; and. 2) the student needs to be advanced enough to take it.

[bluebayou]

@socalmom007

I think this article pointed out the critical conundrum. If a student opts to take data science in place of algebra 2 and loves data science, they now can’t study data science in college because that haven’t taken calculus.

It’s much more than that. It means that an entering Frosh is already excluded from a huge proportion of courses & majors offered by the R1 UC. Heck, even some social science majors recommend Calc, particularly for anyone who is considering grad school.

[lkg4answers]

@bluebayou

Bingo. A kid needs to take Alg I in 8th grade and there in lies the rub for many urban schools: 1) the elementary/middle school has to offer Alg 1; and. 2) the student needs to be advanced enough to take it.

When reading the framework, this is one of the issues that they were trying to address. They were looking for more places in an academic career where students could advance in math and be able to take calculus in HS.

Some districts start identifying advanced kids in 4th grade - having them take 6th grade math in 5th grade. By 8th grade, those students completed all three years of Common Core math and then take Alg 1. Some districts allow advanced students to skip 7th grade math. If there are enough kids in the program, Alg 1 is offered in junior high. If not, the kids go to the HS to take the Alg 1.

Student in districts that don’t offer math acceleration, or matured later, or weren’t identified as “advanced” prior to HS, sometimes opt to take HS math (especially geometry or pre-calc) over the summer. For a student interested in a STEM field, taking a yearlong math course over the summer is a concern.

[momofboiler1]

Our district (not in CA) change the tracking so that the regular track now has all students getting to Calculus for senior year math.

[bluebayou]

Let’s not get sidetracked with a discussion of the State Framework – which, IMO is as much a political document as it is an education document – in this thread, which is about whether Alg II should be a requirement for Frosh admission to some of the top public Research Universities in the world.

btw: the State Framework has to address 100% of all kids in the state, whereas the University of California is only targeting the top ~12%. Moreover, all kids who start Alg I as a Frosh are on track to apply to UC. PreCalc and Calc are not requirements for admission, so taking a year of math over teh summer is not necessary for UC. (yeah, I get that many do it, but they’d be better off doing something else in life, IMO.)

[coolguy40]

I’m actually on the side of the state here. Isn’t the point of college to gain job skills? Replacing calculus requirements, which has literally no use outside of an engineering or physics major, with another class that provides a practical job skill is not a bad thing at all. Calculus is not for most people. If the student wants to major in engineering, he/she can take the math courses and catch-up. If you judge a fish on his ability to climb a tree, fish are always going to be the dumb ones, and you’re just going to attract monkeys. This is why our education system is broken. It’s the opposite of diverse.

[evergreen5]

I think the question is, on a continuum, how far back should those catchup courses go? What should be the minimum level of math required for state college admission (algebra 2 or no algebra 2)?

[1NJParent]

@coolguy40

Replacing calculus requirements, which has literally no use outside of an engineering or physics major, with another class that provides a practical job skill is not a bad thing at all. Calculus is not for most people.

While I agree that calculus isn’t for everyone, it’s required to pursue careers in many other fields beyond the most basic level (presumably the reason why people want a college degree in the first place) besides engineering and physics.

@coolguy40

If the student wants to major in engineering, he/she can take the math courses and catch-up.

If s/he hasn’t studied algebra 2 in high school, it’s going to take her/him many more years in college to catch up (math has to be studied more-or-less sequentially), if s/he can catch up at all.

[socalmom007]

There are many majors that require calculus beyond engineering and physics. Business for one. I think it’s a bad idea to limit students’ choice of major based on a class selection they made as a high school sophomore. One can still choose any major at the UC if they were in Algebra 1 or Algebra A as an 8th grader.

[roycroftmom]

But the majority of California high school grads ( and of course drop outs) will not attend a UC. Why arent there different high school tracks for those with other paths rather than assume everyone needs to be UC-prepared?

[bluebayou]

the state is not replacing Calculus for anything. It is an attempt to replace Alg II as the minimum Frosh admission requirement with another quantitative course.

[socalmom007]

There is. There is a four year algebra 1 track for students who struggle. All you need to graduate high school in California is algebra 1. Students can drop math after geometry if they choose to. What we’re talking about is tracks the UC will accept.

[roycroftmom]

Thanks for clarifying