The response to low graduation rates can't be to further dumb down the degree. Every functioning adult should understand algebra. I'd actually argue that trigonometry should also be included in this list, but that's probably only useful for adults who build things, and sadly, not very many adults do build things these days.
Instead of removing Algebra, we need to consider better ways to teach this subject to people who do not have a lot of the fundamentals in place already. One of the biggest problems with College Algebra is that it assumes a certain level of math literacy that isn't universal. Algebra simply isn't that hard of a subject to master, but it is something that requires a different sort of teaching strategy than is used at the average community college.
Give me a motivated adult who understands basic arithmetic, and I can help him or her master algebra in six to eight weeks. We can go from zero to FOIL, and quadratic to partial fraction decomposition in that amount of time. The key is to listen and to instill a level of confidence as early as possible in this process. Many adults consider math to be "hard" -- not from the perspective of it actually being hard, which it is -- but from the perspective of "this is too hard for me to do, because I'm not a math person." Break this mental block, and anyone can do algebra.
>Give me a motivated adult who understands basic arithmetic, and I can help him or her master algebra in six to eight weeks. We can go from zero to FOIL, and quadratic to partial fraction decomposition in that amount of time. The key is to listen and to instill a level of confidence as early as possible in this process. Many adults consider math to be "hard" -- not from the perspective of it actually being hard, which it is -- but from the perspective of "this is too hard for me to do, because I'm not a math person." Break this mental block, and anyone can do algebra.
I used to believe this until I actually tried. Maybe they lied about how much studying they really did, but I've seen people putting in many hours a week and still unable to grasp the basics of algebra. I think many of us have never really been exposed to the thinking power of people at the bottom 10-20% (IQs below 80-87) , they weren't in our classes in high school. And now these people are going to college.
I've tutored students in algebra and remedial math in the past. I agree that it is more challenging to work with adults on the lower end of the intelligence curve, but even these adults can be taught enough algebra to pass the final exam.
Different teaching techniques are required for different students. For the students at the upper edge of the curve, the homework assignments and lectures are more than enough. For the students near the middle of the curve, some additional exercises and confidence building may be required. For students near the bottom of the curve, it will be necessary to break problems into parts and reinforce smaller parts before building back up to the overall problems. These students must be taught how to break problems into discrete steps, and a lot of emphasis needs to be placed in teaching them how to recognize the patterns. Mnemonics, rhymes, and other catchy phrases can help to reinforce both the pattern recognition and the execution of steps.
Bear in mind that we can teach computers to perform algebra. There is a heuristic involved. This heuristic can be memorized by anyone who can memorize a bible verse, a song, or a poem. You would be surprised what someone with a low IQ can do when time is spent to organize a heuristic in terms that this person can memorize, and enough time is spent to reinforce both this learning and the confidence of this individual.
I'd say say the truth is somewhere in between. There are many people who think math is hard, but they can be taught quite easily with a skillful teacher if they're motivated.
However, there is a group of people who simply can't grasp it. No matter how you explain, they stare blankly at you and say they don't understand. It looks like they know what you mean if you use a simple example "You have 3 apples but want to have 13 apples; how many are you missing", but make it just a bit harder and you get back to square one. It's just a kind of people. They're otherwise nice to get along with, they seem to understand many things about life in general etc., it's just this aspect that is somewhat blocked. I hope one day we discover a safe way to somewhat activate the neurons in the related area of the brain to break this barrier.
>Give me a motivated adult who understands basic arithmetic, and I can help him or her master algebra in six to eight weeks.
Well, teaching _motivated_ students is easy and fun. The question is, though, what about the semi-motivated students and do either still understand algebra after they are done with you and in their next class?
I think that trendia already touched on a lot of these, but consider the typical every day problems that require algebra to solve:
An item at the store is listed for $4.99 each, but under a promotion, the item is buy two, get one free. What is the net cost of each item?
If I am driving at 20 miles per hour, it takes my vehicle 20 feet to stop. If I am driving at 40 miles per hour, how much distance will it take my vehicle to stop?
I have a 20 foot ladder. It is leaning against a wall such that the tip of the ladder is touching the top of the wall. The distance between the bottom of the ladder to the bottom of the wall measures 10 feet. What is the height of the wall?
You and three office mates decide to purchase fast food for lunch. Each of you order the same item, and your three office mates give you $10 each. The cashier rings up $35.17 as the total. How much change do you owe each of your office mates?
You are traveling by bus and wish to estimate your time of arrival. You notice that it takes one minute and 25 seconds for the bus to travel from one mile marker to the next. Your destination is fifty miles away. Assuming the bus stays at the same speed, how long until you reach your destination?
If these seem contrived, then consider that just about every college educated adult, at one time or another, will need to know his or her way around a spreadsheet. Even basic spreadsheet formulas make little sense unless one can reason algebraically. Just trying to learn how to use a spreadsheet program without understanding algebra is a painful process.
What a great illustration of the one of the problems with math education:
Q: If I am driving at 20 miles per hour, it takes my vehicle 20 feet to stop. If I am driving at 40 miles per hour, how much distance will it take my vehicle to stop?
A: This can only be answered experimentally for a given car, tire condition & road condition, but a rough estimate would be to apply the square law naively, giving an answer of 80 feet, but of course that's very approximate. The only correct answer that can be given is "more than 40 feet".
Yes. It can only be answered experimentally, but the Square Law still applies, with constants to account for reaction time and friction. The point is that someone who has studied Algebra would be able to recognize a polynomial in the data and could match the data to a reasonable function just by taking measurements.
That is the power of Algebra, and it is something that all adults should possess.
> Is it cheaper to buy 1 case of water for $2.50 or 3 cases of water for $9.00
Slightly off topic as I don't think this is college level algebra, in supermarkets in Europe they are required by law to put the "€/liter" price in small on the side, so you can compare easily. In the US it doesn't seem mandatory, or at least the unit is not mandatory because sometimes they use fl oz, sometimes gallons, or for pieces of meat sometimes oz, sometimes lbs, so when you want to compare the prices of 2 similar items, what would just take you 0.5 sec in Europe takes you much longer in the US since you need to add unit conversion in the mix. For example here your "cases" could be of different sizes, that 1 case of water could be 2L ,while those 3 cases could be a gallon each...
All of these are literally the sorts of things you'd find on homework assignments and final exams in a community college algebra course... You do need algebra, and don't realize how difficult this "trivial" algebra is for some students because you can do it without even realizing you're doing it.
I mean, there will be some FOIL and quadratic equation examples as well. And a bunch of stuff in-between like identifying graphs of functions.
But CC Algebra is super bimodal, so it's probably not the case that students are nailing these word problems and only failing with the other stuff.
>So if you're not a STEM major ... why even study algebra?
I feel like this is equivalent to saying "if you are a STEM major, why even study writing?" I do some technical writing for work, but absolutely none of the kind of writing I did in my college writing classes. Would anyone, especially a non-STEM major, care to make an argument that the two cases are different?
"It is also the single most failed course in community colleges across the country".
The author is saying that a lot of people that don't need algebra end up failing it, so if we remove it from their curricula we'll raise graduation rates. That's the end goal.
Not as many people fail writing courses, so there's no need to remove those courses as they're not a barrier to graduating.
>The author is saying that a lot of people that don't need algebra end up failing it, so if we remove it from their curricula we'll raise graduation rates. That's the end goal
This is what's wrong with our education system. Who cares if anyone is actually learning anything, get those useless metrics up!
If we're going down that path, why not just print out the relevant bits of paper for anyone that asks? For a small fee of course. We can end the race to the bottom and go straight to the finish line.
That was largely employers responding to previous rounds of dumbing down. If they couldn't fill positions with college graduates then they wouldn't be requiring them.
No, this was caused by employers abdicating their responsibility to actually interview and/or train people and instead taking "college graduate" as a proxy (mostly for "willing to sit in a seat and swallow bullshit").
Of course, once they made "college degree" a proxy, everybody on the production side responded correctly and reduced into to its core essence as you said: "pay for this piece of paper and who cares about quality since an interview won't test me anyway".
If it actually mattered, the most rational action is for employers to either 1) interview people without college degrees or 2) train people without college degrees. The fact that neither of these is occurring tells me that the employers aren't really that bothered by the current situation.
Yeah, the whining about well-roundedness tends to be humanities towards STEM, perhaps in response to the STEMlord mentality.
FWIW: I have a "Bachelors of Science In Liberal Arts & Sciences" from math.illinois.edu and enjoyed the human sexuality, critical theory, etc courses I took in addition to the math courses.
I have a sneaking suspicion there'd be a revolt if all humanities students had to pass MATH 347[1] to graduate.
Non-Stem; I'll give it go but the answer may be considered a cop out.
I don't think STEM majors should have to take writing courses nor non-stem majors take math courses.
This should not be done in University but earlier. I'm skeptical that forcing these two categories of students take these courses make them effective with in the subject matter or a more enlightened person as the excuse goes.
IMO it is a way to keep professors who teach unneccessary coursework employed.
If you're a STEM person on my team that cannot write in a coherent and precise fashion, I am going to find you and you had better pray you're worth retraining, because this is a non-negotiable part of any technical career you could hope to have.
If you want regular promotions, probably watch your spelling too.
I sincerely wish that this was the norm, but my experience has been that, on average, people with the word "engineer" in their degree can't be bothered with such piddling details as spelling and grammar.
I cofounded a small tech shop in flyover country. Mostly fitness and music stuff. Not hiring at the moment, but if you do native mobile, hit me up, we do a lot of stuff and it's only a matter of time before I need another native guy. We do remote-- you gotta be able to write an email.
I disagree. STEM majors should have to take at least a couple of writing courses as part of a university degree (I had to take two: English Comp and Technical Writing). I'm freaking tired of trying to decipher some of the poorly written documentation produced by my fellow software engineers.
They could be worse without the training. Remember most people have 12+ years of learning how to write, a few college classes are only going to do so much.
There we go right here. In theory people say engineers need to write cleary,accurately, whatever adverb is used to describe it in order to get a job etc.
I wonder how many engineers get hired for their writing ability?
In fact I bet a college educated engineer or at least one who went to college writes well enough as to not interfere with their work.
I can't imagine that a STEM degree given to someone without basic writing skills would be worth the paper it's printed on. Both from an academic perspective and from a job skills / industry perspective.
Well, I majored in both political science and computer science. I don't think the two cases are different at all. I find it very irritating to deal with both political people who don't understand any math, and computer people who can't write a coherent sentence.
However, if I had to pick one mathematical subject everyone should learn, it wouldn't be algebra, it would be statistics.
> However, if I had to pick one mathematical subject everyone should learn, it wouldn't be algebra, it would be statistics.
This isn't algebra in the "groups and rings" sense, it's algebra in the "use the quadratic equation", "is this a graph of x or x^2 or x^3?", "FOIL" sense. Think middle school or early high school.
It's basically impossible to do any statistics past a bit of hand waving if your students can't identify the difference between a graph of x and a graph of x^2...
Writing classes at the college level usually involve some study of literature, which is conceivably helpful in not just daily, transactional communication, but in consuming news and entertainment. I have an engineering degree but I'm having a hard time thinking when I've ever used math beyond simple arithmetic and statistics outside of work.
FWIW that "simple arithmetic and statistics" is the sort of stuff that's taught in college algebra.
We're not talking about teaching everyone Calculus or Group Theory. We're talking about making sure everyone knows what they should've learned in their middle and high school algebra course.
People are far more likely to benefit economically from strong communication skills than strong math skills. The vast majority of people go to community college to help themselves economically.
We're not talking about "strong" math skills. IME most kids who will go on to take AP Calculus mastered at least half of the material covered in a CC Algebra course before even starting high school.
> People are far more likely to benefit economically from strong communication skills than strong math skills
I'm not entirely sure this is true in many local economies. Especially outside of cities, communication isn't as important as competency in skills/trades. And a lot of those skills/trades require a functional understanding of elementary mathematical objects -- understanding ratios, functions, some useful trig properties, and the ability to follow complicated directions (algorithms) precisely are all basic core competencies for most trades.
The article is probably correct -- we could stand to have alternatives to the standard CC algebra course. But an effectively similar level of quantitative skill is required for most trades. And no amount of "pretty talkin'" will prep you for, e.g., CNC machining.
And a lot of those skills/trades require a functional understanding of elementary mathematical objects -- understanding ratios, functions, some useful trig properties, and the ability to follow complicated directions (algorithms) precisely are all basic core competencies for most trades.
Which trades are you referring to? Truck driving? Retail? Cashiers? Secretaries? Managers, sales reps, school teachers, janitors, waiters, cooks, customer service, freight laborers, stock clerks, maids, receptionists, construction laborers, child care workers, grounds maintenance?
None of those require a wit of algebra. Yet they represent tens of millions of jobs.
It's not good to divorce ourselves too far from the reality of most normal peoples' lives.
None of those are skills (except maybe truck driving). And none of them require a CC degree. Those are all things you do with a GED or less.
I'm thinking of the sorts of things people go to CC for. Dental Hygiene, Paramedics, EMTs, Morgue work, Respiratory therapists et al, various medical diagnostic technicians, vet techs, nursing, CNC, Engineering technicians, etc. Visit your local CC website and look through their programs of study.
> Managers
Depends. Engineering? Construction? Absolutely.
Again, we're not talk about groups and rings. We're talking about stuff like knowing the difference between x and x^2.
> sales reps ... customer service
Outside of cities there are a lot fewer sales jobs... and a lot of them require BA/BS just because they can.
> school teachers
STEM teachers need a LOT more than just CC algebra. At least Calculus. The algebra taught in CC's was once taught in high school, but is now often taught in middle school. Middle school science curricula have kept pace. So, yes, any STEM teacher -- even at the elementary level these days -- needs to know basic algebra.
> janitors, waiters, cooks
Not skills and/or don't require CC, and so irrelevant to this conversation.
> freight laborers, stock clerks, maids, receptionists, construction laborers, child care workers, grounds maintenance?
Again, not skills, and for the most part don't require CC.
I think we're both throwing a bit at the wall to see what sticks. :)
It's sobering to see all of the job types listed out like that though, isn't it? Our combined lists represent most peoples' options. Kind of strange to think about.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree that morgue keepers or dental hygienicists benefit from even a little bit of algebra, though.
> Our combined lists represent most peoples' options. Kind of strange to think about.
To re-iterate, most of the jobs you listed do not require a Community College degree!
Whether a truck driver or store clerk needs algebra is utterly irrelevant. People doing those jobs are not required to have -- and usually do not have -- community college degrees. Their needs are irrelevant in a discussion about community college curricula.
Regarding my examples, I'm not "seeing what sticks". I'm literally just listing what are pretty much uniformly the most popular programs at most community colleges. Again, look up enrollment and funding statistics for some of your local CC's.
> dental hygienicists
Again, I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of the material that students need to master in order to pass community college algebra.
As I said in my original post:
>>> The article is probably correct -- we could stand to have alternatives to the standard CC algebra course. But an effectively similar level of quantitative skill is required for most trades.
I think that's spot on for dental hygenists. They absolutely have to understand ratios, for example, and that's one major stumbling block for CC Algebra students.
So do they need CC Algebra? Maybe, maybe not. But IMO a course covering only the portions they do absolutely need is going to be just as much a stumbling block for these students.
I'm not sure I buy that. At a minimum, I don't think it's obvious enough to stand without some references or reasoning.
Understanding compound interest at a minimum probably provides an immense benefit to those it keeps from making bad assumptions about taking on and getting out of debt.
Strong writing skills are more likely to get you a job. This is anecdotal, but in my experience those who are forced to take math classes rarely benefit from them in the financial sense you're referring to.
A financial planning course, on the other hand, would be immensely valuable. People should be forced to take that, not algebra. Knowing how to save money on tax returns, how to calculate a budget, software to manage it all... If school is being used for job training, then I wish it would train that.
> People should be forced to take [A financial planning course]
No one should be forced to take such a useless course. Learn algebra and all the non-ephemeral aspects of basic financial planning comes basically for free.
> Knowing how to save money on tax returns
Talk about ephemeral knowledge!
> how to calculate a budget
...is literally the first example used in a lot of college algebra courses.
I on the no required math courses train for non-stem. I completely agree!
Of course since the argument can't be practical, ie you will use this someday which you won't, opponents talk about the importance of a liberal arts
education and being well rounded.
There was a time when a good Liberal Arts education included Calculus because it was considered one of the great achievements of Western Civilization.
The article says, "Their thinking has led to initiatives like Community College Pathways, which strays away from abstract algebra to engage students in real-world math applications."
My interpretation of this is that the article authors are math illiterate enough not to know that "abstract algebra" is thing.
How sad to think that some people think that community college intermediate algebra is so abstract that people can't get it.
> How sad to think that some people think that community college intermediate algebra is so abstract that people can't get it.
I agree, but I don't think more motivation is a bad thing. I hated math (even as an engineer) despite being good at it until I was a junior in college. I got interested in high-level math when I saw what some PhD students were doing for research and that inspired me to dig deeper. Now I appreciate math just for the beauty of it. I wish I had this appreciation in high school, but some people just need a good answer for "why?"
After a certain point, I homeschooled my kids. My oldest likes suffers dyscalculia. He really had a hard time with math in public school. My only goal in math was to get him over his math phobia and teach him "math is your friend." That was it. Any actual math learned was just a bonus.
One day, I explained to him that in algebra, X was basically the exact same thing as the empty space in math problems and it made it easier to move it around. Instead of 2+2=_ you could put the "space" anywhere and it was more readable.
He had a fit. He realized had been doing algebra in his head for years to, for example, infer how much damage a particular attack did in a video game. And here books made it sound hard and alien and didn't explain it worth shit.
Maybe colleges need to up their game. Because Algebra really isn't that hard, but a lot of math is just terribly explained and, then, instead of blaming the materials or the professor, we act like the students are just dumb. Which sucks so very much.
Definitely. Math is typically taught really, really poorly until at least university. It's not uncommon to find STEM phds who "hated math" before making it to or even past calculus.
It's really funny how helpful the "_" or "cloud" trick is for kids. Even high school kids in AP Calculus find it helpful.
There is a "hump" where "_" vs. "x" doesn't seem to help much, e.g. where we start working with polynomials as more abstract things and so on. I think the right approach there is to make a lot more use of computer algebra.
The point is "here's a generic tool that's useful in lots of specific circumstances", but students get lost during hours of practicing the "useless generic tool" before seeing why that general tool is useful. Computer algebra systems can help there.
I think algebra should be taught in a different way. I remember in school I just didn't get it for more than a year and almost failed math. Then my brother in law gave me a few examples and suddenly it clicked. From then on it was super easy.
I think a lot of people who aren't inclined towards math just don't get it because it's taught the wrong way.
intuition isn't taught in schools for the most part, most of my math teachers didn't go into proofs or intuitively figuring out mathematical concepts. It's all to get you the right answers on standardized tests.
I didn't learn this until well after I graduated from college.
> " First of all, we've seen in the data from many of the pilots across the country that are using alternative math pathways — that are just as rigorous as an algebra course — we've seen much greater success for students because many of these students can relate to these different kinds of math depending on which program of study they're in. They can see how it works in their daily life and how it's going to work in their career. "
I remember using this argument a lot when I was a smart-aleck kid, that what should I care about Algebra, because when the heck am I going to use it. It feels like total bunk looking back at it now. I just hadn't seen or appreciated math as something worthwhile in its own right, regardless of application. I maintained that view until I got into more advanced math classes in college. For example the being shown the Cauchy–Schwarz inequality in Linear Algebra for the first time, that was just a total 'Ah-ha!' moment of joy. I really doubt I'd have that impression of that moment if the professor had been trying to demonstrate the immediate, concrete utility of that proof at the same time.
I'm not really sure how one can reliably relay onto others the fun in math for its own sake, but it's there. It feels like a cop out to say a particular type of math needs to serve a purpose 'in the real world' instead of just being worthwhile intrinsically, as a fundamental part of reasoning.
It sounds like California needs to improve its K-12 education. Any adult who graduated high school should be prepared to pass an algebra class. I tutored math in community college back in the day and I saw people of all ages and all majors and while plenty of them just wanted to do enough to meet the requirements, they all could do it in the end. There may be bias in this because I saw those who sought assistance when they needed it, but maybe that's a behavior that needs to be taught too.
As a product of the California K-12 system, I seem to recall being required to pass basic and intermediate algebra in high school.
I then signed up for the Army and spent 4 years not doing much math. When I got out and went to sign up for community college, I actually had to take the placement test twice to get a high enough score to skip retaking the exact kind of algebra course talked about in this article.
There was an interesting article in the Notices of the AMS (American Mathematical Society) a few years ago by Underwood Dudley called "What is Mathematics For?" [1].
In it he discusses how it is largely mythical that most jobs require knowing anything more than basic arithmetic (and even the need for basic arithmetic is not as solid as most assume). For most that do actually require some math it can usually be taught on the job.
Does this mean we should stop widespread teaching of anything beyond basic arithmetic? No. He concludes that what teaching mathematics really does is teach us how to reason. Sure, you have to learn reasoning in other subjects, such as economics or philosophy or physics, but in all of those the reasoning is either about things that have a large component of opinion, or involve a lot of extra real world factual baggage. With mathematics we get to see reasoning in a more pure context, letting us focus on and better learn to understand and use logic.
Would they even be considering this change without the pressure to increase graduation rates? Even if changing the requirements is the right thing to do, this seems like the wrong reason to do it.
As I said before: math courses are objective, so they make a reasonable "canary in the coal mine" for a failed education.
Maybe you don't need math. But if you can't pass the course, there may be other serious problems.
It's easy enough to keep pushing kids/adults forward by redefining success in other subjects. Extra credit, dubious essay standards, grade inflation, etc. We need math to keep the system honest.
I think you are lucky to have a high school diploma if you cannot do basic algebra. I don't think we need to extend this academic leniency to associates degrees in science also.
Most classes in community college have been dumbed down so much that anyone can pass them by showing up and doing mediocre on a few multiple choice tests. You can just memorize a few definitions and get through without learning anything.
They can abandon algebra. So can high schools. But let's be clear on one thing. They will limit their students' future potential severely. If you can't do algebra, you have no chance in hell of ever programming a computer. No chance of doing anything in STEM whatsoever. No chance in finance, business, or any position requiring critical thinking. Yes, if all you're trying is to teach liberal arts majors, this might be an option, though I'm not even sure of that. If you want to prepare students for any kid of future, abandoning algebra is beyond horrible. And we're talking about community colleges here. First and second year students who in many cases have no idea what they really want to do in the world. Do we want to limit students' futures so severely because of our institutions' and teachers' failings at teaching? Why even go to college then? I'm not even sure what these students can excel at if they can't even pass algebra. Maybe manual, hard labor at best.
My bet is either you're actually good at CC level algebra, just don't know it yet (say, bad at notation but good at concepts - try reverse polish notation then), or you're not programming, but putting code together using automated tools.
A bunch of people who are good at math will defend this. For good reasons, but most likely also just because they love mathematics.
But I do kind of question if it's really a good use of everyone's time to learn algebra. For computer science and engineering I can sort of see why you'd want that, but I'll be honest: even in computer science I think most people don't need it. Even when I'm doing algebraic work, it's rarely stuff I learned in a math class. Trig and calculus come more in handy, but unfortunately my day job of writing backend servers does not fundamentally benefit from this. I think many of us could say this.
That's not to say there aren't other benefits of studying mathematics, but if it's really not working then I can see why people are just calling to make it optional. No point in making people suffer through apparently ineffective education.
> But I do kind of question if it's really a good use of everyone's time to learn algebra.
There are things taught in it (and in other courses of general math) that probably don't need to be—long division comes to mind—but there are some pretty fundamental mental concepts that I'd hate for people to lack.
Algebra? If you can't understand algebra there is something dreadfully wrong with you mind, your attitude, or your instruction - Questions should be raised and no degree should be awarded.
Ok - I guess it depends on what they include in an algebra course. Here is an intermediate algebra course outline (pdf warning):
It goes beyond the basics but certainly should be passable by any ordinary person who works at it. This is one of the major things that a degree (any degree) should indicate : this person can work through learning new things. Removing this makes the degree less valuable.
You don't perform "addition, multiplication, addition, and subtraction of rational expressions" in your every-day life?
You don't "Identify key features of and sketch graphs" when e.g. planning an expensive purchase or reading the news?
No business owner is going to survive if they don't understand how to solve a system of equations (aka figure out feasible pricing before losing all their money). Although we are on a tech VC's news site, so I stand corrected ;-)
Being an informed citizen capable of taking care of yourself does require most of the things taught in middle/high school algebra. (Which are the same exact things taught in CC algebra.) A surprising amount of financial suffering is self-imposed by people who can't or won't do very basic math.
Indeed! Requiring _less_ math is a frightening idea to me, in a system of government in which nearly everyone has the right to vote. Properly understanding even the most basic information that informs policy decisions often requires a more advanced understanding than algebra.
What a disservice for people of color. I get that its NPR and they like to pin a racial angle on many things -- but the need for remedial math, reading and writing education at this level shouldn't be associated with race at all -- its a problem that needs to be solved.
Intermediate algebra isn't particularly difficult but requires a moderate level of attention. It's a basic skill expected to exist for many common career paths, including many in community college. If majorities of students cannot hack that, perhaps they aren't prepared to commit to a meaningful education.
> Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads.
No bigotry of low expectations at play here, none at all.
I feel like this is pretty frightening. I thought algebra was basically a high school requirement?
Not only do I think everyone should be able to understand basic algebra, they should understand basic statistics and probabilities (which is pretty hard to understand without algebra).
These days, not only do people not understand math, but we use numbers and statistics to lie to people and mislead their decision making. Now we seem to just be making it easier to mislead them.
I think computer algebra systems can play a role in getting to grips on math. In particular SymPy has a very natural API, with the algebra verbs like "simplify", "expand", "factor", "solve", etc.
I think there's more algebra in frontend development. For example: CSS or SVG gradients, JavaScript animations and fades, the occasional clever data visualization. Heck, even the CSS box model?
Backend or frontend, if you use any quantitative metrics in your year-end performance evals, then some algebra is going to be helpful!
And you never know what will come up. I was once contracted by a regional government to write some code to correct hourly sensor readings (water levels in wells) based on a monthly manual human reading (ground truth). When it was done my boss remarked, "oh, this is just a linear transformation."
I had to learn a lot of linear algebra on the job that I kind of wish I had learned more of in school. Granted, I ended up doing graphics, which is pretty specialized. But I think it's safe to say that the number of programmers who have to know algebra and beyond is more than "virtually none".
Sure, but that's like someone who programs genetic assays saying you have to learn a lot of molecular biology to program. In the last 5 years I've been working, I've done a bunch of linear algebra for cryptanalysis. But in the 18 years preceding that, zilch.
Yeah man, the cure for declining American competitiveness is absolutely dumbing things down even further. The other countries need to respect our dum-dums!
Read the article, the goal is to have alternate math courses.
And, to be fair, that's probably a GOOD idea. A standard algebra course is a lousy math course if you aren't going any further.
Schools used to have a course that was "shop math" aka how to do the things you might have to do in construction, machining, etc. This included elements of algebra, geometry, trig, and statistics. It was a much better match for people who were not going forward to more theoretical math or science.
I read and respectfully disagree-- this is college, not high school or trade school. You're not training for diesel engine repair here, you're training for white-collar jobs. Basic algebra is pretty uniformly necessary today, and it isn't becoming less so in the future.
Community college isn't quite that cut and dried. There are quite a few 2-year Associate's degrees that are not "academic".
One of the community colleges near me has quite a good nursing program. How much "algebra" will they need vs. procedures for medication dosage calculation? "Algebra" has a lot of dead ends for practical use.
A great example is "How do you divide by a fraction?"--a fairly routine algebraic manipulation. Yet, I can't even think of when I have had a real world situation where I had to "divide by a fraction". Multiply by a fraction? Sure. Divide by a whole number? Sure. Calculate a percentage? Sure. Divide by a fraction? Ummmmm.
I would argue that algebra is both too advanced in many places AND too sketchy in others. Geometry is something that people need and don't get because it is after algebra that they fail. The worst part is that a lot of people have better geometric intuition than mathematical and would do better to have geometry first.
Should they have a math course? Yes. Should it be the pedagogical algebra? Not as obvious.
I wonder if those goals of increasing the amount of general knowledge someone knows is in alignment with the goals of attending community it's college?
I'd imagine for a lot of students in community college they care more about getting a job than they do about learning for learnings sake.
Very fair counter point. I would think that the trade school elements of CC would down the road require some knowledge of algebra though right? Be it nursing, plumbing or carpentry
The course in question contains topics like imaginary numbers, sequences/series, and conic sections along with the more practical topics like basic inequalities, graphs of functions, and simple systems of equations. The alternative pathways program seems to swap out these topics for basic topics in probability, statistics, and the like.
Instead of removing Algebra, we need to consider better ways to teach this subject to people who do not have a lot of the fundamentals in place already. One of the biggest problems with College Algebra is that it assumes a certain level of math literacy that isn't universal. Algebra simply isn't that hard of a subject to master, but it is something that requires a different sort of teaching strategy than is used at the average community college.
Give me a motivated adult who understands basic arithmetic, and I can help him or her master algebra in six to eight weeks. We can go from zero to FOIL, and quadratic to partial fraction decomposition in that amount of time. The key is to listen and to instill a level of confidence as early as possible in this process. Many adults consider math to be "hard" -- not from the perspective of it actually being hard, which it is -- but from the perspective of "this is too hard for me to do, because I'm not a math person." Break this mental block, and anyone can do algebra.