Joanne Jacobs and the LA Times on the sensitive topic of compulsory algebra.
From the Times:
When the Los Angeles Board of Education approved tougher graduation requirements that went into effect in 2003, the intention was to give kids a better education and groom more graduates for college and high-level jobs. For the first time, students had to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry or an equivalent class to earn diplomas.The policy was born of a worthy goal but has proved disastrous for students unprepared to meet the new demands. In the fall of 2004, 48,000 ninth-graders took beginning algebra; 44% flunked, nearly twice the failure rate as in English. Seventeen percent finished with Ds. In all, the district that semester handed out Ds and Fs to 29,000 beginning algebra students — enough to fill eight high schools the size of Birmingham.
Among those who repeated the class in the spring, nearly three-quarters flunked again.
Joanne notes:
Passing algebra and geometry has been a district requirement since 2003, a state requirement since 2004. The story implies the requirement is just another fad. But the real problem seems to be that students are enrolled again and again in the same classes they failed before. They give up and zone out.
I think we can all agree that when students don't ever learn the basics, they're doomed to failure. Darren points out that:
The real problem isn't that the students can't pass algebra, it's that in some cases they haven't been prepared to pass algebra. Granted, some don't help themselves (like the girl who missed 62 out of 93 days in the semester), but a healthy share of the problem seems, to me, to be this observation[from the Times]:At Cal State Northridge, the largest supplier of new teachers to Los Angeles Unified, 35% of future elementary school instructors earned Ds or Fs in their first college-level math class last year. Some of these students had already taken remedial classes that reviewed high school algebra and geometry.
Don't be so surprised. And the NEA and CTA want to keep American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence from providing alternative teacher credentialing here in California while keeping our state university programs in tact, focused on fuzzy, and patently irrelevant. Way to go, unions.
If elementary teachers are that shaky in math, their task of preparing students to learn algebra will be that much harder.
Posted by kswygert at January 31, 2006 06:31 AM