Probably depends on the high school, since some public high schools have aligned their graduation requirements with the minimum course requirements for frosh admissions at the state universities. Example: http://www.sfusd.edu/en/graduation-college-and-career/graduation-requirements/overview.html .
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/csu-uc-a-g-comparison-matrix.pdf indicate that the state universities want to see geometry and algebra 2 (or higher) for frosh applicants.
Three years of math is satisfied with pre algebra, A1a and A1b. No where in that doc does it say A2 is required. A public high school in many areas of California with an A2 requirement would have dismal graduation rate. Our school has enough trouble getting many through 1a and 1b, with many taking multiple times.
Here is another large school district in California that requires geometry and algebra 2 to graduate:
https://www.ousd.org/Page/1303
Graduation rates in this district are poor, but increased the year that they raised the requirements to conform to CSU/UC a-g entrance requirements:
https://www.ousd.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=15553&ViewID=7B97F7ED-8E5E-4120-848F-A8B4987D588F&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=15761&PageID=25
What is probably the biggest school district in California also requires math that conforms to CSU/UC entrance requirements (geometry and algebra 2):
You cannot teach a even half-rigorous intro college statistics course sans algebra…
@MYOS1634 where I took Stats (Santa Monica College) Intermediate Algebra was a prerequisite.
“For SFUSD, 54.6 percent of students completed the course sequence with a grade of C or higher.” But 86.5 percent graduated? The math doesn’t add up.
That’s a big difference.
Special needs students can get a waiver for this. That can be 10-15% of the district. There may be other waivers.
Also, a “D” grade is passing for high school but does not meet a-g requirements.
High schools allow D grades to pass courses and get credit to fulfill graduation requirements, even though C grades are needed to count courses for university entrance requirements (and a GPA higher than the 2.0 that one would get with all C grades is typically needed for university admission).
At our high school you can’t go on to the next semester in the math sequence with a D. So at most you could get a D in the last semester of Algebra 2.
Back in the old days I was forced to go to the second semester of Algebra 2 even though I was failing.
@mstomper that seems rather pointless!
Another thing that would be a challenge at our school is offering more sheltered (ELL) classes. They currently offer sheltered Geometry I believe, but not sheltered Algebra 2.
Our schools also offer summer credit recovery classes that are taken at the school but on computers. I’ve heard that these online math courses are easier to pass. There was an LA Times article on this topic within the past week.
Looks like Cal State will also be making changes in an effort to increase the graduation rate from 19% (What!) to it’s goal of 40%.
They will no longer require placement exams and remedial classes for freshmen.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-cal-state-remedial-requirements-20170803-story.html
The stated reason, is that the classes are not very effective, it’s expensive for the student (as these remedial classes don’t count toward graduation), and the frustration of taking this classes lead to students failing to graduate.
So, the CC system is thinking of dumping college algebra as a graduation requirement, while the CSU’s are dumping remedial classes (like math). If the CSU’s show any improvement from dropping the remedial classes, I expect the same action would be taken at the CC level.
As a side note, the Florida CC system was forced by the state legislature to drop remedial classes, for basically the same reason, to reduce cost (for the student and state) and improve the graduation rate. It’s been successful, but the CC’s will claim that’s due to increase tutoring.
@Gator88NE
In contrast, top schools seem to be tightening requirements. If a 4 on an AP exam used to receive credit it many now require a 5, or credit may no longer be accepted.
The gap between schools continues to widen. Low ranked schools are expecting less and top schools are expecting more.
Re: #74
Careful reading of the article makes it look like they are not dropping remedial courses entirely, but combining them with the first non-remedial courses, as well as using high school grades and ACT or SAT scores for placement purposes instead their own tests. I.e. someone whose high school grades and ACT or SAT scores indicate remedial need in English may be recommended to take a first English composition course that includes remedial support (and may be a higher number of credit units and workload than the regular first English composition course).
Of course, the need for remedial support in the first place does not look good for the high schools.
The article touches on several of these issues…
Being enrolled in a 3-credit regular class with 2 credits of tutoring seems to work better - probably because the student receives support for higher level work but also because they take fewer classes (2 5credit classes +1 regular class would be full time).
I’m sure CSU’s can keep the math requirement by diversifying the classes, perhaps offering a class over two-quarters?