UC Faculty Demand Return to Standardized Testing, Citing ‘Severe’ Math Deficits
“Without standardized testing in admissions, professors said they don’t know whether incoming students can handle college-level math.”
Some of these professors claim they’re being forced to teach middle school math to college students.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
Citing ‘severe’ math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM applicants
More than 600 University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at UC Berkeley, are calling on the system to reinstate standardized testing requirements for science, technology, engineering and mathematics applicants, saying that six years of test-free admissions has not reliably assessed readiness and professors are often teaching middle school math to incoming students.
Without standardized testing in admissions, professors said they don’t know whether incoming students can handle college-level math. The open letter, addressed to top UC leaders, asks for SAT or ACT exams to be required beginning in fall 2027 and for STEM faculty to be given formal oversight of readiness standards in their majors.
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” they warned.
Over three years — from fall 2021 to fall 2023 — the letter said, at least 20% of Berkeley first-semester calculus students who took a diagnostic exam showed deficits. “Basic mathematical fluency is analogous to literacy; without it, success in university-level STEM becomes structurally unattainable for students,” faculty wrote.
The letter lands days before the UC Academic Senate’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools is scheduled to discuss system-wide admissions changes, which could be the first step toward a possible return of standardized testing at the nation’s largest public research university system.
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Comments
I had a cousin who treated his car like today’s admins and faculties treat their universities.
His car didn’t last long, either. Soon, he didn’t have one, or any way to get to a job with which he could buy another one.
I only wish they could spend some of their lives in prison too, like he did,
Math is racist?
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