California wants to offer data science as part of the math curriculum in lieu of other math classes, so it seems like it’s very much part of the issue being discussed.
This is from an Education Week article published on Tuesday, July 12 -
" On Tuesday, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that a faculty committee governing the University of California system admissions voted to end a policy that would allow high school data science courses to count toward UC’s math requirement. Data science courses would no longer satisfy its college admissions standard."
Thanks for the update.
btw: the title of this thread is teh University of California wrt to admission standards, not the State dept of Ed’s K12 math curriculum. (UC and the State Department of Ed are constitutionally separate entities.)
UCs usually do what politicians want them to do. Faculty was against dropping the SAT, but nobody listened to them. Same will happen here I guess. If political leadership there decides Algebra 2 is an equity issue, it will go.
I’m a bit confused. According to the news release from California Dept of Education, the revised math framework for CA public schools has been officially approved:
California Approves Revised Math Framework - Year 2023 (CA Dept of Education)
Does that mean some graduates of CA public high schools may be automatically disqualified from attending UC?
I don’t think that there has ever been a complete overlap between UC requirements and CA high school graduation requirements, so it was already the case that some graduates of CA public high schools may be automatically disqualified from attending UC.
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As @mtmind said, graduation requirements for CA high schools aren’t the same as UC requirements. It’s up to the high schools to explain this to the students and make sure that the students fulfill the requirements they need.
For example, here is the comparison page in our high school’s course catalog (2023-24 school year). Counselors try to make sure that students’ schedules fulfill both sets of requirements, and college bound students typically go far beyond the UC requirements. But if students are having trouble passing classes, the bottom line is to fulfill HS graduation requirements so that the student can graduate. Not every student is aiming for a UC/CSU or other 4 year college. Our HS also offers a lot of CTE (vocational) classes that can lead to careers directly out of HS / community college.
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Correct, the minimum HS graduation requirements are lower than UC / CSU minimums. However, some high school districts have made their course requirements the UC / CSU minimums (plus stuff like health and PE).
But not all high school graduates who complete the UC / CSU course requirements can be admitted, since some may have grades that are too low (either GPA, or D grades that are passing for high school but do not allow the course to count for UC / CSU).
In terms of the CA Math Framework I (parent) sat through almost all of the public commentary and read through a majority of the public commentary. Almost all public comments were opposed to the framework. The original framework had such obvious bias that one of my teenagers reported it as an incidence of anti Asian hate to an Asian American group tracking bias. And the meetings were actually pretty wild. The committee members were completely dismissive of parents and mathematicians. It was bonkers.
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I thought this was a really interesting piece, written mainly from an econ analyst I follow. I was aware of the Texas opt out program for advanced math and the evidence seems to indicate that is a better way to close achievement gaps than not offering to teach it at all.
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Our public school did exactly what was discussed in the article in Dallas - raised the bar for math across the board for everyone. No more artificial barrier for accelerated math in middle school, so now everyone is tracked to reach calculus by senior year.
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California once tried a statewide policy to start all 8th grade students in algebra 1 (which would lead to calculus in 12th grade for students who continued every year). But too many students failed and had to repeat algebra 1 in 9th grade, so the policy was dropped.
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I don’t think we have enough data here yet. This should be the year that all those 8th graders take algebra 1.
What has happened is an onrush of parents fighting to have their kids accelerated beyond algebra 1 and the district caved and started offering a summer option for geometry for rising 9th graders.
Just to point out that Texas requires the statewide assessment tests in 5th grade, and tracking to honors math in 6th grade (to algebra in 8th) was based on scores. Not every child was tracked into algebra, but if you had the scores you had to opt out, rather than in, which increased the number of kids taking the courses, while not impacting the success rate at all.
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Do you have data supporting this?
Interesting our very large district uses this big tent approach to higher level math and gifted education both. Both are written into the district’s desegregation plan. If you have good grades and state test scores you be automatically be moved and counseled into one of three higher level tracks automatically. And gifted testing meets every criteria for equity you can think of (everyone tested, automatic boost for low income kids, parent request, entry for academic achievement, special track for profound giftedness), identification in the arts, etc. But when 70% of your students are poor and most of the surrounding districts are not it is hard to show off.