Over 280 University of California STEM faculty members have signed an open letter calling on the UC Board of Regents to

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am surprised so few of them signed this letter. Where are the rest? Are they happy with the current state of UC education?

You think 280 STEM professors at Berkeley isn't a lot? That's half the total STEM faculty.

It's 280 all over the UC system, not just Berkeley.

Not all professors agree with this. I don’t know why they’re recommending the SAT when the UC system was supposed to be developing its own rigorous exam designed by UC faculty.

They looked into the CAASPP as an alternative. The CAASPP is California's state-wide academic barometer test given to different grades, like 8th, 11th. The same racial disparities that afflicted the SAT were found in the CAASPP. The use of standardized testing is a very sensitive one in California because there is the belief that white supremacy has infected the entirety of how academic achievement is measured and that whatever path California takes has to be completely distinct from all past iterations.

The UC system looked at developing its own test but decided against it.

And that’s their problem. I don’t doubt UC admissions when they say they have data on each high school spanning decades. Developing their own test means an ability to accurately assess where the skill gaps remain in California public schools and having a quantifiable way to make recommendations rather than throwing out “x% of students failed and aren’t ready.”

Gaps will always exist, because income isn’t uniform across racial lines. We need to get past the inequality part and start solutions. The SAT is alright- it really leaves a lot to be desired in terms of rigor and substance over form.

It's more than income. Black students from the highest earning families score about the same as white students from the lowest earning families on the SAT. If you waved a magic wand and blew away the racial income gap, the SAT gap would narrow slightly but not disappear. The problem is more intractable than most people realize.

When affirmative action was around, liberals tended to support it because they were in denial about how big the gaps actually were, and figured it was just a small thumb on the scale. Conservatives tended to oppose it because they were also in denial about how big the gaps actually were, and figured URMs could just work a little harder to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Both were wrong, and the UC system is finding out the hard way.

There’s a lot of research showing that these gaps close when you have the white and black student in the same school. The gap explains a difference in choices by upper middle class black and white parents, not an inherent gap by race (which would imply black people are dumber).

One can spout all day about how these issues are cultural, but I find this unproductive and divisive. Everyone of every income level can do calculus I, as long as their brains aren’t pan fried by some intellectual disability. Learning algebra isn’t unique to white and Asian people; it’s something we should all feel comfortable doing, but don’t because we’ve been fed divisive lies about ability, talent, and yes victimhood.
-black person whose major required calculus in every course.

+1. Reminds me of a talk I went to by Glenn Loury

The only message conservatives have figured out to tell the black mother living off food assistant and public housing is “BE ASIAN! BE JEWISH”…are you serious? No wonder they hate you

I don't know about Jews but Asians generally think that a lot of academic ability comes down to effort and sacrifice. The people in America seem to think academic ability is inborn and color coded.

Citation?

Oh wait. You’re full of crap.

What would you accept as proof that asians generally believe that a lot of academic ability is a matter of effort and sacrifice. I think the notion that americans think academic ability is inborn and color coded is pretty obvious on its face.

Why not post a source? It takes a little time, gets everyone on track, validates your point, and as you say “is pretty obvious.” Racial disparities in education is highly studied.

I'm asian, I can tell you what we believe but if that's not good enough, here is a peer reviewed paper saying that the asian white achievement gap is actually mostly an effort gap.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1406402111

Here is an article that refers to the above paper and adds some useful commentary

https://www.discovermagazine.com/asian-americans-are-high-achievers-because-they-work-harder-11260

The religion of education is a large driver of the population collapse in places like Korea and japan.

I wasn't combatting you. I agree with you and want this incessant arguing to have a final nail in the coffin.

Here's the thing that people don't seem to understand about asians and their relationship with education.

We know that a lot of our kids are not going to harvard, in fact we know that most of them are going to community college or non-flagship state schools.
But if we can turn our C- student into a B+ student by instilling our cultural fanaticism of education into them, that shift from a C- to a B+ will have shifted the trajectory of our child's life.
We think academic ability is malleable. Much more so than American do. The words "I'm just not good at math" sounds "I don't like math" to us. Anybody that is not mentally handicapped can be reasonably good at math up to geometry and almost everybody can get a working knowledge of up to calculus. Maybe you're not building bridges but you can price a mortgage.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:280 is a really paltry number for the size of UC. This is simply rage bait for anti CA MAGAs.

1. UCs require placement tests, so the unprepared students aren’t walking into Calculas.
2. UCs focus on conceptual math and don’t allow calculators which is the exact opposite of what is happening in high school. You can get a 750+ on the math SAT, a 5 on AP Calculus, score high enough to place into Calculus and still struggle. This is great and I’m glad they do it this way.
3. Some UCs have math professors and TAs with such strong accents that no one outside their region can understand them.
4. Math courses are weeder courses for STEM and economics. You have top students and cheaters at the top but then #2 /#3 drop too many to the bottom. The school wants a bell curve for distribution but they have a K.

The reality in CA is that there isn’t a bell curve if your class is representative of the geography, race and socioeconomic groups in CA. UCs could reinstate the SAT but that doesn’t mean that they would scrap the geographic and socioeconomic goals. Using the SAT would not reopen seats for high performing Asians and Whites.

Ultimately what needs to happen is there needs to be better math instruction in public schools AND the top students in poor schools need to be separated into honors classes that are not filled with unmotivated students. CA has taken away tracking at many poor schools so the brightest kids are stuck with loser kids who constantly disrupt the class. So who supports detracking and does not believe the top Latino and Black students should be grouped into high performing math classes- yup you guessed it UCSD's School of Education.

UCSD runs a charter middle and high school of 850 students that is on UCSD's campus where 93% of students qualify for Free/Reduced Price Lunch, with Hispanic students making up 57% and African American 22%. There are NO honors math classes at the school. They do NOT even offer AP Calculus (not even AB) only non-honors Calculus. They don't offer true honors English since the ONLY 9th and 10th grade English classes are called Advanced English.

So how does UCSD do teaching this population. Well only 33% of AP exams taken at the school received a score of 3 or higher. Only 13% exceeded math standards in 8th grade and 25% in 12th grade. These students are mixed in the same class as the 65% of students who received scores of not passing (received scores of not met or nearly met) in 8th grade and the 50% who didn't pass in 11th grade. How are smart poor kids supposed to thrive in this environment?

Maybe UCSD should be looking at the high school that is on their campus and realize this model for teaching math doesn't work. How are they not mortified at what is going on?

And how does this compare to the affluent high school by UCSD called La Jolla High School that is 7 miles away? Of course they track students into regular and advanced math. They also offer dual enrollment community college math classes at the high school - MESA COLLEGE MATH 150 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY I (Fall) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 151 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY II (Spring) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 254 (INTRO TO LINEAR ALGEBRA) (Fall)Grades 11-12, and MESA COLLEGE MATH 245 (DISCRETE MATH) (Spring) Grades 11-12. You get a completely different education if you are a top student here.

The other point is how lazy UCSD is about actually teaching the remedial class once they get admitted. Student who are in that class are often the ones who attend horrifically bad high schools in the poorest areas of the state. They never got quality instruction in math. (There was an article about a student who was enrolled in AP Calculus at Lincoln High in San Diego and because they couldn't get enough students to take the class the school dropped the calculus class two weeks before the end of the first semester. The school then enrolled all the students who were in the class into Ceramics. This seems like a crazy story but it is true! This is what the poorest students often face trying to take math.) UCSD instead of actually having a person directly teaching the class they sit the students in front of computers on a curriculum called Aleks and students have to complete work all online. If they have question they can ask the TA proctoring the class but no one is actually teaching the students. And like the post above says, many students really can't understand some TA's due to really strong accents.

UC's could make everyone take a placement exam in April /May and then tell anyone majoring STEM who doesn't pass they need to take a community college class or take an intensive math class over the summer at the UC.

La Jolla high school is a majority white school. Compare apples to apples.

So the white students get rigorous classes while the brown kids get access only to remedial classes? How is this fair? If you want to hold all students to the same standard then they all need the same opportunities to advance. In too many poor schools, bright students are not grouped together in honors classes. They are constantly being held back by disruptive students.

UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla High?

Of course it doesn’t! Why would a UC school
Have any control over local public elementary schools?

this comment doesn't make any sense.

The PP said “UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla high?” Of course it doesn’t

You're really struggling with reading. it's because the PP's comment didn't make sense. Why are they talking about fairness of classes when La Jolla is an independent high school (why did you say public elementary school?) and has nothing to do with UCSD's charter public high school.

La Jolla High school is a public high school that is part of San Diego Unified School District. The closest high school is Preuss Charter School on the campus of UCSD. It is the height of hypocrisy for any STEM faculty at UCSD to be appalled at the math placement exams when the public high school on UCSD's campus has awful math test scores. They offer ZERO honors math classes and don't even offer AP Calculus. They need to take a walk and see what is being offered to high school kids on the UCSD campus.

People are clamoring for students to be treated the same and for UC's to go back to using SAT's. If high performing high school students in ALL high schools had the same opportunities that would make sense. The problem is they do NOT. For some crazy reason University Schools of Education push for detracking at poor schools. Affluent public school parents push back and insist there be tracking so their kids are challenged. San Diego Unified Math Department declared middle schools and high schools couldn't track, which goes along with what they publish under what students will learn in high school math classes, which the number one thing they list is "Building a Community of Math Learners". Yet somehow La Jolla High and its feeder schools were allowed to keep tracking and offering honors math classes.

For better or worse the juvenile incarceration rate in CA has fallen 75% between 2000 and 2023. Where do you think those kids who used to go to juvenile hall and juvenile camps are? They are attending poor schools and wreaking havoc. It used to be in these poor schools the academically advanced kids were able to be sheltered in honors classes, but now there is this tragic push that the top students shouldn't be isolated from the lowest performing students. They took honors classes away so those poor, brilliant kids are sitting in regular English and math classes with students who are far below grade level and kids who wouldn't have been in a regular public high school 20 years ago because they were too disruptive.

It is ridiculous that 40 years ago Jaime Escalante at Garfield High in LA (Stand and Deliver) showed that if you provide rigorous curriculum to poor students and give them opportunity to learn, they can excel, yet the model today is to lower expectations for poor students. In 1987 there were 73 students at that poor, primarily Latino High school that passed AP Calculus. Escalante ended up leaving Garfield High due to a large part that a new principal and administration didn't think was right all the emphasis was going toward the top students and not toward remedial students.

[Anonymous]

RWNJ talking points are off-base strawman arguments.

The goal of math reform is to get MORE kids taking MORE math.

The often-maligned-by-MAGAs E3 Alliance has been pushing to get more kids into Algebra 1 for 8th grade (via opt-out for TX).

And to have more kids take 4 years of math in HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:280 is a really paltry number for the size of UC. This is simply rage bait for anti CA MAGAs.

1. UCs require placement tests, so the unprepared students aren’t walking into Calculas.
2. UCs focus on conceptual math and don’t allow calculators which is the exact opposite of what is happening in high school. You can get a 750+ on the math SAT, a 5 on AP Calculus, score high enough to place into Calculus and still struggle. This is great and I’m glad they do it this way.
3. Some UCs have math professors and TAs with such strong accents that no one outside their region can understand them.
4. Math courses are weeder courses for STEM and economics. You have top students and cheaters at the top but then #2 /#3 drop too many to the bottom. The school wants a bell curve for distribution but they have a K.

The reality in CA is that there isn’t a bell curve if your class is representative of the geography, race and socioeconomic groups in CA. UCs could reinstate the SAT but that doesn’t mean that they would scrap the geographic and socioeconomic goals. Using the SAT would not reopen seats for high performing Asians and Whites.

Ultimately what needs to happen is there needs to be better math instruction in public schools AND the top students in poor schools need to be separated into honors classes that are not filled with unmotivated students. CA has taken away tracking at many poor schools so the brightest kids are stuck with loser kids who constantly disrupt the class. So who supports detracking and does not believe the top Latino and Black students should be grouped into high performing math classes- yup you guessed it UCSD's School of Education.

UCSD runs a charter middle and high school of 850 students that is on UCSD's campus where 93% of students qualify for Free/Reduced Price Lunch, with Hispanic students making up 57% and African American 22%. There are NO honors math classes at the school. They do NOT even offer AP Calculus (not even AB) only non-honors Calculus. They don't offer true honors English since the ONLY 9th and 10th grade English classes are called Advanced English.

So how does UCSD do teaching this population. Well only 33% of AP exams taken at the school received a score of 3 or higher. Only 13% exceeded math standards in 8th grade and 25% in 12th grade. These students are mixed in the same class as the 65% of students who received scores of not passing (received scores of not met or nearly met) in 8th grade and the 50% who didn't pass in 11th grade. How are smart poor kids supposed to thrive in this environment?

Maybe UCSD should be looking at the high school that is on their campus and realize this model for teaching math doesn't work. How are they not mortified at what is going on?

And how does this compare to the affluent high school by UCSD called La Jolla High School that is 7 miles away? Of course they track students into regular and advanced math. They also offer dual enrollment community college math classes at the high school - MESA COLLEGE MATH 150 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY I (Fall) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 151 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY II (Spring) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 254 (INTRO TO LINEAR ALGEBRA) (Fall)Grades 11-12, and MESA COLLEGE MATH 245 (DISCRETE MATH) (Spring) Grades 11-12. You get a completely different education if you are a top student here.

The other point is how lazy UCSD is about actually teaching the remedial class once they get admitted. Student who are in that class are often the ones who attend horrifically bad high schools in the poorest areas of the state. They never got quality instruction in math. (There was an article about a student who was enrolled in AP Calculus at Lincoln High in San Diego and because they couldn't get enough students to take the class the school dropped the calculus class two weeks before the end of the first semester. The school then enrolled all the students who were in the class into Ceramics. This seems like a crazy story but it is true! This is what the poorest students often face trying to take math.) UCSD instead of actually having a person directly teaching the class they sit the students in front of computers on a curriculum called Aleks and students have to complete work all online. If they have question they can ask the TA proctoring the class but no one is actually teaching the students. And like the post above says, many students really can't understand some TA's due to really strong accents.

UC's could make everyone take a placement exam in April /May and then tell anyone majoring STEM who doesn't pass they need to take a community college class or take an intensive math class over the summer at the UC.

La Jolla high school is a majority white school. Compare apples to apples.

So the white students get rigorous classes while the brown kids get access only to remedial classes? How is this fair? If you want to hold all students to the same standard then they all need the same opportunities to advance. In too many poor schools, bright students are not grouped together in honors classes. They are constantly being held back by disruptive students.

UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla High?

Of course it doesn’t! Why would a UC school
Have any control over local public elementary schools?

this comment doesn't make any sense.

The PP said “UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla high?” Of course it doesn’t

You're really struggling with reading. it's because the PP's comment didn't make sense. Why are they talking about fairness of classes when La Jolla is an independent high school (why did you say public elementary school?) and has nothing to do with UCSD's charter public high school.

La Jolla High school is a public high school that is part of San Diego Unified School District. The closest high school is Preuss Charter School on the campus of UCSD. It is the height of hypocrisy for any STEM faculty at UCSD to be appalled at the math placement exams when the public high school on UCSD's campus has awful math test scores. They offer ZERO honors math classes and don't even offer AP Calculus. They need to take a walk and see what is being offered to high school kids on the UCSD campus.

People are clamoring for students to be treated the same and for UC's to go back to using SAT's. If high performing high school students in ALL high schools had the same opportunities that would make sense. The problem is they do NOT. For some crazy reason University Schools of Education push for detracking at poor schools. Affluent public school parents push back and insist there be tracking so their kids are challenged. San Diego Unified Math Department declared middle schools and high schools couldn't track, which goes along with what they publish under what students will learn in high school math classes, which the number one thing they list is "Building a Community of Math Learners". Yet somehow La Jolla High and its feeder schools were allowed to keep tracking and offering honors math classes.

For better or worse the juvenile incarceration rate in CA has fallen 75% between 2000 and 2023. Where do you think those kids who used to go to juvenile hall and juvenile camps are? They are attending poor schools and wreaking havoc. It used to be in these poor schools the academically advanced kids were able to be sheltered in honors classes, but now there is this tragic push that the top students shouldn't be isolated from the lowest performing students. They took honors classes away so those poor, brilliant kids are sitting in regular English and math classes with students who are far below grade level and kids who wouldn't have been in a regular public high school 20 years ago because they were too disruptive.

It is ridiculous that 40 years ago Jaime Escalante at Garfield High in LA (Stand and Deliver) showed that if you provide rigorous curriculum to poor students and give them opportunity to learn, they can excel, yet the model today is to lower expectations for poor students. In 1987 there were 73 students at that poor, primarily Latino High school that passed AP Calculus. Escalante ended up leaving Garfield High due to a large part that a new principal and administration didn't think was right all the emphasis was going toward the top students and not toward remedial students.

This is not necessarily true and runs into strange narratives that we MUST imprison black and brown kids. Maybe you believe that, but it's a gross insinuation. Also who are these poor brilliant kids? According to you, most are intellectually defunct and can't do algebra.

Are you aware that Escalante's students cheated? You also mostly invented why he left. He isolated himself from the rest of the school and then cried wolf that no one supported him, all while his students were cheating on exams, since there was a national spotlight on their progress. You're mostly spewing boring propaganda and making it sound revolutionary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:280 is a really paltry number for the size of UC. This is simply rage bait for anti CA MAGAs.

1. UCs require placement tests, so the unprepared students aren’t walking into Calculas.
2. UCs focus on conceptual math and don’t allow calculators which is the exact opposite of what is happening in high school. You can get a 750+ on the math SAT, a 5 on AP Calculus, score high enough to place into Calculus and still struggle. This is great and I’m glad they do it this way.
3. Some UCs have math professors and TAs with such strong accents that no one outside their region can understand them.
4. Math courses are weeder courses for STEM and economics. You have top students and cheaters at the top but then #2 /#3 drop too many to the bottom. The school wants a bell curve for distribution but they have a K.

The reality in CA is that there isn’t a bell curve if your class is representative of the geography, race and socioeconomic groups in CA. UCs could reinstate the SAT but that doesn’t mean that they would scrap the geographic and socioeconomic goals. Using the SAT would not reopen seats for high performing Asians and Whites.

Ultimately what needs to happen is there needs to be better math instruction in public schools AND the top students in poor schools need to be separated into honors classes that are not filled with unmotivated students. CA has taken away tracking at many poor schools so the brightest kids are stuck with loser kids who constantly disrupt the class. So who supports detracking and does not believe the top Latino and Black students should be grouped into high performing math classes- yup you guessed it UCSD's School of Education.

UCSD runs a charter middle and high school of 850 students that is on UCSD's campus where 93% of students qualify for Free/Reduced Price Lunch, with Hispanic students making up 57% and African American 22%. There are NO honors math classes at the school. They do NOT even offer AP Calculus (not even AB) only non-honors Calculus. They don't offer true honors English since the ONLY 9th and 10th grade English classes are called Advanced English.

So how does UCSD do teaching this population. Well only 33% of AP exams taken at the school received a score of 3 or higher. Only 13% exceeded math standards in 8th grade and 25% in 12th grade. These students are mixed in the same class as the 65% of students who received scores of not passing (received scores of not met or nearly met) in 8th grade and the 50% who didn't pass in 11th grade. How are smart poor kids supposed to thrive in this environment?

Maybe UCSD should be looking at the high school that is on their campus and realize this model for teaching math doesn't work. How are they not mortified at what is going on?

And how does this compare to the affluent high school by UCSD called La Jolla High School that is 7 miles away? Of course they track students into regular and advanced math. They also offer dual enrollment community college math classes at the high school - MESA COLLEGE MATH 150 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY I (Fall) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 151 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY II (Spring) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 254 (INTRO TO LINEAR ALGEBRA) (Fall)Grades 11-12, and MESA COLLEGE MATH 245 (DISCRETE MATH) (Spring) Grades 11-12. You get a completely different education if you are a top student here.

The other point is how lazy UCSD is about actually teaching the remedial class once they get admitted. Student who are in that class are often the ones who attend horrifically bad high schools in the poorest areas of the state. They never got quality instruction in math. (There was an article about a student who was enrolled in AP Calculus at Lincoln High in San Diego and because they couldn't get enough students to take the class the school dropped the calculus class two weeks before the end of the first semester. The school then enrolled all the students who were in the class into Ceramics. This seems like a crazy story but it is true! This is what the poorest students often face trying to take math.) UCSD instead of actually having a person directly teaching the class they sit the students in front of computers on a curriculum called Aleks and students have to complete work all online. If they have question they can ask the TA proctoring the class but no one is actually teaching the students. And like the post above says, many students really can't understand some TA's due to really strong accents.

UC's could make everyone take a placement exam in April /May and then tell anyone majoring STEM who doesn't pass they need to take a community college class or take an intensive math class over the summer at the UC.

La Jolla high school is a majority white school. Compare apples to apples.

So the white students get rigorous classes while the brown kids get access only to remedial classes? How is this fair? If you want to hold all students to the same standard then they all need the same opportunities to advance. In too many poor schools, bright students are not grouped together in honors classes. They are constantly being held back by disruptive students.

UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla High?

Of course it doesn’t! Why would a UC school
Have any control over local public elementary schools?

this comment doesn't make any sense.

The PP said “UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla high?” Of course it doesn’t

You're really struggling with reading. it's because the PP's comment didn't make sense. Why are they talking about fairness of classes when La Jolla is an independent high school (why did you say public elementary school?) and has nothing to do with UCSD's charter public high school.

La Jolla High school is a public high school that is part of San Diego Unified School District. The closest high school is Preuss Charter School on the campus of UCSD. It is the height of hypocrisy for any STEM faculty at UCSD to be appalled at the math placement exams when the public high school on UCSD's campus has awful math test scores. They offer ZERO honors math classes and don't even offer AP Calculus. They need to take a walk and see what is being offered to high school kids on the UCSD campus.

People are clamoring for students to be treated the same and for UC's to go back to using SAT's. If high performing high school students in ALL high schools had the same opportunities that would make sense. The problem is they do NOT. For some crazy reason University Schools of Education push for detracking at poor schools. Affluent public school parents push back and insist there be tracking so their kids are challenged. San Diego Unified Math Department declared middle schools and high schools couldn't track, which goes along with what they publish under what students will learn in high school math classes, which the number one thing they list is "Building a Community of Math Learners". Yet somehow La Jolla High and its feeder schools were allowed to keep tracking and offering honors math classes.

For better or worse the juvenile incarceration rate in CA has fallen 75% between 2000 and 2023. Where do you think those kids who used to go to juvenile hall and juvenile camps are? They are attending poor schools and wreaking havoc. It used to be in these poor schools the academically advanced kids were able to be sheltered in honors classes, but now there is this tragic push that the top students shouldn't be isolated from the lowest performing students. They took honors classes away so those poor, brilliant kids are sitting in regular English and math classes with students who are far below grade level and kids who wouldn't have been in a regular public high school 20 years ago because they were too disruptive.

It is ridiculous that 40 years ago Jaime Escalante at Garfield High in LA (Stand and Deliver) showed that if you provide rigorous curriculum to poor students and give them opportunity to learn, they can excel, yet the model today is to lower expectations for poor students. In 1987 there were 73 students at that poor, primarily Latino High school that passed AP Calculus. Escalante ended up leaving Garfield High due to a large part that a new principal and administration didn't think was right all the emphasis was going toward the top students and not toward remedial students.

This is not necessarily true and runs into strange narratives that we MUST imprison black and brown kids. Maybe you believe that, but it's a gross insinuation. Also who are these poor brilliant kids? According to you, most are intellectually defunct and can't do algebra.

Are you aware that Escalante's students cheated? You also mostly invented why he left. He isolated himself from the rest of the school and then cried wolf that no one supported him, all while his students were cheating on exams, since there was a national spotlight on their progress. You're mostly spewing boring propaganda and making it sound revolutionary.

You aren't making any sense. Whatever happens to juvenile delinquents it is wrong to place them in classes with the poor bright students who are academically motivated. This is what is happening in many poor schools today because so many administrators and University Education departments champion mixed ability math classes. It is really insulting and ignorant to not understand how many really smart poor kids there are. There are so many who could be academically so much higher if given the opportunity to get ahead. There is nothing in my post that says they are intellectually defunct, they are the exact opposite.

And Escalante's students retook the Calculus exam while being proctored by College Board officials and passed. He had amazing success and did the other Calculus teacher at Garfield. Once a new administration came in they lost support. Escalante left then two years later the other amazing Calculus teacher left. They had between them around 120 students taking AP Calculus.

It is tragic what is happening to academically motivated students in many poor schools in CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hobson would not survive an appeal. The DC Education Board voted against appealing it because of that very reason.

Tracking if done in a non-discriminatory manner is perfectly constitutional. Scotus has and will continue to winnow down disparate impact jurisprudence.

This message is 100% AI.

Sorry, nope. It ain't.

As a prior poster stated, UC's attract very high performing students. However, the majority are not. Look at the SATs of UCLA, Berkeley, UCSD, UCI, UC Davis, etc. prior to them being test blind.

California's demographics now shows the majority of high school seniors are Hispanic. California's public schools are in a toilet- look at LAUSD. Since California chooses its students by high school and these high schools suck, you're left with mediocre Berkeley students. When 30% of your STEM students are lost on day 1 in the equivalent of Calc BC, you are not an elite college. You're run of the mill. Students define the college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't worry. While the UC's banned the used of the SAT, they still accept AP exam scores for admission purposes...with this caveat:

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/ap-exam-credits/ap-credits/

"Students should be aware AP test scores lower than 3 will not adversely affect their chances for admission."

The UC's are a joke.

How to destroy your reputation in three easy steps...ban the SAT, ban an alternative objective metric, admit the same percentage of students from a high school whose state testing reveals 10% are at grade level as one with 90% at grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine paying $85,000 a year for this:

The faculty letter says:

“Students entering calculus courses increasingly lack mastery of prerequisite algebraic and trigonometric concepts.”

“Many students who completed high school calculus are unable to perform symbolic manipulations expected for success in university-level calculus.”


“Faculty across departments report a significant deterioration in quantitative preparedness among incoming students.”


“Calculus has become a major barrier to persistence in STEM majors because students are arriving without the mathematical foundations these courses assume.”

How are state exams not catching this? How are students taking calculus but not able to do 2x=8? I know in Texas you only need a 30% to be proficient on the state exams. Is something similar happening in California?

1. That doesn’t necessarily mean 2x=8
2. They grew up using Desmos, which can give them the answer to any equation without knowing how to solve it. Some teachers use it in higher level classes so they never really learned the foundation and only know how to get the answer.
3. Desmos is now on the SATs and ACTs.

I’m a HS math teacher and we are spit in my department. Some of us won’t allow Desmos at all and only give paper tests, some still no calculator, to test their foundational knowledge. Others allow Desmos on everything and say it’s allowed on the SATs so why not. Some students graduate HS and do not know how to solve an equation without it.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t it just to reinstate it for stem applicants?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-professors-demand-return-of-sat-for-stem-admissions

[Anonymous]

Duh. This is what liberal lunacy focused on "equity" results in. Absolute dumbing down of America. In progressives' minds, if there isn’t a desired racial and diversity outcome in things like math scores, their solution is to get rid of the tests and quality standards, not assist those who can't make it.

Newsflash: physics, engineering, math, and science give zero Fs about equity and race. If you can't do the math, then you don't belong. This is why the US is imploding and China will dominate the future. Complete dumbing down of kids while China has standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duh. This is what liberal lunacy focused on "equity" results in. Absolute dumbing down of America. In progressives' minds, if there isn’t a desired racial and diversity outcome in things like math scores, their solution is to get rid of the tests and quality standards, not assist those who can't make it.

Newsflash: physics, engineering, math, and science give zero Fs about equity and race. If you can't do the math, then you don't belong. This is why the US is imploding and China will dominate the future. Complete dumbing down of kids while China has standards.

US is not imploding but the gap between the top students and mid+lower pack of students is widen because of subpar education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duh. This is what liberal lunacy focused on "equity" results in. Absolute dumbing down of America. In progressives' minds, if there isn’t a desired racial and diversity outcome in things like math scores, their solution is to get rid of the tests and quality standards, not assist those who can't make it.

Newsflash: physics, engineering, math, and science give zero Fs about equity and race. If you can't do the math, then you don't belong. This is why the US is imploding and China will dominate the future. Complete dumbing down of kids while China has standards.

Stupid recycled RWNJ garbage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duh. This is what liberal lunacy focused on "equity" results in. Absolute dumbing down of America. In progressives' minds, if there isn’t a desired racial and diversity outcome in things like math scores, their solution is to get rid of the tests and quality standards, not assist those who can't make it.

Newsflash: physics, engineering, math, and science give zero Fs about equity and race. If you can't do the math, then you don't belong. This is why the US is imploding and China will dominate the future. Complete dumbing down of kids while China has standards.

US is not imploding but the gap between the top students and mid+lower pack of students is widen because of subpar education.

Because in states like California bright students in low income areas don't even get a chance to compete with top students in other states who are tracked and do have the opportunity to take AP and advanced math classes. Instead, these smart kids are twiddling their thumbs and keeping their head down in classes dominated by morons and disruptive students. Such a waste of talent. Progressives clearly don't think at all about bright, motivated students in lower income neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duh. This is what liberal lunacy focused on "equity" results in. Absolute dumbing down of America. In progressives' minds, if there isn’t a desired racial and diversity outcome in things like math scores, their solution is to get rid of the tests and quality standards, not assist those who can't make it.

Newsflash: physics, engineering, math, and science give zero Fs about equity and race. If you can't do the math, then you don't belong. This is why the US is imploding and China will dominate the future. Complete dumbing down of kids while China has standards.

US is not imploding but the gap between the top students and mid+lower pack of students is widen because of subpar education.

Because in states like California bright students in low income areas don't even get a chance to compete with top students in other states who are tracked and do have the opportunity to take AP and advanced math classes. Instead, these smart kids are twiddling their thumbs and keeping their head down in classes dominated by morons and disruptive students. Such a waste of talent. Progressives clearly don't think at all about bright, motivated students in lower income neighborhoods.

Schools shouldn't define them. If they are bright, they will be fine in the end. Especially we are in the AI generation. Knowledge is obtainable easily. Even better not limited in the US.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:280 is a really paltry number for the size of UC. This is simply rage bait for anti CA MAGAs.

1. UCs require placement tests, so the unprepared students aren’t walking into Calculas.
2. UCs focus on conceptual math and don’t allow calculators which is the exact opposite of what is happening in high school. You can get a 750+ on the math SAT, a 5 on AP Calculus, score high enough to place into Calculus and still struggle. This is great and I’m glad they do it this way.
3. Some UCs have math professors and TAs with such strong accents that no one outside their region can understand them.
4. Math courses are weeder courses for STEM and economics. You have top students and cheaters at the top but then #2 /#3 drop too many to the bottom. The school wants a bell curve for distribution but they have a K.

The reality in CA is that there isn’t a bell curve if your class is representative of the geography, race and socioeconomic groups in CA. UCs could reinstate the SAT but that doesn’t mean that they would scrap the geographic and socioeconomic goals. Using the SAT would not reopen seats for high performing Asians and Whites.

Ultimately what needs to happen is there needs to be better math instruction in public schools AND the top students in poor schools need to be separated into honors classes that are not filled with unmotivated students. CA has taken away tracking at many poor schools so the brightest kids are stuck with loser kids who constantly disrupt the class. So who supports detracking and does not believe the top Latino and Black students should be grouped into high performing math classes- yup you guessed it UCSD's School of Education.

UCSD runs a charter middle and high school of 850 students that is on UCSD's campus where 93% of students qualify for Free/Reduced Price Lunch, with Hispanic students making up 57% and African American 22%. There are NO honors math classes at the school. They do NOT even offer AP Calculus (not even AB) only non-honors Calculus. They don't offer true honors English since the ONLY 9th and 10th grade English classes are called Advanced English.

So how does UCSD do teaching this population. Well only 33% of AP exams taken at the school received a score of 3 or higher. Only 13% exceeded math standards in 8th grade and 25% in 12th grade. These students are mixed in the same class as the 65% of students who received scores of not passing (received scores of not met or nearly met) in 8th grade and the 50% who didn't pass in 11th grade. How are smart poor kids supposed to thrive in this environment?

Maybe UCSD should be looking at the high school that is on their campus and realize this model for teaching math doesn't work. How are they not mortified at what is going on?

And how does this compare to the affluent high school by UCSD called La Jolla High School that is 7 miles away? Of course they track students into regular and advanced math. They also offer dual enrollment community college math classes at the high school - MESA COLLEGE MATH 150 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY I (Fall) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 151 CALCULUS WITH ANALYTIC GEOMETY II (Spring) Grades 11-12, MESA COLLEGE MATH 254 (INTRO TO LINEAR ALGEBRA) (Fall)Grades 11-12, and MESA COLLEGE MATH 245 (DISCRETE MATH) (Spring) Grades 11-12. You get a completely different education if you are a top student here.

The other point is how lazy UCSD is about actually teaching the remedial class once they get admitted. Student who are in that class are often the ones who attend horrifically bad high schools in the poorest areas of the state. They never got quality instruction in math. (There was an article about a student who was enrolled in AP Calculus at Lincoln High in San Diego and because they couldn't get enough students to take the class the school dropped the calculus class two weeks before the end of the first semester. The school then enrolled all the students who were in the class into Ceramics. This seems like a crazy story but it is true! This is what the poorest students often face trying to take math.) UCSD instead of actually having a person directly teaching the class they sit the students in front of computers on a curriculum called Aleks and students have to complete work all online. If they have question they can ask the TA proctoring the class but no one is actually teaching the students. And like the post above says, many students really can't understand some TA's due to really strong accents.

UC's could make everyone take a placement exam in April /May and then tell anyone majoring STEM who doesn't pass they need to take a community college class or take an intensive math class over the summer at the UC.

La Jolla high school is a majority white school. Compare apples to apples.

So the white students get rigorous classes while the brown kids get access only to remedial classes? How is this fair? If you want to hold all students to the same standard then they all need the same opportunities to advance. In too many poor schools, bright students are not grouped together in honors classes. They are constantly being held back by disruptive students.

UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla High?

Of course it doesn’t! Why would a UC school
Have any control over local public elementary schools?

this comment doesn't make any sense.

The PP said “UCSD doesn’t control La Jolla high?” Of course it doesn’t

You're really struggling with reading. it's because the PP's comment didn't make sense. Why are they talking about fairness of classes when La Jolla is an independent high school (why did you say public elementary school?) and has nothing to do with UCSD's charter public high school.

La Jolla High school is a public high school that is part of San Diego Unified School District. The closest high school is Preuss Charter School on the campus of UCSD. It is the height of hypocrisy for any STEM faculty at UCSD to be appalled at the math placement exams when the public high school on UCSD's campus has awful math test scores. They offer ZERO honors math classes and don't even offer AP Calculus. They need to take a walk and see what is being offered to high school kids on the UCSD campus.

People are clamoring for students to be treated the same and for UC's to go back to using SAT's. If high performing high school students in ALL high schools had the same opportunities that would make sense. The problem is they do NOT. For some crazy reason University Schools of Education push for detracking at poor schools. Affluent public school parents push back and insist there be tracking so their kids are challenged. San Diego Unified Math Department declared middle schools and high schools couldn't track, which goes along with what they publish under what students will learn in high school math classes, which the number one thing they list is "Building a Community of Math Learners". Yet somehow La Jolla High and its feeder schools were allowed to keep tracking and offering honors math classes.

For better or worse the juvenile incarceration rate in CA has fallen 75% between 2000 and 2023. Where do you think those kids who used to go to juvenile hall and juvenile camps are? They are attending poor schools and wreaking havoc. It used to be in these poor schools the academically advanced kids were able to be sheltered in honors classes, but now there is this tragic push that the top students shouldn't be isolated from the lowest performing students. They took honors classes away so those poor, brilliant kids are sitting in regular English and math classes with students who are far below grade level and kids who wouldn't have been in a regular public high school 20 years ago because they were too disruptive.

It is ridiculous that 40 years ago Jaime Escalante at Garfield High in LA (Stand and Deliver) showed that if you provide rigorous curriculum to poor students and give them opportunity to learn, they can excel, yet the model today is to lower expectations for poor students. In 1987 there were 73 students at that poor, primarily Latino High school that passed AP Calculus. Escalante ended up leaving Garfield High due to a large part that a new principal and administration didn't think was right all the emphasis was going toward the top students and not toward remedial students.

This is not necessarily true and runs into strange narratives that we MUST imprison black and brown kids. Maybe you believe that, but it's a gross insinuation. Also who are these poor brilliant kids? According to you, most are intellectually defunct and can't do algebra.

Are you aware that Escalante's students cheated? You also mostly invented why he left. He isolated himself from the rest of the school and then cried wolf that no one supported him, all while his students were cheating on exams, since there was a national spotlight on their progress. You're mostly spewing boring propaganda and making it sound revolutionary.

You aren't making any sense. Whatever happens to juvenile delinquents it is wrong to place them in classes with the poor bright students who are academically motivated. This is what is happening in many poor schools today because so many administrators and University Education departments champion mixed ability math classes. It is really insulting and ignorant to not understand how many really smart poor kids there are. There are so many who could be academically so much higher if given the opportunity to get ahead. There is nothing in my post that says they are intellectually defunct, they are the exact opposite.

And Escalante's students retook the Calculus exam while being proctored by College Board officials and passed. He had amazing success and did the other Calculus teacher at Garfield. Once a new administration came in they lost support. Escalante left then two years later the other amazing Calculus teacher left. They had between them around 120 students taking AP Calculus.

It is tragic what is happening to academically motivated students in many poor schools in CA.

Why did you write an entire paragraph just to say "imprison black kids." It's a lot easier to make the message short and clear. There's not that many elite-level poor children in the US. That's just a statistical fact.

Escalante had multiple students who id not accept taking the retest and admitted to cheating on their AP exam.