cawacko
Well-known member
The removal of the SAT/ACT tests was heavily tied to equity arguments. Now they're arguing that's caused a different kind of inequality.
Basically students are arriving severely underprepared, especially in STEM, then they struggle/drop out once enrolled and professors are teaching at a remedial level instead of college level.
Citing middle-school level skills, UC faculty want to restore math, science testing for applicants
Hundreds of University of California faculty members signed an open letter this week calling for the return of standardized testing requirements for applicants to math and science majors by next year.
The UC system disbanded the decades-old standardized testing requirement in 2020, under a legal challenge from students who argued that the metric gave students who could afford test prep services and travel to exam sites an advantage. The system’s nine undergraduate campuses were among hundreds of colleges nationwide that made the test optional during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But more than five years later, a coalition led by UC Berkeley math professors argues the drop in students’ math levels is “severe.”
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” read the letter, which was signed by more than 600 professors from faculty across STEM disciplines.
The letter cites a November report from UC San Diego’s Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions, which concluded that the number of students whose mathematical abilities were below the typical high school level had increased thirty-fold in the past five years.
Of those students, 70% were found to fall below middle-school math levels, according to the report — roughly one in 12 students entering the UC system.
“The SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather, it is a prerequisite for it,” professors wrote in the letter. “Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.”
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The UC system received a record number of applications the year the standardized testing requirement was dropped, admitting what was then its largest and most diverse class. But the faculty signatories argued that without the testing requirement, a disparity persists “between underprepared and well-prepared students.”
The faculty members who signed the letter frame standardized tests as an external check of students’ preparation for college-level coursework. They warn that “severe grade inflation and AI-assisted application essays” at the high school level make other application metrics less reliable, calling for score requirements to be reinstated as early as the 2027 application cycle.
Ahmet Palazoglu, the chair of the UC Academic Senate, said in a statement that faculty on the the UC system’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools would work to “address timely topics tied to students’ college readiness and UC’s admission process” in light of the signatories’ concerns.
“BOARS is in the process of proposing a roadmap of policy work and partnership building with other state and K-12 education leaders in the next academic year and beyond,” Palazoglu said.
UC spokesperson Rachel Zaentz pointed to the “national challenge” of early math preparation, which she said had been exacerbated by periods of remote instruction during the pandemic.
She added that the UC system would “continue to focus on strengthening instruction, collaboration and support” in partnership with both K-12 and higher education institutions.
www.sfchronicle.com
Basically students are arriving severely underprepared, especially in STEM, then they struggle/drop out once enrolled and professors are teaching at a remedial level instead of college level.
Citing middle-school level skills, UC faculty want to restore math, science testing for applicants
Hundreds of University of California faculty members signed an open letter this week calling for the return of standardized testing requirements for applicants to math and science majors by next year.
The UC system disbanded the decades-old standardized testing requirement in 2020, under a legal challenge from students who argued that the metric gave students who could afford test prep services and travel to exam sites an advantage. The system’s nine undergraduate campuses were among hundreds of colleges nationwide that made the test optional during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But more than five years later, a coalition led by UC Berkeley math professors argues the drop in students’ math levels is “severe.”
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” read the letter, which was signed by more than 600 professors from faculty across STEM disciplines.
The letter cites a November report from UC San Diego’s Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions, which concluded that the number of students whose mathematical abilities were below the typical high school level had increased thirty-fold in the past five years.
Of those students, 70% were found to fall below middle-school math levels, according to the report — roughly one in 12 students entering the UC system.
“The SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather, it is a prerequisite for it,” professors wrote in the letter. “Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.”
Advertisement
The UC system received a record number of applications the year the standardized testing requirement was dropped, admitting what was then its largest and most diverse class. But the faculty signatories argued that without the testing requirement, a disparity persists “between underprepared and well-prepared students.”
The faculty members who signed the letter frame standardized tests as an external check of students’ preparation for college-level coursework. They warn that “severe grade inflation and AI-assisted application essays” at the high school level make other application metrics less reliable, calling for score requirements to be reinstated as early as the 2027 application cycle.
Ahmet Palazoglu, the chair of the UC Academic Senate, said in a statement that faculty on the the UC system’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools would work to “address timely topics tied to students’ college readiness and UC’s admission process” in light of the signatories’ concerns.
“BOARS is in the process of proposing a roadmap of policy work and partnership building with other state and K-12 education leaders in the next academic year and beyond,” Palazoglu said.
UC spokesperson Rachel Zaentz pointed to the “national challenge” of early math preparation, which she said had been exacerbated by periods of remote instruction during the pandemic.
She added that the UC system would “continue to focus on strengthening instruction, collaboration and support” in partnership with both K-12 and higher education institutions.
Citing middle-school level skills, UC faculty want to restore math, science testing for applicants
More than five years after the UC system lifted its standardized testing requirement, a coalition led by UC Berkeley math professors argues the drop in students’ math levels is “severe.”
www.sfchronicle.com
