Kansas universities may soon dispense with their algebra graduation requirement because too many students fail the courses.
NPR Kansas recently reported: “About one in three Kansas students fails college algebra the first time around. Some take it several times before they pass. Others get so frustrated that they drop out altogether. And that cuts into university graduation rates.”
NPR added that this prompted the Kansas Board of Regents to consider alternative requirements under what’s called a “Math Pathways program.”
Regent Wint Winter (yes, that’s his name) said the new Pathways program is critical as a way to fight declining enrollment.
He stated: “It’s incumbent on us to be aware of all the roadblocks that are out there for students … reasons why they’re leaving, reasons why they’re not graduating. So I would urge us all to … find ways to find the bandwidth to keep this moving along.”
If graduation rates are now more important than what students are taught, than why not only offer gender and women’s studies courses…and underwater basket-weaving? Is algebra—algebra!— really too hard for today’s young scholars to handle? In my day, many of us took advanced placement calculus…in high school no less…with credits often transferring to the college of our choice. If calculus, geometry, and even algebra are too difficult for those enrolled in bastions of “higher education” today, perhaps the schools can offer Remedial Addition and Subtraction in their Math pathways programs, assuming they can find “the bandwidth.” What do you think about that, Regent Wint Winter? (Not to be confused with Regent Summ Summer.)
Higher education’s emphasis on enrollment over substance and mission is sadly of a piece with Christian churches’ abandonment of traditional doctrine in favor of a policy of “we must do whatever the hell it takes to put more butts in the pews, no matter how spectacularly amoral and secular.” Hence, we have drag queens flouncing around in our churches and teaching Sunday school. Helps attendance, you see.
What comprises current college curriculum? The classics? Right out. Western Civilization/Canon? Hah, racist/sexist/transphobic! Chemistry? Too hard. Rhetoric? Why? Debate? Triggering! Engineering? A field of endeavor by and for white supremacists! English Literature? I mean, hello, “E-lit” fairly reeks of yesterday’s dead white male patriarchy. Business instruction? Only if all classes are as anti-capitalist as they are anti-racist. An examination of post-modern, intersectional, non-binary, polyamorous, BIPOC poetry, as seen through a lesbian lens? Yeah, baby! That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Good to go! That’s why you spend $50,000 a year to send your kids to college! Is it not?
So what if your kid doesn’t know a constant from a variable? Does anyone really care if their children can understand algebraic expressions, as long as they can express their lived gender?!
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Algebra? Algebra! Algebra was for high school at grade levels that are now for middle school. In the 60’s I had two courses and although I don’t use it as such I’m quite sure my thought processes benefitted from the disciple required to solve problems. Could that be the crux of the matter, students are unaccustomed to discipline, self or otherwise? Remember an emminent professor was fired because his required course in medical studies was too hard for the students, does this mean we will to settle on medical professionals whose education is subpar? This new age seems to be satisfied with less than superior education. All professions requiring discipline will suffer from lower standards which are now deemed acceptable!
I found it difficult when I was in school, too, but I wouldn’t advocate taking it out of the curriculum.
OH WHAAAA. We are more and more, generating a nation of WUSSES>
I was thought to be a Math wiz in Grade school and high school but When I got put in Algebra class in the 8th grade I just flat couldn’t grasp the concept of replacing numbers with letters in formulas when I could very easily figure out the answer in my head. The instructor (Mr Inch at Comodore WM Bainbridge Jr Hi) about blew a gasket when I would just write the answers without doing the work. i got stuck in an advanced math class where I still figured most of the problems in my head and just wrote the answers down with the teacher often watching over my shoulder and not being able to understand how I did it. i didn’t see algebra until college and didn’t fare better there because the instructor was a math fanatic who thought working problems was fun and assumed that it was easy. It was 20 years later that I finally had an instructor who explained the “why” we worked the problems that way. Very honestly I do not see the need to know Algebra unless you are going into a field where you need to apply it on a daily basis.
Which is why i often wonder, WHY even Junior highs focus ON pushing Calculus or algebra? IMO those don’t need to be taught till at least midway into high, and uni, where someone starts forumulating what job they want.
Why let higher learning interfere with learning pronouns, being able to dress in a skirt after I shave my hairy “he” legs, etc.
The race to the bottom continues.
EVERY OTHER nation, must be looking at us and falling over in pain, from the sheer laughter they must be having…
They can’t pass high school so why do you think they can pass college ??. Remember the exit exam for high school ?? It was stopped because too many failed so it was called racist
What ISN’T seen as racist these days..
I doubt if the Chinese are searching for ways to dumb down their education…..
What’s to say they are not BEHIND The duming down of OUR education system?