
Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams - mbgaxyz
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-cal-state-remedial-requirements-20170803-story.html
======
userbinator
_The hope is that these efforts will also help students obtain their degrees
sooner — one of the public university system 's priorities. Cal State has
committed to doubling its four-year graduation rate, from 19% to 40%, by
2025._

The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system
regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar
to keep grades and graduation rates high."

In a society where there seems to be an increasingly prominent discussion
about the (ir)relevance of university degrees, it seems astonishing that they
would hold such a position. It's debatable whether there was ever a time when
having a university degree actually meant you had a very high likelihood of
being "ready to move into the workforce, ready to move into graduate or
professional school.", but this certainly doesn't help...

~~~
aphextron
>The implicit message here seems to be, "let everyone pass through the system
regardless of how qualified they actually are, but we'll have to lower the bar
to keep grades and graduation rates high."

No. You are completely missing the point here. Graduation requirements have
not changed. Students still have to pass the same amount of classes. What this
will do is allow students to have a shot at taking actual credit courses
rather than being forced into noncredit remedial classes they may not actually
need. Remedial courses put an undue financial and time burden on students who
would be better served with a bit of motivation and support to get through
actual 101 level courses.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
No, you are missing the point. For many years now, admissions standards have
been so low that rather than teaching the courses they are scheduled to teach,
college professors are forced to offer a remedial review of information that
should have been mastered in high school. Many, if not most, high school
graduates are functionally illiterate, lacking the basic reading and writing
skills we took for granted in the recent past.

US students ranked 38th out of 71 countries in math, and 28th in science. Kids
in Hungary and the Slovak Republic outranked us.

[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-
students...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-
internationally-math-science/)

The sad truth is that the university in the USA are just degree mills looking
to make the most money possible. They have no problem steadily lowering their
standards to match the steady decline in the US educational system as long as
the federally-backed student-loans keep rolling in.

~~~
dragandj
Why would that be surprising? Hungary and Slovak Republic are countries with
long traditions of strong education.

~~~
onion2k
It's surprising because the per capita expenditure on education is higher in
the US than pretty much everywhere else[1]. Assuming everything else is
approximately equal (there are enough teachers, teachers havw proper access to
materials, the intelligence of children is the same, etc) it implies that
either spending more on education has a negative impact or that the US is
using the wrong teaching methods.

[1]
[http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/apr/21/jeb...](http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/apr/21/jeb-
bush/does-united-states-spend-more-student-most-countri/)

~~~
cyrks
While educational spending per student is higher in the US, the travesty is
where that money is spent. It's not all spent on the students. If it were, the
US wouldn't have the (overall) terrible public educational system that it has.

~~~
ouid
[https://www.cdw.com/shop/products/SMART-kapp-IQ-
Pro-65-inter...](https://www.cdw.com/shop/products/SMART-kapp-IQ-
Pro-65-interactive-whiteboard-serial-USB-Bluetooth-4.0/3934071.aspx)

I recently visited a school with one of these in every classroom. Every
student has a laptop. Every classroom has an unused commercial "curriculum"
product in the corner.

And given how much administrators make, and presumably embezzle, I'm not even
sure these are bad investments, in a relative sense.

------
bloaf
This is part of a long and slow change in the role of higher education.
Previously, college was seen as being for people who academically deserved it.
College was not for teaching high-school level concepts, it was for teaching
advanced concepts to students who had already demonstrated some _bona fides._
Now, it is seen as an extension of high school; the onus is on the college to
mold all comers into more educated and productive citizens, even if that means
re-teaching the basics.

[1998]
[http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/28/local/me-54085](http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/28/local/me-54085)

>The Times reported in March on data from the California State University
system showing that roughly half of the freshmen at the Fullerton campus
failed basic-skills placement exams and had to enroll in remedial math and
English courses. New statistics released Wednesday show that those students
had a mean high school grade-point average of 3.1, or a B.

> "How can it be that students can be getting Bs in English and not pass a
> fairly basic test and end up having to take a remedial class?" Klammer
> asked... "We cannot afford, as a state, to be reteaching high school
> classwork at the university," he said.

~~~
Osmium
> Now, it is seen as an extension of high school; the onus is on the college
> to mold all comers into more educated and productive citizens, even if that
> means re-teaching the basics.

This seems to be the case with grad programs now too: doing the teaching that
undergrad should have already done. Turtles all the way down.

~~~
bloaf
In which departments have you seen that? [Not denying, genuinely curious]

~~~
oculusthrift
i've seen some pretty shitty grad students but i don't really blame the grad
school. a lot of non-cs undergrads go into cs grad programs with barely any
programming experience. in my experience, the grad programs don't teach them
the fundamentals (assuming they know them) but instead teach very specific
niche areas. They end up never learning basic programming fundamentals.

~~~
aslkdjaslkdj
If someone is studying computability or formal languages or algorithms or ML
in a CS department, they don't really need to be programmers.

~~~
gizmo686
My sister is a graduate student in Neuropsychology. As part of her graduate
program, she was required to take a programming class; because programming is
an important tool that she needs to be able to use to do her research.

Simmilarly, most research in CS will involve using programming as a tool, even
if it is not the final product. The problem is that in CS, no one thinks to
require the graduate students to take basic programming classes.

~~~
rifung
> As part of her graduate program, she was required to take a programming
> class; because programming is an important tool that she needs to be able to
> use to do her research.

But for students focusing in complexity, they may not need to program at all,
so naturally it makes sense there would not be much emphasis on programming.

------
samcodes
I TAed at a Cal State and worked in the math tutoring center. If the tests
were like other standardized tests I encountered there, they probably were not
a very good measurement of anything. And the remedial courses, best I could
tell, did not help.

Some people seem to be interpreting this as lowering the bar. That position
supposed that these tests are more accurate measurements than grades and SAT
scores. I believe you are putting way too much faith in these tests. Also, the
plan of "stretch" courses seems like a better one - motivation is a large
factor in performance, and students will be more motivated in classes that
count towards their degree, and don't tell them they preemptively failed.

K-12 education needs lots of improvement. But the Cal State system can't
affect that. This is a change they can make, and it seems like it will help
bring the kids who need it up to speed faster.

~~~
kaitai
Your second paragraph is spot on. These tests are not very accurate, and
students who see a bunch of remediation rather than progress in front of them
often quit or switch majors, rather than gearing up and doing the math that is
required!

------
Nickersf
Let's just drop meritocracy all together. Everything is subjective, right?

Seriously though, I'm worried about our future as a spieces. The knowledge and
technologies we have developed, which require nurturing. We nurture modern
civilization by making sure the smartest get into positions where they can
express their intellect. Part of that process needs to be keeping rigours
standards in place when it comes to education.

~~~
kashkhan
college and other education should be about adding learning to the recipients
and not about measurement.

People should learn things as they want, and not be required to meet arbitrary
standards and degrees to obtain societal benefits.

A hundred years ago ~1% of the people went to college. Now it's more than 50%.
The societal function of college has changed.

~~~
0x10101
"People should learn things as they want, and not be required to meet
arbitrary standards and degrees to obtain societal benefits."

Then don't ask me to pay for you to do so. Check some books out of the
library.

People are paying a lot of money to universities in exchange get a better life
for themselves. If it doesn't improve their skills in any measurable way, we
should try something else.

~~~
kashkhan
thats ok. we are in a transitional phase. Most of what you learn in college
goes to waste anyway.

College proves that you can start something and finish it. Like you can do
engineering, but even graduates of MIT need years in industry to learn the
actual skills needed for their jobs.

~~~
0x10101
If the goal of college is just to prove you can prove that you can do start
something and finish it, we can find a lot cheaper ways of doing that. You can
even get a job that doesn't require college to prove that.

------
lsh123
Heinlein, Friday

When it was noted that Californians with college degrees earned more than
those with high school diplomas alone, the California voters passed a law
granting all citizens a bachelor’s degree upon graduation from high school.

~~~
starik36
That sounds awfully close to Idiocracy. Next up, law degrees from Costco.

------
seibelj
I recently interviewed a master's CS student at a decent state school looking
for a part-time job. She had barely programmed before the master's CS
(undergrad was in MIS). Did not know what a hash table / dictionary / etc.
was. So troubling for someone soon to graduate with a master's in CS.

~~~
wikibob
Which state school?

As mentioned elsewhere, sadly many CS masters programs are designed with the
assumption that students already have solid foundations from undergrad CS, but
now are often admitting people without those skills.

Also cheating is unbelievably rampant at many state schools (I say this from
witnessing it first hand).

Lastly, all the MIS programs I'm familiar with are a sad joke. Often the
result of a turf war between a business school and the engineering school, the
MIS department is often incredibly weak on the technical side.

------
aphextron
The level of elitism in this thread is staggering. Should kids that are not at
the top of their class be left to work in the salt mines? Do we just abandon
the idea of educating people and make all universities a private "smart people
only" club? The CSU system's mandate is to provide _accessible education to
all Californians_. Ragging on them for working towards that goal makes no
sense. The UC system is still the most prestigious, selective public
university system in the world, and this will not affect that.

~~~
vostok
> The UC system is still the most prestigious, selective public university
> system in the world, and this will not affect that.

Is the UC system more prestigious than Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, or
top prepas/grandes ecoles? Even the most jingoistic American wouldn't argue
that the UC system is more prestigious than Oxford or Cambridge for
undergraduate studies.

~~~
ebola1717
I mean I don't know if Oxford and Cambridge should be considered "public" the
way the UCs are, but UC Berkeley and UCLA are in that tier, and like, does
changing that line from "in the world" to "in the US" really change the point?

------
agentgt
You might be asking how one fails the state testing (then gets put in remedial
class) but gets accepted to college (particularly a CA state one).

Let me tell you a funny yet embarrassing story. I went to GaTech and I failed
the English Regents test not once but twice!

Now at first I thought it was my fault. I didn't really take the test
seriously. However I was seriously embarrassed. After all this was Georgia not
California.

Long story short after having to go through a remedial english class that was
a complete waste of my time and somewhat embarrassing I learned the reason I
was failing.... the exam testers could not read my hand writing!

To this day I'm still sort of jaded about the whole thing.

~~~
purple-again
I feel that this story needs a date to make any sense. 2015? Wow that's
completely ridiculous and infuriating. 1984? Yeah that makes sense,
handwriting was a critical skill for effective communication in the college
setting.

~~~
mnarayan01
He should have been _told_ regardless. I can totally understand, sympathize,
and even potentially agree with an evaluator not wanting to deal with sloppy
handwriting, but a context-free failing grade is just _totally_ unacceptable.

------
mathattack
This seems like they're focusing on the wrong metric. They look and say,
"Graduates earn more money" and say "ok, for the best NPV, let's reduce the
cost and increase the graduates".

The problem is they mistake causality with correlation. If you focus strictly
on graduation, without improving the students, then you will find that
graduates will earn less. This same problem happens in high school - lowering
the standards of students does improve graduate rates, but not necessarily
life outcomes.

An extreme example of this is to observe, "On days when there is a lot of ice
cream sold, violent crime is higher, therefore let's make it harder to sell
ice cream." The reality is hot days cause the rise in both ice cream sales and
violent crime. If you only address the visible metric of ice cream sales, you
miss the underlying cause.

This abuse of statistics is rampant in education.

~~~
ThinkingGuy
In my opinion it is part of a wider trend, of both public- and private-sector
schools, moving away from the "education business" and more toward the
"diploma business."

~~~
mathattack
Yes. So the question is, "Are schools giving up their academic rigor, or just
facing up to the reality that students aren't learning anything anyway?"

My soft anecdotal observation is...

\- At my large public undergrad, very little classroom learning happened for
80+% of the students outside the hard subjects. (Physics, Computer Science,
etc) 80+% of the students in the hard subjects learned a lot in the class.
Many students learned a lot outside of the classroom.

\- At my private research focused professional grad school, there was a lot
more learning, but even then more of the learning was outside the classroom.
It was also possible to treat the experience as a multi-year job interview,
and do fine skating by with low grades.

------
godzillabrennus
College is really the new high school...

~~~
shados
And this hurts the people they're trying to help. If you devalue highschool to
the point you need another 4 years to prove you have the basics, anyone who's
doesn't the privileged to wait that extra 4 years is that much more screwed.

~~~
defined
Perhaps devaluation explains the trend towards requiring ever-higher degrees
(Masters and PhD) in jobs that once were satisfied with a Bachelors.

------
matt_wulfeck
It's easy to get trapped in those courses. I took the placement test and
tested _way_ lowered in math because I basically wasn't very good. The class
was extremely difficult for me. I remember being required to solve square
roots by hand without a calculator ("show your work!"). Probably fun for some
people but I was going to be there forever, and programming was a breeze.

Instead I simply studied the placement exam, retook it and passed into college
level math and dropped my other classes. Higher level math classes are much
easier in my opinion because there isn't the same emphasis on process but
instead on competency. This is also the biggest difference between high school
and college classes in my opinion.

Later on life i do enjoy solving square roots by hand for fun.

------
almonj
They want to lower the bar so that they can pass more low-mediocre people
though the system, give them the false idea that they are intelligent and
eventually give them government jobs. They need a class of useful idiots in
power to achieve their goal of a complete technocratic surveillance state.
These type people are already taking power positions all over and totally
changing the working culture. Look at that guy who wrote the google diversity
criticism memo, it wasn't even a controversial thing, yet he was brought down
by this mob of new brainwashed low-intellect people pushing an insane agenda.
The kind of person who can't pass a remedial English exam or do any kind of
advanced mathematics is perfect for this role. Having advanced reasoning
skills, language and mathematics skills actually puts them at a disadvantage
here, what they need is a new class of bullies and manipulators that will go
along with whatever they are told.

------
oh_sigh
"At Cal State, about 40% of freshmen each year are considered not ready for
college-level work and required to take remedial classes that do not count
toward their degrees."

This is crazy to me. I'm not familiar with Cal State but do they just let
anyone in who applies?

~~~
xienze
It's amazing that there's such a thing as remedial classes in a university,
but hey, how else are we going to get an adequately diverse student body?

~~~
Clubber
Are you insinuating white people don't need remedial classes?

~~~
justin_vanw
Of course all kinds of people can land in these remedial classes if they are
not prepared.

Now, I ask you, which schools do a better job of preparing students for
college level work, the schools white kids get to go to or the schools black
kids have to go to? If you are wondering, look at the AP classes offered at
say Palo Alto high school vs Crenshaw high school:

[http://schools.latimes.com/school/los-angeles/crenshaw-
senio...](http://schools.latimes.com/school/los-angeles/crenshaw-senior-high/)

[http://schools.latimes.com/school/palo-alto/palo-alto-
high/](http://schools.latimes.com/school/palo-alto/palo-alto-high/)

Highlights:

Proficient in Math: PA: 76% Crenshaw: 2.5% (not a typo)

Proficient in English: PA: 84% Crenshaw: 18%

Now, are you saying we shouldn't let bright kids from bad schools get into
college?

~~~
michaelchisari
Palo Alto Avg. Income: $126,771

Inglewood Avg. Income: $43,394

Wouldn't it make sense to compare like-to-like, and choose two schools in
areas with similar incomes?

~~~
orbifold
Just btw. but in Germany ~43,000$ would be considered a not too bad income,
certainly not an income where one would expect people to have ~2.5% math
proficiency.

~~~
michaelchisari
An average 1 bedroom in Inglewood ranges from $1350 to $1600 a month. An
average 2 bedroom ranges from $1650 to $2000 a month.

Someone making $43k a year would end up with $2,667.51 a month as take home
pay. This would not include health insurance, which could run anywhere from
$100 to $400 a month (and potentially much, much higher).

------
gigatexal
Translation: Diluting the prestige of the cal stage degree

~~~
snapetom
There hasn't been any prestige for a while. I went to CSUS about 20 years ago.
I only went there for my freshman year because I spent more time asleep in
class than awake, and still managed a 4.0. It was then I realized it was a
joke.

Dropped out, scraped together money, went to a real school on the other side
of the country.

------
choonway
More students = more $. Do you really think they care about whether you pass
or not?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Yup. Schools make money by being bottom heavy. Classes with hundreds of
students make money. Classes with tens of students lose money. Allowing people
to enroll in programs they're not prepared for results in more people who drop
out or change majors after taking a semester or two of classes with a high
profit margin.

------
toast0
I know someone who teaches (or taught, I guess) remedial math at CSULB. From
what I've heard, her students do seem to need the classes. A large number of
the students don't show up to class, and many of those that do attend have
trouble with the class and may not pass. There has been a lot of pressure from
administrators to increase the pass rate.

I wasn't aware they didn't allow taking courses for credit before passing the
remedial classes though. It seems to me that you could take some general Ed or
major courses, but science and engineering without math requirements is hard,
and humanities courses without paper writing skills is also hard.

It doesn't make any sense to me to pay CSU level tuition if you're not going
to get credit if you pass the course. It would be better to redirect these
students to a community college, where the costs to the students are lower,
and offer a guaranteed spot for them to transfer in when they can earn credit.
Some amount of connection to the CSU may help with student motivation.

------
halfnibble
If you live on the West Coast and want your children to be able to read Hacker
News, then you better send them to a private school.

~~~
posguy
More like its a quick way to get your kids sick with some nasty ass diseases,
West Coast private schools are a petri dish with a ton of unvaccinated kids.

Considering the Catholic Church runs most of these schools, the local diocese
need to crack down and not endanger their student body with these nasty ass,
bug chasing parents & their unvaccinated children!

[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-l...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-
la-schools-vaccination-rates-are-as-low-as-south-sudans/380252/)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
You talk about "nasty ass diseases" and them go on to talk about the religious
affiliation of those schools.

The obvious XKCD notwithstanding, I hope the humor and stereotype reference
there is not lost on readers.

~~~
posguy
Its so odd, seeing that when I was in Catholic School they'd have kicked me
out had I not been vaccinated, but now private schools in Washington State are
basically the only place you can easily skip vaccination.

------
ProfessorLayton
I don't take too much of an issue with this. It's clear that the current
system isn't working well enough, evidenced by the low graduation rates and
high student loan burdens, so I don't see what's wrong in trying out a new
approach and measuring the results. If this doesn't work, then I think we
should try something else.

Ultimately we need to change the way we fund education, but that a whole lot
more complicated.

For those who disagree, I'd definitely like to read why over just a vote in
either direction.

------
danschumann
It seems like they just want EVERYONE to go to college, even if they go $100k
into debt to study German Polka History. They should give fewer student loans,
or make them bankruptable, and make sure students actually will be financially
benefited within 10 years. There is a surplus of students, which technically
means they can give inferior education. If there were a shortage of students,
universities would need to up their game.

~~~
kazen44
what is a far larger problem is the fact that employers basically demand
college and university degrees for jobs which require neither.

I am not american, but i wonder why the US seems to lack a tiered tertiary
education system? In the netherlands for example, we have different levels of
tertiary education going all the way from trade school to polytechnical
education to research universities. This systems seems to create a far more
fitting model for the labour market, instead of requiring everyone to have a
college education which all vary widly in terms of levels of competence.

~~~
danschumann
I once applied for a job at a university to develop backend systems. They
rejected me immediately because I didn't have higher education, then they
called me 2 months later, when someone actually read my resume and saw my
skills.

I will tell everyone that skills, recent projects, and cool hobbies will prove
you are qualified way more than a degree!

------
pitaa
There's a lot of talk about the motives behind this, but moving beyond that:
is this even going to work? They say that:

> Under the new system, all Cal State students will be allowed to take courses
> that count toward their degrees beginning on Day 1. Students who need
> additional support in math or English, for example, could be placed in
> “stretch” courses that simultaneously provide remedial help and allow them
> to complete the general math and English credits required for graduation.

Which sounds great, but thinking about it I think it will end up putting an
unreasonable workload on students. They talk like students are wasting time in
these remedial classes, but the entire purpose of the remedial classes is to
get students to a point where they can succeed in the next class. If they go
into a college algebra class not being able to multiply fractions, or not
being comfortable with addition and subtraction (which is way more common for
people entering college than you might think), they're going to have a very
hard time. Sure, these "stretch courses" might be there to help them, but I
fear that essentially taking 2 math courses concurrently will be overwhelming
for an already disadvantaged population of students.

Not to say that one needs a full k-12 math education to succeed in college
math classes; you definitively do not. Like many things we teach our kids, the
vast majority of what is covered in those math classes is basically useless.
But they do (hopefully) result in students being comfortable with manipulating
numbers and doing the basic arithmetic needed for further study. The remedial
classes shouldn't be trying to cover a k-12 math education, just enough that
the students can follow what is happening in subsequent classes without being
confused by the arithmetic.

------
vondur
One of the main drivers for these initiatives is to reduce the time of
graduation for students, which I believe was 46% graduation rate within six
years. When you add in the mix of minority students who aren't properly
prepared for college level courses, you get the really low grad rates in the
CSU system. The longer you have students taking classes, the more money is
costs the CSU, so they have an interest in lowering that number. Of course,
the way they are going about it is bad in my opinion. Professors are pressured
to not fail students in key classes that tend to slow down the graduation
rates. One way to do that is to have non-tenured faculty teach these courses,
who can be let go for not enforcing these practices. Lecturer's are hired on a
contract basis, and may not be rehired. I've seen some lecturers on one year
contracts. Some of this is not completely a bad thing in my opinion. I
remember losing half of an Organic Chem class by the middle of the semester,
due to the sink or swim mentality in many of the sciences/engineering faculty.

~~~
remline
My University had a policy of letting you retake things and take the new
grade. In the modern world, I think you should be able to retake the tests and
rely on MOOCs. I'm not at all a fan of allowing failure to pass or even
average for a first attempt in a hard subject to pass. I had a few courses
that I should have failed and I never revisited them because I got a B or even
an A.. Today I am falsely educated in most of those subjects.

------
imron
Gotta keep that student loan cash flowing.

------
mannykannot
From the executive order:

Students whose skills assessments indicate academic support will be needed for
successful completion of general education written communication or
mathematics/ quantitative reasoning courses shall enroll in appropriate
college-level, baccalaureate credit-bearing courses that strengthen skills
development to facilitate achieving the appropriate general education student
learning outcomes. Supportive course models may include, among others, co-
requisite approaches, supplemental instruction, or "stretch" formats that
extend a course beyond one academic term. In these approaches, instructional
content considered pre-baccalaureate may carry a maximum of one unit and shall
be offered concurrently with a college-level, baccalaureate credit-bearing
course.

Taken at face value, this says that the academic burden will be increased for
the weakest students. Excuse me for being skeptical (that this will work or
that this is how it will actually be done; take your pick.)

------
kerpele
Unless the point is to have more people in regardless of whether they have any
possibility to graduate I don't understand this. How many highly talented kids
have already been lost just because they didn't know what they wanted in life
at 15 and thus have much lower high school grades and sat scores and whatnot
than what they are actually capable of?

~~~
ebola1717
This isn't an admissions criteria. This is just a commitment to helping kids
that come in with weaker backgrounds get up to speed faster, without having to
spend credits on remedial classes.

------
Animats
California has a three-tier system

* University of California - real college

* California State University - college lite

* Community colleges - advanced high school

~~~
dragonwriter
Community colleges are simply lower division; they have guaranteed transfer
programs to both University systems, and arguably stronger lower-division
programs because they have better lower-division faculty-to-student ratios,
and a pure teaching focus.

------
jlebrech
I always thought degrees were useless, was just ahead of the curve (they still
taught useful skills until now)

------
tomcam
How can this end well?

------
johnpython
This is a change for the better. Ultimately, pedigree does not matter and a
meritocratic society should not care about the institution that awarded the
degree. Assess the individual and check your privilege.

------
daodedickinson
There's just no reason to get a degree from any but a few schools anymore.
Employers have already caught on, and this is a move in the wrong direction.
If they'll give you a degree for free, fine, but no one should be taking out
loans or paying a dime for a school without making sure diplomas from that
schools are still worth anything to employers. There are schools where a CS
degree from them makes you look worse than having no degree at all.

~~~
dragonwriter
This isn't about degrees for free, it's about replacing a broken model of
remediation with newer models that have been shown to work better at getting
people ready to pass the same substantive classes better and with less delay.

