Any kid can now teach herself calculus online. There really is no excuse not to learn higher level math (or any subject really) in middle and high school if you want to. There are tons of higher level courses available for free from MIT, Khan, etc. Most American kids are spending 3-10 hrs a day watching reels and videos etc. If they stopped wasting time and actually taught themselves academic material and read actual books, they would be well prepared for college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of the professors at top schools who were
recently caught cheating on doctoral dissertations and research papers were DEI hires.

Doubt it. Former Stanford Dean was definitely not a dei hire.

Also wanted to point out, cheating is rampant in so called cutthroat rigorous high schools. Kids there engaged in all kinds of cheating to get ahead. Often these schools have a very high percentage of certain demographics.

What demographic is that?

If I was to look for a proxy for low academic integrity, I would look at the demographic driving the rocketing amount of accommodation for extra time on the ACT and SAT. What demographic do you think overwhelmingly seeks and obtains this accommodation for standardized tests?

But I'm sure you have some anecdotes that say that the groups with the best academic results are actually achieving then through cheating rather than hard work.

Anonymous wrote:Athletes. Kids who are great at English but terrible at math, etc., and vice versa. Or are ESL. You really can’t think of a single reason?

Actually, no I can’t. These top schools supposedly are admitting kids with 3.8+ GPAs, multiple AP classes (at least a couple each in math and English subjects), and very high test scores. So no, I can’t figure out why these students wouldn’t be able to be successful in a freshman level English class or calculus

Isn't the "remedial" class just the same Math M class - same presets, same exams - but it's 5 days a week instead of 3.

So, yes, like the rest of the world, Harvard notices the learning loss.And since they want to catch everyone up, they've offered this class to ensure that every Harvard student will be, at the end of freshman year, where students have always been at that point. It will just take more work for these students who have loss to make up for.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

Anonymous wrote:Many of the professors at top schools who were
recently caught cheating on doctoral dissertations and research papers were DEI hires.

True.

Because the BEST students don’t always have access to the BEST high schools.

Anonymous wrote:Many of the professors at top schools who were
recently caught cheating on doctoral dissertations and research papers were DEI hires.

Doubt it. Former Stanford Dean was definitely not a dei hire.

Also wanted to point out, cheating is rampant in so called cutthroat rigorous high schools. Kids there engaged in all kinds of cheating to get ahead. Often these schools have a very high percentage of certain demographics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the person questioning it, this Department of Education report notes 48% of IS public high schools offer Calculus: https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-student-access-enrollment.pdf

Incredibly sad. Graduated HS in the late 70s and my public HS had Calculus. But also not surprising a number of states in a desire to bring about equity have lowered or tried to lower statewide math programs.

Absolutely no reason to not offer at least basic calculus in HS anywhere in the US.

As others have said, we are here because of 3 basic factors - DEI, test optional and rampant grade inflation.

Instead of watering down math education the US needs to start offering Algebra in elementary school. Math education in the US is well behind the rest of the world.

It’s conservative states bringing down the average…

Anonymous wrote:For the person questioning it, this Department of Education report notes 48% of IS public high schools offer Calculus: https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-student-access-enrollment.pdf

Incredibly sad. Graduated HS in the late 70s and my public HS had Calculus. But also not surprising a number of states in a desire to bring about equity have lowered or tried to lower statewide math programs.

Absolutely no reason to not offer at least basic calculus in HS anywhere in the US.

As others have said, we are here because of 3 basic factors - DEI, test optional and rampant grade inflation.

Instead of watering down math education the US needs to start offering Algebra in elementary school. Math education in the US is well behind the rest of the world.

I’ll actually answer other than DEI speculative nonsense. The truth is that colleges have asked for a lot from students that no longer has anything to do with education but being an interesting, marketable person, so those students can feed into successful- read consulting and IB- careers. They still take in the top students, but they also want students who do hyperspecific niche specializations, which means those students can lack in other fields.

I’ll also add- too much emphasis on the sat as a benchmark. The sat is a trash exam in a nation where top jobs are Quant, ML engineers, etc. The SAT has only gotten easier, average scores have gotten worse, and we aren’t challenging our students enough.

Anonymous wrote:Many of the professors at top schools who were
recently caught cheating on doctoral dissertations and research papers were DEI hires.

Another side effect of DEI.

Many of the professors at top schools who were
recently caught cheating on doctoral dissertations and research papers were DEI hires.

We all know the answer. DEI + test optional.

Anonymous wrote:For the person questioning it, this Department of Education report notes 48% of IS public high schools offer Calculus: https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-student-access-enrollment.pdf

And most of them are in rural red areas not blue citities.

For the person questioning it, this Department of Education report notes 48% of IS public high schools offer Calculus: https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-student-access-enrollment.pdf