Comments on A Real Forehead-Slapper

• "Really, I'm smart, but . . . ."
• Posted by Silent D , Mathematics, 2009 on June 25, 2009 at 5:00am EDT

• I'm definitely with you here. During my four years of undergrad, I was a tutor with the math department, working with the very students you speak of. I couldn't tell you how frequently a ridiculously smart student studying basic algebra could do nothing but stare bemusedly at the paper. It was the same story every time. "I'm doing great in all my other classes, but I haven't seen math in two years. What's a square root, again?"

  The university didn't help the situation, either. They had recently shifted all College Algebra and Precalculus classes to a web-based, self-directed system. In essence, the students who most desperately needed a professor were denied one, instead told to just get everything done in time for the online exams. Compounded with 2 years away from math, this has been a recipe for failure.

• Sampling Bias
• Posted by Chris B on June 25, 2009 at 7:15am EDT

• Good morning,

  > We have anecdotal evidence that suggests that students who actually take math for all four years
  > of high school do better in math here than those who don't.

  I support the hypothesis that you're trying to make, that more math in high school will better prepare students for college, but there is an alternate explanation for this observation: students who do well in math are more likely to take math for all four years of high school.

  cb

• No online for developmental math
• Posted by Developmental Chair , Chair Developmental Studies at Asheville-Buncombe Tech CC on June 25, 2009 at 8:15am EDT

• This is why I strongly oppose online developmental math classes. Students coming into a community college with a poor math background are the last students that need to struggle with trying to learn the appropriate math in an online setting. They need the guidance of a good instructor to insure that they have the right background for subsequent success.

  But even those that come in with more than 2 years of high school math often place in developmental classes. They have learned the "trick" to doing particular types of problems, or they have learned what they needed to pass the state exams, but they really don't have that sense of numeracy that is so necessary to be successful in any subject with a quantitative component.

• Math scores
• Posted by pwfrank , Dean, Allied Health & Nursing at Lorain Community College on June 25, 2009 at 9:45am EDT

• I couldn't agree more that students don't get enough math in high school. Math is probably the number one reason our nursing students fail courses, and I'm talking basic stuff like addition, subtraction, etc. Isn't it important for a nurse to be able to calculate the dosage of a medicine for a patient? Duh....but they think we're penalizing them. So hooray for more math in high school. And while we're at it let's raise the bar a little higher across the board.

• 4 years of math really do help
• Posted by LC , Director Academic Assessment at University of Houston Downtown on June 25, 2009 at 10:15am EDT

• I recently worked with roughly 3000 high school students a year over a period of 4 years, helping them prepare for college. As part of the program, we talked extensively with both students and parents about the need for four years of math and encouraged students to get the best grades they could. In other words, you may only need a D in Algebra II to satisfy high school graduation requirements but there is a lot of difference between what the D student knows about math and what the A student knows. Outside of advising, we did not offer any special reviews, etc. On average, these high schools where our programs were centered were graduating students college ready in math at a rate of around 40-50%. We saw significant numbers of our students take four years of math with roughly 80-85% graduating college ready in math.

• 4 years of math, yes
• Posted by the college lady , College Advisor at Cheverus High School on June 25, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT

• We require 4 years of math because we are a college prep high school, and even then, some students struggle in college if they never advanced beyond Algebra II in high school. I advise students of the 5x4 formula: 4 years of 5 academic solids (math, science, English, history, language). Solid preparation is key to not only getting into college, but graduating in 4 years.

• ... but you are missing the point
• Posted by Curt on June 25, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT

• You only have to look as far as your local high school to understand why they only require 2 years of math. Ask the administration what they are measured on. You may be surprised to learn that one of the key metrics is drop out rate. Face it - math is difficult. If you require 3 or 4 years of math, some students are going to fail. More failures - higher drop out rate - less money for the institution. The high school attitude is - let the colleges worry about it.

• Math
• Posted by DFS on June 25, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT

• The real reason that high schools only require two years of math is that this is the only amount that most of them can teach, through recruitment.

  This is because they can't pull in enough people who understand enough basic math. Else, how could they try to teach it?

  And that is because of the trumpeted situation where so many schools actively advertise for math instructors even on a probational basis -- hey, at least agree to try, and we'll send you to some place which gives you some credentials, but now even this is through some on-line accreditation house.

  I finished high school back in 1974. Everyone, remember that time! Everyone in any graduating class then understood more math then than they do now. Everyone! It's not even arguable, otherwise.

  The reason for this is the calculator. Hell, can you even confidantly now figure out the correct tip, or do you even know how much you should spend when you swipe your (calculating) card?

• Difficult, maybe, impossible, no
• Posted by Dept Chair , Chair Developmental Studies at A-B Tech on June 26, 2009 at 9:00am EDT

• Curt suggested that schools are concerned about drop-out rates and consequently, if math is difficult, they don't want to add something that will push the drop-out rates higher. Unfortunately, it's this idea that "math is hard" that puts up road blocks to student learning.

  Many subjects can be seen as "hard", but society has given permission for us to be bad at math, to dislike math, to claim that "we just aren't math people". If schools, and society as a whole, valued becoming "numerate" like we value becoming literate, we would see many more students doing well in math classes. And yes, as someone else stated, having qualified MATH teachers in the classrooms would be a big help as well.

  As long as we allow students to avoid math, the problem will not be solved.

• Math what?
• Posted by Robin on June 26, 2009 at 8:45pm EDT

• I live in a college town - one flagship university, two comprehensive Masters, a community college, a number of satellites of four year liberal arts. Education is the number one industry. For several years, the town of 90,000 and 30 public schools has been divided on what is Math, what should be taught, when, to who, for how many years past middle school and most importantly, how to teach it?

  The conceptual, abstract math (without procedural fluency and algorithms) advocated by mathematicians was a six year disaster. Best expressed by a engineering student who graduated from our school district last year, "the first of year of engineering is not a good time to learn long division." The procedural, step-by-step process is considered "dumming down" the math curriculum by the too many quantitative professor parents in the town.

  US schools are locally controlled to meet community needs. Their original and first charge is to produce responsible, productive, employable citizens not prepare them for post-secondary education. As prep schools disappeared, public schools were left to pick up the slack. However, public schools operate as "one size fits all" -- most students do not need the math preparation required by many colleges and so rightfully so the school districts leave the advanced math to colleges. You want it; you do it. We need more plumbers than Phds.

  As a soon to be PhD with an emphasis in quantitative research methods, I know from years of experience that most Math teachers (high school and college) are poor teachers of Math. They have never struggled with it so they have a difficult time trying to teach what is another language to most students. I have struggled with math since 3rd grade; it was my desire to study economics and finance that created motivation for teaching myself and thereby become an excellent statistics teacher.

  Perhaps the new "common curriculum standards" initiative that has been signed off by most governors (my state Missouri being one of the last) will create a consensus of what and how to teach math and clearly delineate the line between the "math for responsible citizens" public school charge and the expectations of a wide-variety of post-secondary institutions.