College students are struggling with basic math,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are interested in this subject, check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Kids-World-They-That/dp/145165443X

US students lag behind because, just as this thread demonstrates, we don't care. It is part of the culture.

It is sad.

The US lags because the US doesn't push kids off of a college track. If you selectively test US kids the same way kids in China are selectively tested, then the US doesn't lag. MIT is still the best university in the world for math and they manage to fill their freshman class with almost 90% Americans every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two causes. first and predominant cause is that schools are passing everyone and doing so with As and A-s. Secondary is learning loss from COVID. A lot of kids missed out on the opportunity to learn fundamental math concepts. US math education is far behind the rest of the world.

This is such BS. In the rest of the world, by the time you get to a school like Mason, those kids would be in trade school not college. People bash the US because we don't pressure kids to leave the college track early or just drop out and our over all scores reflect it. Meanwhile kids from countries that people love to praise fall over themselves to attend US universities

Yes, especially against Asian and European countries. Their average math/science high school standard would be close to TJ standards here.

That's why immigrants were coming here attempting to go to TJ, because it was as good as average back home

Here take a shot at UK A level exams - https://revisionmaths.com/level-maths/level-maths-past-papers/aqa-level-maths-past-papers Yes they are for kids that want to go on to university study. Which would be all of TJ. This is basic math for them.

Calc BC seems a lot harder to me, not to mention the post calculus classes most students at TJ will take

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two causes. first and predominant cause is that schools are passing everyone and doing so with As and A-s. Secondary is learning loss from COVID. A lot of kids missed out on the opportunity to learn fundamental math concepts. US math education is far behind the rest of the world.

This is such BS. In the rest of the world, by the time you get to a school like Mason, those kids would be in trade school not college. People bash the US because we don't pressure kids to leave the college track early or just drop out and our over all scores reflect it. Meanwhile kids from countries that people love to praise fall over themselves to attend US universities

Yes, especially against Asian and European countries. Their average math/science high school standard would be close to TJ standards here.

That's why immigrants were coming here attempting to go to TJ, because it was as good as average back home

Here take a shot at UK A level exams - https://revisionmaths.com/level-maths/level-maths-past-papers/aqa-level-maths-past-papers Yes they are for kids that want to go on to university study. Which would be all of TJ. This is basic math for them.

This is not that much different from an AP Calc exam - which several TJ kids take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't test optional great?

It works in public high schools would stop inflating grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two causes. first and predominant cause is that schools are passing everyone and doing so with As and A-s. Secondary is learning loss from COVID. A lot of kids missed out on the opportunity to learn fundamental math concepts. US math education is far behind the rest of the world.

This is such BS. In the rest of the world, by the time you get to a school like Mason, those kids would be in trade school not college. People bash the US because we don't pressure kids to leave the college track early or just drop out and our over all scores reflect it. Meanwhile kids from countries that people love to praise fall over themselves to attend US universities

It's not bs. Latest PISA test results: https://data.oecd.org/pisa/mathematics-performance-pisa.htm

Interesting to look at the G7 scores over a long period of time - the average G7 score has been declining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:whats going on?
COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE NOW TAKING 9TH GRADE MATH IN COLLEGE. EVEN SCHOOLS LIKE GEORGE MASON UNIVERISTY.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/college-students-struggling-basic-math-many-stuck-9th-grade-level-professors-blame-pandemic

This is sad. we need to stop giving everyone an A and give real grades, let's go back to giving 0's and F's when they are earned.

Fox News.

OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:whats going on?
COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE NOW TAKING 9TH GRADE MATH IN COLLEGE. EVEN SCHOOLS LIKE GEORGE MASON UNIVERISTY.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/college-students-struggling-basic-math-many-stuck-9th-grade-level-professors-blame-pandemic

This is sad. we need to stop giving everyone an A and give real grades, let's go back to giving 0's and F's when they are earned.

Well...the colleges are accepting these kids, so I guess it didn't matter for acceptance.

So, if kids that need to take 9th grade math are accepted at GMU...who the heck are they rejecting?

George Mason University admissions is selective with an acceptance rate of 91% and an early acceptance rate of 91.1%.

per google, so I am guessing 9% of the students applying...

So GMU basically takes everyone. Even the people who are behind in math.

Good thing they are finally learning it somewhere.

[Anonymous]

My son is starting college in pre-calc that he took in 12th grade. He’s always been a terrible math student but his grades reflected that (mostly low Cs). But at least his private school was completely honest with us. His public MS gave him straight As in math including algebra 1 in 8th grade. When he took the algebra 1 placement test at his private HS, he failed miserably. There’s a lot of grade fraud going on in public education.

[Anonymous]

People keep electing leaders who dumb down math courses & requirements to ensure equity of results. Then we’re supposed to be surprised by substandard math skills? What did you think was going to happen??

[Anonymous]

Because public HS is full of retakes.

I have one in private and one in public. My public HS kid has a retake option for every test. She can also correct incorrect answers for half credit to boost her grade, say if she got a C close to a B or B close to an A.

Most of her teachers require retakes if the student scores a D or F on the test. Most require turning in answer corrections for kids who score a C, especially when close to bumping to another letter grade.

Kids use the D/F rule to not study. DD has even admitted to it. She said she was overwhelmed one week and didn't have time to properly study, so she put that class on the backburner because she knew she could do a retest the next week when her schedule wasn't as busy.

My kid in private has no retakes. None of his teachers offer this or even offer test corrections for partial credit back.

Very few of his private school teachers even accept late work for partial credit. Due dates are firm. This is great for him because he needs firm due dates to keep on track and this is actually the reason why we switched him from public to private. When covid lockdowns first happened, we quickly saw that working from home and no firm rules/due dates would not work for him. He saved all his work up until the last minute to submit it and then didn't care if it was right or done well/completely... and from the grades he received from his teachers, they didn't care either.

I wanted to move DD to the private in 2022 but she wanted to stay with her friends. We agreed that as long as her grades remained good and she agreed to keep doing outside tutoring, we'd allow it. I hate that she's probably getting a lesser-quality education, but hopefully the outside tutoring helps fill the gap and she doesn't struggle in college.

[Anonymous]

Kids have been spending 7-10 hours a day staring at screens for the last 12 years and their brains are mush.

[Anonymous]

I agree. I’m a community college instructor. It’s very common for students coming out of high school to just ASSUME a bad test performance can be erased by re-taking the exam or doing some B.S. extra credit assignment. They seem shocked when I tell them those aren’t options.

[Anonymous]

Back when America was great a high school diploma meant something.

[Anonymous]

Too many multiple-choice exams in high schools. Scantrons are the enemy of learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two causes. first and predominant cause is that schools are passing everyone and doing so with As and A-s. Secondary is learning loss from COVID. A lot of kids missed out on the opportunity to learn fundamental math concepts. US math education is far behind the rest of the world.

This is such BS. In the rest of the world, by the time you get to a school like Mason, those kids would be in trade school not college. People bash the US because we don't pressure kids to leave the college track early or just drop out and our over all scores reflect it. Meanwhile kids from countries that people love to praise fall over themselves to attend US universities

NP. While what you are saying is true, I think this is actually more of a philosophical debate as to whether the US is doing right by ANY students in our efforts to NOT “track” them. The students who can’t learn math still won’t, and the kids who could learn math won’t because the resources are going towards pushing stones uphill. Who does this benefit?

This is a really interesting point, and something I wish were discussed more. It's something I think a lot about when discussing free college for all, to which I'm opposed because I believe it would merely water down college education, as US K-12 education standards have been lowered in our (valiant and worthy) attempts to avoid tracking or failing students. There's an good discussion along these lines at https://www.quora.com/Why-is-free-universal-college-education-not-mandatory-If-an-economy-is-as-big-as-the-United-States-why-is-there-no-free-universal-college-educational-system