I bet these students know all about equity, social justice, and the latest progressive gender trends. You know, the important stuff.
Newsweek reports:
Students at California University Without 8th Grade Math Skills SkyrocketsA sharp rise in students entering the University of California system without middle school-level math skills is raising alarms among educators.A new internal report from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) reveals that the percentage of incoming students scoring below Algebra 1 on placement exams—a math course typically completed by the end of eighth grade—has tripled over the past five years.Why It MattersIn 2020, just 6 percent of first-year students at UCSD placed below Algebra 1. By 2025, that number had surged to 18 percent, according to the UCSD Senate Admissions Working Group (SAWG) report.The findings reflect a growing disconnect between high school transcripts and actual college readiness. The SAWG report links the increase to pandemic-era learning disruptions, long-standing inequities in California’s K–12 system, and the elimination of standardized testing requirements in UC admissions.What To KnowThe number of UCSD students requiring Math 2, a course originally designed for less than 1 percent of the incoming class, surged from under 100 students annually to over 900 by fall 2024.“In Fall 2024, the numbers of students placing into Math 2 and 3B surged further, with over 900 students in the combined Math 2 and 3B population,” the report notes. “This represents an alarming 12.5 percent of the incoming first-year class.”Math 2, once intended to cover high school topics like Algebra I and II, has been redesigned to focus “entirely on elementary and middle school Common Core math subjects (grades 1-8).” A new course, Math 3B, was created to handle high school-level content.
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