Anonymous
05/10/2026 14:45
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't get the issue. There are kids at all colleges who need remedial help - even the elite ones. If they're getting the help they need, then what is the problem? Oh, that they took spots from kids who had good math instruction in high school?
Who would help them after graduation? Governments? Tax Payers? AI? Why would employers hire them?
Almost all grads need help after graduation…? You never got any training for your first job? If your entire existence has been sink or swim, you’re worked some shit jobs.
Similar to our economy. The intelligence is going K shape as well.
Yes and you’re delusional if you believe intelligent people never need help. Unlike you, who lacks empathy, I can easily see someone being a fairly intelligent person but not being privileged, so they may need a little extra remediation before going into their field of choice or finishing their degree. Not everyone was raised upper middle class.
As long as it is not waste of tax payers dollars
Stop funding wars then we’ll start talking about what is a waste of tax payers money.
We have terrible healthcare system and chose to keep a bad one cause we aren’t “socialist,” while paying more for less.
An education system with a school to prison pipeline is incredibly costly for society, yet we maintain that.
Funding a remedial course so a student can get a degree and contribute back to their community? Least of my concerns and should be yours too if wasteful spending is the issue.
Remedial courses are great and important, but the flagship is not the place for them - CSUs and CCs are.
Similarly, basic physical education for adults is also important, but you probably wouldn't be too happy if half your favourite college football team had a substantial portion of recruits who could barely throw a football.
In fact most players on a championship football team never have any reason to throw a football.
More to the point, are undergraduate courses supposed to be, like football, a public performance conducted for the entertainment of spectators? Is that what you believe education is?
Name me some college football teams with a substantial number of recruits who have never thrown a football.
I do believe selective institutions in both education and athletics should select based on relevant metrics - some combination of performance and talent. Whether the goal is to entertain or not is a red herring.
College football teams with a substantial number of recruits who have never thrown a football in a game or formal practice? Literally all of them.
Do you not understand how specialized roles are in football? A substantial number of football players are recruited and make massive contributions to major college and NFL football teams without anyone considering whether they can throw a football. Many men play for years without touching the ball! A team that refuses to recruit a linebacker because he can’t throw a spiral has misplaced priorities.
And that is relevant to your analogy as well. Many universities offer courses in a wide range of subjects. The relevant metrics for admitting engineering, poli sci, nursing and art majors may be different, just as the relevant metrics for linemen, wide receivers, and quarterbacks are different.
Anonymous
05/10/2026 14:01
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't get the issue. There are kids at all colleges who need remedial help - even the elite ones. If they're getting the help they need, then what is the problem? Oh, that they took spots from kids who had good math instruction in high school?
Who would help them after graduation? Governments? Tax Payers? AI? Why would employers hire them?
Almost all grads need help after graduation…? You never got any training for your first job? If your entire existence has been sink or swim, you’re worked some shit jobs.
Similar to our economy. The intelligence is going K shape as well.
Yes and you’re delusional if you believe intelligent people never need help. Unlike you, who lacks empathy, I can easily see someone being a fairly intelligent person but not being privileged, so they may need a little extra remediation before going into their field of choice or finishing their degree. Not everyone was raised upper middle class.
As long as it is not waste of tax payers dollars
Stop funding wars then we’ll start talking about what is a waste of tax payers money.
We have terrible healthcare system and chose to keep a bad one cause we aren’t “socialist,” while paying more for less.
An education system with a school to prison pipeline is incredibly costly for society, yet we maintain that.
Funding a remedial course so a student can get a degree and contribute back to their community? Least of my concerns and should be yours too if wasteful spending is the issue.
Remedial courses are great and important, but the flagship is not the place for them - CSUs and CCs are.
Similarly, basic physical education for adults is also important, but you probably wouldn't be too happy if half your favourite college football team had a substantial portion of recruits who could barely throw a football.
In fact most players on a championship football team never have any reason to throw a football.
More to the point, are undergraduate courses supposed to be, like football, a public performance conducted for the entertainment of spectators? Is that what you believe education is?
Name me some college football teams with a substantial number of recruits who have never thrown a football.
I do believe selective institutions in both education and athletics should select based on relevant metrics - some combination of performance and talent. Whether the goal is to entertain or not is a red herring.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 11:03
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don’t actually think retakes are the problem. Khan Academy, for example, offers infinite retakes. The problem is that many schools never tell students that the goal is mastery. They do not understand that they need to accumulate knowledge and skills. I’m sure they’re capable of it. I’m sure every one of them has some huge store of facts about their favorite show or artist, and has learned a dozen tricks from TikTok makeup tutorials. They just don’t understand they’re also supposed to accumulate the information and skills that they encounter in school.
I don't think just telling the students the goal is mastery is going to solve the problem.
It would be better than not telling them, which is the current approach.
I am terrible at Math. I was great at it until about 7th grade and started having small issues with the material. I was told to keep asking questions and to work harder. My knowledge gaps became larger. Teachers focused on the best students and ignored me. Every year I understood less and less and ended up getting getting Cs in 11th grade. I was a stellar student in every other class and it was so discouraging. Of course I knew mastery was the point, but I was doing so poorly I was just trying to stay afloat and not fail. I don't think my experience is unique or special. Mastery comes from the student's work AND from good, solid teaching students can built upon.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 10:50
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:The problem is that way too many school in poor communities are spending almost all their resources on the poorest performing students and the most neediest instead of spending money on bright promising low socio-economic students. Those bright students are getting shortchanged.
When California created the Master Plan for Higher Education the intention was:
UC Eligibility: Limited to the top 12.5% of high school graduates.
CSU Eligibility: Limited to the top 33.3%
Community Colleges: Open to anyone "capable of benefiting from instruction
So in poor high schools, the top 1/8 to 1/3 of students were in honors classes because schools were preparing them for 4 year colleges. UC/Cal States decided on specific course completions called "A-G requirements" (a-2 years social science; b- 4 years English; c-4 years recommended math, etc); d- Science (2 years, 3 recommended) – Lab sciences- Biology, Chemistry, or Physics, etc.
20 years ago CA created this ridiculous push that ALL students should meet A-G requirements. So instead of taking electives like auto shop or consumer math that would lead to a job in the trades they push almost all students to take physics, chemistry and algebra/geometry/algebra 2.
Then these school took away true honors classes and renamed on level classes "honors for all", which completely drags down honors classes for students who want to be in school and do well.
So now students like the one profiled in this article who can't pass remedial math are getting accepted to UCs because they got lucky and had teachers who were easy graders and/or are in schools with countless retakes and/or have teachers who look the other way when they cheat.
So the brilliant student are really, really losing out. And despite some people thinking smart kids don't exist in poor schools. They do! But they get ignored. I work in an elementary school that is all Latino and poor. I was looking at records and I saw a 5th grade student who received a perfect score on the Smarter Balance Test CA gives all students in the spring. At the end of 4th grade his score was 2700, which is in the 99+percentile rank. His parents don't speak English well and he gets no outside enrichment.
So what does he get at this elementary school? Absolutely nothing extra. On his report card his teacher wrote he needed to work on helping other students and being a team player since he is strong in math.
Less than 50% of CA HS students complete the A-G requirements necessary for a UC.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 10:46
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:+1. The UC schools may never recover from this bad precedentAnonymous wrote:The reputational hit to the UC's will be generational.
UCSD really admitted students who could not do middle school math? I understand that it is not the most prestigious college in the UC system but that it is appalling.
Sure Karen. They'll set application records year after year.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 10:45
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It ain't just math. I have friends who are college professors and they say that so many kids get to college and still cannot write -- from the STEM stars to the run-of-the-mill students.
Freshman English classes are mainly about getting students' writing skills up to a minimum baseline. Another skill that kids should be learning before they are allowed to graduate from high school.
I’m curious how this compare outside the U.S. I’m not sure whether it’s due to K–12 education, social media, or a combination of both, but these issues don’t seem as prominent in Europe.
Europe is just more blunt. You’re sorted for talent at 14. You have to be the best in your country for the subject that you’re interested in if you want to go to. Top school. Grading is more rigorous and honest. Recommendations are more honest- if you’re incompetent, it’ll be written, and if you’re a great student, you’ll get a lukewarm recommendation unless you’re top talent. Students are pushed to their breaking point, but that’s where you find the diamonds under pressure.
Yes!, That's it! That is exactly why they have such dynamic economies across the board.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 10:28
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't get the issue. There are kids at all colleges who need remedial help - even the elite ones. If they're getting the help they need, then what is the problem? Oh, that they took spots from kids who had good math instruction in high school?
Who would help them after graduation? Governments? Tax Payers? AI? Why would employers hire them?
Almost all grads need help after graduation…? You never got any training for your first job? If your entire existence has been sink or swim, you’re worked some shit jobs.
True-
And some of those 'shit' jobs are why I make 7 figures today.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 10:23
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't get the issue. There are kids at all colleges who need remedial help - even the elite ones. If they're getting the help they need, then what is the problem? Oh, that they took spots from kids who had good math instruction in high school?
Who would help them after graduation? Governments? Tax Payers? AI? Why would employers hire them?
Almost all grads need help after graduation…? You never got any training for your first job? If your entire existence has been sink or swim, you’re worked some shit jobs.
Similar to our economy. The intelligence is going K shape as well.
Yes and you’re delusional if you believe intelligent people never need help. Unlike you, who lacks empathy, I can easily see someone being a fairly intelligent person but not being privileged, so they may need a little extra remediation before going into their field of choice or finishing their degree. Not everyone was raised upper middle class.
As long as it is not waste of tax payers dollars
Stop funding wars then we’ll start talking about what is a waste of tax payers money.
We have terrible healthcare system and chose to keep a bad one cause we aren’t “socialist,” while paying more for less.
An education system with a school to prison pipeline is incredibly costly for society, yet we maintain that.
Funding a remedial course so a student can get a degree and contribute back to their community? Least of my concerns and should be yours too if wasteful spending is the issue.
Remedial courses are great and important, but the flagship is not the place for them - CSUs and CCs are.
Similarly, basic physical education for adults is also important, but you probably wouldn't be too happy if half your favourite college football team had a substantial portion of recruits who could barely throw a football.
In fact most players on a championship football team never have any reason to throw a football.
More to the point, are undergraduate courses supposed to be, like football, a public performance conducted for the entertainment of spectators? Is that what you believe education is?
Anonymous
05/07/2026 10:07
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't get the issue. There are kids at all colleges who need remedial help - even the elite ones. If they're getting the help they need, then what is the problem? Oh, that they took spots from kids who had good math instruction in high school?
Because elite college admissions should go to qualified students otherwise these college aren’t elite anymore.
Who ever said UCSD was elite? It’s the third best public school in its state.
None of which are elite for undergraduate education. There are no elite public schools in any state because they aren't supposed to be elite. They are supposed to train students of their states for jobs like engineering, accounting, teaching, and health sciences. Anyone who believes that there aren't similar students in every state flagship is kidding themselves.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 06:01
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Let’s face it college is the new high school. K-12 is just a series of participation trophy years with 50% being the lowest grade and retest until you get that A what do you expect.
Sure some kids will put in the work and be ready for college, but lack of preparedness benefits the colleges as well. Given the need for remediation they have a 6 year income stream per student instead of 4. Necessary to keep the educational industrial complex afloat as the college age population declines in the coming years.
Sure some kids will put in the work and be ready for college, but lack of preparedness benefits the colleges as well. Given the need for remediation they have a 6 year income stream per student instead of 4. Necessary to keep the educational industrial complex afloat as the college age population declines in the coming years.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 03:35
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:The problem is that way too many school in poor communities are spending almost all their resources on the poorest performing students and the most neediest instead of spending money on bright promising low socio-economic students. Those bright students are getting shortchanged.
When California created the Master Plan for Higher Education the intention was:
UC Eligibility: Limited to the top 12.5% of high school graduates.
CSU Eligibility: Limited to the top 33.3%
Community Colleges: Open to anyone "capable of benefiting from instruction
So in poor high schools, the top 1/8 to 1/3 of students were in honors classes because schools were preparing them for 4 year colleges. UC/Cal States decided on specific course completions called "A-G requirements" (a-2 years social science; b- 4 years English; c-4 years recommended math, etc); d- Science (2 years, 3 recommended) – Lab sciences- Biology, Chemistry, or Physics, etc.
20 years ago CA created this ridiculous push that ALL students should meet A-G requirements. So instead of taking electives like auto shop or consumer math that would lead to a job in the trades they push almost all students to take physics, chemistry and algebra/geometry/algebra 2.
Then these school took away true honors classes and renamed on level classes "honors for all", which completely drags down honors classes for students who want to be in school and do well.
So now students like the one profiled in this article who can't pass remedial math are getting accepted to UCs because they got lucky and had teachers who were easy graders and/or are in schools with countless retakes and/or have teachers who look the other way when they cheat.
So the brilliant student are really, really losing out. And despite some people thinking smart kids don't exist in poor schools. They do! But they get ignored. I work in an elementary school that is all Latino and poor. I was looking at records and I saw a 5th grade student who received a perfect score on the Smarter Balance Test CA gives all students in the spring. At the end of 4th grade his score was 2700, which is in the 99+percentile rank. His parents don't speak English well and he gets no outside enrichment.
So what does he get at this elementary school? Absolutely nothing extra. On his report card his teacher wrote he needed to work on helping other students and being a team player since he is strong in math.
Why not introduce him and his parents to Khan Academy? Or Alcumus? Have you talked to his teacher about differentiation? Offered to supply the enrichment material or even do a pullout?
Anonymous
05/07/2026 01:04
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
The problem is that way too many school in poor communities are spending almost all their resources on the poorest performing students and the most neediest instead of spending money on bright promising low socio-economic students. Those bright students are getting shortchanged.
When California created the Master Plan for Higher Education the intention was:
UC Eligibility: Limited to the top 12.5% of high school graduates.
CSU Eligibility: Limited to the top 33.3%
Community Colleges: Open to anyone "capable of benefiting from instruction
So in poor high schools, the top 1/8 to 1/3 of students were in honors classes because schools were preparing them for 4 year colleges. UC/Cal States decided on specific course completions called "A-G requirements" (a-2 years social science; b- 4 years English; c-4 years recommended math, etc); d- Science (2 years, 3 recommended) – Lab sciences- Biology, Chemistry, or Physics, etc.
20 years ago CA created this ridiculous push that ALL students should meet A-G requirements. So instead of taking electives like auto shop or consumer math that would lead to a job in the trades they push almost all students to take physics, chemistry and algebra/geometry/algebra 2.
Then these school took away true honors classes and renamed on level classes "honors for all", which completely drags down honors classes for students who want to be in school and do well.
So now students like the one profiled in this article who can't pass remedial math are getting accepted to UCs because they got lucky and had teachers who were easy graders and/or are in schools with countless retakes and/or have teachers who look the other way when they cheat.
So the brilliant student are really, really losing out. And despite some people thinking smart kids don't exist in poor schools. They do! But they get ignored. I work in an elementary school that is all Latino and poor. I was looking at records and I saw a 5th grade student who received a perfect score on the Smarter Balance Test CA gives all students in the spring. At the end of 4th grade his score was 2700, which is in the 99+percentile rank. His parents don't speak English well and he gets no outside enrichment.
So what does he get at this elementary school? Absolutely nothing extra. On his report card his teacher wrote he needed to work on helping other students and being a team player since he is strong in math.
When California created the Master Plan for Higher Education the intention was:
UC Eligibility: Limited to the top 12.5% of high school graduates.
CSU Eligibility: Limited to the top 33.3%
Community Colleges: Open to anyone "capable of benefiting from instruction
So in poor high schools, the top 1/8 to 1/3 of students were in honors classes because schools were preparing them for 4 year colleges. UC/Cal States decided on specific course completions called "A-G requirements" (a-2 years social science; b- 4 years English; c-4 years recommended math, etc); d- Science (2 years, 3 recommended) – Lab sciences- Biology, Chemistry, or Physics, etc.
20 years ago CA created this ridiculous push that ALL students should meet A-G requirements. So instead of taking electives like auto shop or consumer math that would lead to a job in the trades they push almost all students to take physics, chemistry and algebra/geometry/algebra 2.
Then these school took away true honors classes and renamed on level classes "honors for all", which completely drags down honors classes for students who want to be in school and do well.
So now students like the one profiled in this article who can't pass remedial math are getting accepted to UCs because they got lucky and had teachers who were easy graders and/or are in schools with countless retakes and/or have teachers who look the other way when they cheat.
So the brilliant student are really, really losing out. And despite some people thinking smart kids don't exist in poor schools. They do! But they get ignored. I work in an elementary school that is all Latino and poor. I was looking at records and I saw a 5th grade student who received a perfect score on the Smarter Balance Test CA gives all students in the spring. At the end of 4th grade his score was 2700, which is in the 99+percentile rank. His parents don't speak English well and he gets no outside enrichment.
So what does he get at this elementary school? Absolutely nothing extra. On his report card his teacher wrote he needed to work on helping other students and being a team player since he is strong in math.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 00:21
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
The college equivalent of that would be UCs admitting a kid with 1500+ SAT or a good AMC or other competition score but poor grades (hs "production") which is unfortunately the exact opposite of what UCAS has been doing.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't get the issue. There are kids at all colleges who need remedial help - even the elite ones. If they're getting the help they need, then what is the problem? Oh, that they took spots from kids who had good math instruction in high school?
Who would help them after graduation? Governments? Tax Payers? AI? Why would employers hire them?
Why do you assume they continue to need help after graduation?
Many of these kids have higher ceilings than privileged UMC kids. Once they get “caught up”, they are equally (or more) capable of excelling.
It’s the equivalent of an NFL team drafting for potential rather than college production, which happens all the time.
The football equivalent of what they're doing would be recruiting a good D3 player (relative to their D3 competition) over similarly good (relative to D1 competition) D1 players because the former didn't have the coaching resources and privilege of the latter.
Anonymous
05/07/2026 00:16
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It ain't just math. I have friends who are college professors and they say that so many kids get to college and still cannot write -- from the STEM stars to the run-of-the-mill students.
Freshman English classes are mainly about getting students' writing skills up to a minimum baseline. Another skill that kids should be learning before they are allowed to graduate from high school.
I’m curious how this compare outside the U.S. I’m not sure whether it’s due to K–12 education, social media, or a combination of both, but these issues don’t seem as prominent in Europe.
Europe is just more blunt. You’re sorted for talent at 14. You have to be the best in your country for the subject that you’re interested in if you want to go to. Top school. Grading is more rigorous and honest. Recommendations are more honest- if you’re incompetent, it’ll be written, and if you’re a great student, you’ll get a lukewarm recommendation unless you’re top talent. Students are pushed to their breaking point, but that’s where you find the diamonds under pressure.
You're thinking of Germany, and even they are increasingly moving towards a more flexible US style k-12 system where you don't need to be stuck behind based on a test at 14
Anonymous
05/07/2026 00:14
Subject: She passed high school math with A’s and B’s. In college, she had to start over.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Because otherwise white people would ask how many Asians would be enough? 50%? 100%?
When 100% of people receiving a state-sponsored benefit come from a visible minority that makes up under 20% of the state population, you should probably anticipate political difficulties.
OTOH, you know who is bright and prepared for college. 1000%
These are not families who value studying and education. Why do we make that to be such a bag thing.
p.s.
State-sponsored benefit, lol! Many people live off of all kinds of state-sponsored benefits. Some, in higher ed, some not.
Almost all in academia live off the government teat