Gen Z college freshmen cannot do 5th grade math

Over two decades ago, public and private education began teaching to "The Test." It became imperative in every K-12 classroom for the teacher to plan their curriculum with one goal in mind: TEST SCORES. Administrators would hold teacher meetings with graphs highlighting school test scores. Websites would compare school test scores with state averages and some schools would be classified as underperforming based on their scores. Realtors posted test scores when listing homes and the value of those homes would correspond to the local school's scores. We have raised an entire generation of students that know how to "TAKE A TEST." Why are you surprised that they don't understand WHY that answer is correct or incorrect? Their experience is that out of four multiple choice answers, you can safely eliminate two and improve your odds of guesstimating the correct answer. Which is also why students and parents get so upset with high school math teachers that demand the student show their work. BTW: I'm a retired computer applications teacher that every year had to teach my students how to use a ruler, and explain why it has two sides.

Weird this was brought up after the girl complained about getting a failed grade in Oklahoma and this one immediately went to blaming dei. Right wing letsrun sleuths trying to cope and make themselves feel better

Hopping in here again to say that I really find the framing of this situation as a left / right issue highly disingenuous. The math / math-adjacent departments at the UCs that (1) probably leaked this report in the first place, and (2) are now pushing hard for the reintroduction of standardized tests in admissions are comprised of faculty with a variety of beliefs across the political spectrum, but who on aggregate lean pretty far left.

Imo if we're gonna start pointing fingers, they should be pointed at the math education people (read: these people are not mathematicians themselves) who've spent the last decade lobbying for the simplification of the CA math curriculum in the name of equity. Distilling it to a left/right political issue only serves to obfuscate the reality of the situation and ultimately lets the real grifters -- math education people who've pushed destructive education policies while making obscene amounts of money running consulting gigs for CA high schools on curriculum design / equity workshops /etc. -- off the hook.

Blaming it all on math educators is also not looking at the whole picture. I don't have time to list all the missing parts. But the biggest one is in the early 80s, I had 615 kids start 9th grade with me. Only 30 of us had algebra I in middle school. Every single one of the 30 graduated and went to at least junior college. Of the 585 others, more than 200 had dropped out by the end of our junior year. Of the other 380 or so maybe half started college for a total of about 220 out of 615. Back in the day college math was only really taught to the top 40 or so percent. These days the educators are trying to teach college math to 70 or 80 percent of those who start HS. That is a much more difficult task than what my HS teachers had.

No Child Left Behind policy + Common Core Math = massive loss of math ability for America's youth. Math was too "male" and too "White" (or Asian) so they had to dumb it down to the least common denominator. After a generation of that crap, here we are.

I blame the school system for not being tougher. Everyone passes, even if they don't learn anything. The result is a bunch of people didn't learn anything, shocker.

From what I've seen and my experiences, if someone has a bad grade because they didn't study or learn anything, they're just given a bunch of extra credit opportunities to artificially increase their grade, while still not learning anything.

This doesn't mean that you can't get a good education. It's easy to learn if you want to, the problem is it's too easy to not learn if you don't want to.

the article can't seem to decide whether the "math they cannot handle" is 5th grade, junior high, or senior year HS.

you quote it as they can't do 5th grade math which is absolutely wrong.

i was taking calculus gifted my senior year with some linear algebra coverage. a big chunk of my year was taking precal.

there's a lot of political malarkey on here. i grew up in a southern red state and i found non-gifted/honors classes very very easy and robotic, and this was decades ago. some of the people who would have been in those regulars classes are the same ones who post on facebook saying they should have been taught personal finance. as though algebra doesn't cover that.

i wouldn't be surprised if that sort of ease has only gotten worse in the post-bush testing era. but i don't buy some massive percent of kids can't do fifth grade or middle school math.

i can't speak to actual ability but tons of students don't try on the state testing which is where these stats come from because they don't matter to the students at all. There are people in calculus who will finish the math section in a couple minutes with a terrible score because they don't want to waste their time or great writers who turn in a couple sentences for the essay section. For that reason I always take these grade level %'s with a grain of salt

Maybe public education would be better if it wasn't constantly being slashed at every turn. I mean, if you're in a wealthy school district that can recruit the best teachers with years of experience and you have resources out the wazoo, then great; but if you're in a poor district where there aren't enough books and class sizes are too big because you can't hire enough teachers, then what do you expect?

100% correct. My wife has taught 5th grade in public school for 31 years and has had to dramatically lower her expectations of students. It is common to have 1/3 of her class reading 2-3 grades below level and unable to pay attention for more than a few minutes. If she tries to hold the students accountable for homework assignments or not finishing class assignments the parents go straight to administration. The administration calls her in to admonish her. The districts are afraid to anger the voters and risk losing property tax levy funding so they always acquiesce to the parents. Society has gradually defunded education. This leads to poor teacher retention and adverse selection. Who would want a low paying job where you are micromanaged and shamed all the time and society does not value you. There is so much more that teachers put up with, but in the 31 years we have been married I have watched her go from leaving for work excited to do what she loves and for the kids that she loves to now dreading every waking moment in the classroom. Not because of the kids but because of administration and parents. The good teachers are leaving early and taking their pensions as soon as they can. The job is so unappetizing that only substandard teachers are willing to stay since the young ones who would make excellent teachers recognize the futility and have options. Public school in the US is on life support thanks to the rest of us who aren't teachers and therefore do not value them.

When people say this, I really want to know, do you not have kids? Because I don't know a single parent amongst my current friends, past friends from college, or colleagues who are also parents, who would blame the school for a kids poor performance and lack of learning. They'd blame themselves first and foremost. That's not saying schools don't have a responsibility to make it easier to help a child to learn. But what the hell are you doing as a parent to make sure that learning happens no matter the educational hurdles you might face.

Sorry, I should clarify that when I say 'math education people' I don't mean secondary/postsecondary school math teachers. I have nothing but respect for them -- teaching math well is incredibly challenging, and it's only made more difficult when incentives for the school (getting kids to graduation) are misaligned with having students actually master course material.

I'm talking about the people with PhDs in math education (many of whom haven't taught serious math classes at any level in decades) who lobbied for the policy changes that got us to the situation we're in now. The people pushed some pretty destructive things -- the removal of algebra I from middle school curricula in SF, having UCs accept a non-rigorous 'data science' course in lieu of algebra II, and the drive to eliminate the SAT all come to mind.

The SAT scores got inflated at some points. Originally in 1972. The original tests were designed for a mean score of 500 (each for verbal and math). The verbal mean score had dropped to 424 so that test scores got inflated. In the 80s and 90s the math scores got increased. in 1970, 0.1% to 0.2% got an 800 on the math test. It's now up to 0.5%.

Sorry pal Israel needs our support. That's more important than silly education.

because teachers have been too busy teaching woke propaganda nonsense for the last decade

To be fair, most people don't need higher level math anyway unless they're in STEM.

And, they teach that math itself is a racist tool used to oppress people of color.

These "tests" are obsolete. In a world with AI people only have to understand math. They don't actually have to do it.