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California’s public colleges to no longer require students to know math or read

The coming dark age: California’s public universities have decided to drop its requirements that all in-coming students be able to do basic math and be able to read and write English.

Cal State will no longer make those students who may need extra help take the standardized entry-level mathematics (ELM) exam and the English placement test (EPT).

The new protocol, which will go into effect in fall 2018, “facilitates equitable opportunity for first-year students to succeed through existing and redesigned education models,” White wrote in a memorandum to the system’s 23 campus presidents, who will be responsible for working with faculty to implement the changes. 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.

…“This will have a tremendous effect on the number of units students accumulate in their first year of college,” said James T. Minor, Cal State’s senior strategist for academic success and inclusive excellence. “It will have an enormous effect on college affordability, on the number of semesters that a student is required to be enrolled in before they earn a degree, and it will have a significant impact on the number of students that ultimately cross a commencement stage with a degree in hand, ready to move into the workforce, ready to move into graduate or professional school.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, the university has no interest in producing graduates with any useful skills. All the university wants to do is to give them a degree, so that they can claim success. Under this new policy, students incapable of reading and writing English and doing math will still be able to take normal courses that require such skills the moment they enter college. They will likely be pushed through the system, given passing grades, so that when they graduate, they will be like the characters in the movie Idiocracy, functionally illiterate but expected to run society as college educated elites.

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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30 comments

  • Cotour

    More politically correct redefining of previously relevant terms, like.

    Education.

    Insurance.

    Law. Etc, etc.

    What now will be the function of universities? What will they produce? How will they justify their growing salaries to teach such curricula? I suppose they are calculating that in the near future there will be a universal allowance to all Americans, heck all humans on the planet and then everybody will truly be equal. There will be a permanent segment of humanity that will permanently nurse off everyone else, be paid to reproduce and add to their numbers, and not have to know ANYTHING. Equally broke and equally yoked in poverty and dependence we will certainly all perish or rise up and reconfigure back to the fundamentals of the Constitution.

    That is unless SKYNET is closer than we think.

    This of course is now necessary because of the strategic (with the best intentions of course) implementation of the culture of dependency and lower and lower standards that broken family’s and garbage culture produces.

    Low standards is truly no standards.

  • Ted

    … To the tune of California Here I come…..

    California Here I come
    Where I can be really dumb
    No English, No Math will I need
    It’s all Sunshine and flowers and plenty of Greed

    California here I come
    Where the state lets me have so much fun
    Swimming and Playing and Food Stamps Galore
    I’m almost smarter the Zsa Zsa Gabor (who ever she was)

    …… add your own contribution!

  • Orion314

    The Fall of the republic rnd 2.. 1st, the fine welfare state of
    ‘ ill noise”, and now, kali-fornicate. As soon as the 1st state check bounces, it’s a race to the bottom. The main stream media will cover UFO disclosure before the fall of Rome.
    Anyone notice how the media talks so little about the economic collapse of Venezuela? A place on the verge of cannibalism. A subject the left is oh so reticent to speak of.
    Like Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that. sooner or later, you run out of other peoples money.’I’d Say, later, done left town, and Sooner is knock -knock- knockin on Heaven’s door.”

  • LocalFluff

    19% graduation rate after four years? That’s… not good.

  • Michael

    Having read the article I have come to the conclusion that college officials are indeed college graduates.

  • Willi

    Link to Bob’s Friday night podcast available on Batchelor’s podcasts page.

  • wayne

    I’m not going to dig into this in depth, but it appears to be even more convoluted.

    -They can’t meet their 4 year graduation goals, if the students in question have to take remedial classes for which they do not earn credit toward graduation. Looks like they just eliminated “remedial classes,” on paper, and instead classify them as part of the BS/BA requirements.
    -And, they don’t want students taking the entry-level mathematics (ELM) exam and the English placement test (EPT), which leaves a paper trail and a score, which they can be judged against in the future.
    -Sounds like they will instead use “alternative measures.”

    Text of executive order 1110 is at
    http://www.calstate.edu/eo/EO-1110.html

    B. 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.”

  • Cotour

    Might as well throw this story on this pile of steaming bovine waste.

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/04/vanderbilt-professor-says-math-education-is-sexist/

  • Chris L

    How does lowering the entrance requirements ensure a higher graduation rate? There is also the problem of devaluing the worth of a CA university degree. Employers aren’t stupid, if they think a potential employee doesn’t really know what the degree says they do, they will act accordingly. Reality is one mean bitch.

  • wayne

    Chris–
    It’s the 4 year graduation rate they are apparently trying to clean up, among other nefarious purposes in play.
    That’s the one that jumps out at me. (given that I am not to going ponder this too deeply.)
    [It’s not supposed to make sense, it’s all psycho-educational-babble, and does nothing but kick the can down the road even further.]
    Most students no longer graduate in 4 years, (apparently only 19% in California) Buried in that number is general slothiness of otherwise qualified students who party-hearty or otherwise don’t “apply themselves” to a consistent full-schedule. (I haven’t been a student in awhile, but I do recall that I received all my student-aid whether I took 15 credits or 12.
    But increasingly, the 4 year target becomes impossible when unqualified students have to spend 1-2 semesters on remedial classes, and the number of those students, is going up every year.
    (I’m fuzzy on the current 4.5 and 5 year completion rates, and totally ignorant of them in California specifically. The rate does escalate at 4.5 and 5 years, in most other States. On its face, that lofty goal they propose to achieve, is pure vaporware, and this master plan isn’t going to fix it.)

    Totally tangentially– why don’t public College’s run full-time, 12 months a year? They have as much “vacation time” as Congress and they get paid as-if they worked FT 50 weeks a year, and we all they don’t.

  • wayne

    Willi-
    Thanks for the heads up, on the JBS podcast.

    totally tangentially–
    A lengthy “Joe Rogan Experience” (#993) with Ben Shapiro, new this week, if anyone is interested.
    https://youtu.be/UQTfyjhvfH8
    (2:39:30)
    And for any MILO fans– his new book (self published) is out, and he spent 90 minutes with Alex Jones a few days ago. (That’s a pair of weirdness!)
    OR, for less discussion of gay-frogs, (or 9/11)
    -this weeks “Louder with Crowder,” episode 207, with Dinesh D’souza & Ben Shapiro. (Thursday show is always free on YouTube.)

  • wodun

    Lowering the standards means more kids paying tuition over more years. I am sure they would be happy if a larger percentage also graduate but the comes second to getting those sweet sweet tuition checks.

  • Michael Miller

    .

    What?
    Is?
    Going?
    On?
    In?
    California???

    .

  • Cotour

    This is the rewards of low expectations and Liberal thought in practice, a good example of how low standards is no standards. This is socialism, its wonderful, “free” healthcare but we all die lying in the dirt, but we will all be “equal”. See Venezuela, such a beautiful dream realized by Marxist philosophy:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/sunday/on-a-date-while-venezuela-burns.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FVenezuela&action=click&contentCollection=world®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection

    “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of its blessings…..while the inherent vice of socialism is the inherent sharing of its miseries.”

    Subject: Prosperity: Is this man truly a genius?

    An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,
    but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one
    would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

    The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be
    averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A….
    (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

    After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset
    and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little
    had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

    The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

    As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in
    hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

    To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail
    because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away,
    no one will try or want to succeed.

    These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

    1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

    2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

    3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

    4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

    5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

  • wayne

    C–
    reference the quote you noted from that article;
    “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of its blessings…”

    >That person fundamentally misunderstands economics and just by it’s very construction smacks of an inherent bias against free-market systems.

    “Deck the Halls with Macro Follies”
    econstories-2012
    https://youtu.be/7uKnd6IEiO0
    (4:34)

  • Cotour

    No, how I interpret that is that each rises to their own potential, capitalism does not guarantee equal results, but socialism does guarantee equal misery. Makes sense to me. The ability for capitalism to create wealth and for that wealth to be shared is great, the ability for socialism to create wealth and that wealth be shared is ZERO.

    Not everyone has the same potential, they may have the same dreams but men (Or women) are not really created equal in respect to their potential, but they are created equal related to the law and their rights.

    Think about it, re-ponder if you will.

  • wayne

    -Can someone in California explain to me the “free community college” thing? and…
    -What is the graduation rate in California, at the High School level?
    And….
    My pet peeve– why are college classes generally, twice a week? For any given 3 credit, 15 week semester, you are getting maybe 45 hours of actual class-time, and not always with the actual professor.
    –Especially for the STEM type subjects, you need to hammer this into your brain every day, to become really proficient at it.
    (Most I ever learned from a practical standpoint, was with my supervised-practicums, where I had to log 4K hours of actual face-time with real people.)
    ———————————-
    Coutour–
    give up the NYT’s!
    (Talk about Fake Manufactured Lies!)
    ———————————–
    “Fear the Boom”
    The Austrian Theory of Boom and Bust with Lawrence H. White
    (1 of 4)
    https://youtu.be/LPZvKv7uljc
    (7:33)

  • Kate

    4 questions:

    Don’t the CSUs know how well the students know Math and English already by their SAT or ACT scores?

    Don’t the UC schools waive their placement tests depending on how the students scored on the SAT or ACT?

    Who said they were going to give them passing grades if they don’t deserve them just so they can graduate? Did I miss something?

  • Cotour

    Wayne:

    I always first try to source supporting “information” / “news” from the NYT’s or similar news source, do you know why? Because if you can find a story that supports your point, and in this case it does, and your communication is sent to a Liberal / Democrat, which many of mine are, they will not be able to argue with it. The NYT’s to them is their holy grail, it is their religion.

    So once again, on the same day I ask you to re-ponder.

  • wayne

    Kate–
    read the executive order I link to above, it has all the answers to your questions. It took me awhile to decipher it.
    I think in brief– it’s ‘yes’ to your first 2 questions.

  • I’d venture that employers aware of Cal State ‘standards’ won’t be hiring Cal State gtaduates.

  • pzatchok

    ” Blair Ivey
    August 6, 2017 at 10:45 am

    I’d venture that employers aware of Cal State ‘standards’ won’t be hiring Cal State graduates.”

    Don’t worry the left will just legislate that problem away.
    Employers will not be able to use what collage you graduated from in any part of the hiring process.
    Their excuse or reasoning.
    ‘That way those rich white people who go to those rich Ivy League schools will not have an upper hand just because they went to an expensive school.’

  • wodun

    Employers will not be able to use what collage you graduated from in any part of the hiring process.

    This might not be a bad thing. Employers would have to rely on the knowledge and skills that applicant actually possesses rather than the club they belong to.

  • Cotour

    I think we are beginning to see the fruits of these new kinds of educational paradigms.

    http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/US-T-shirt-company-sells-swastika-design-as-symbol-of-love-and-peace-501687

    The “Progressives” (Liberals? Leftists? Mormons? Marxists? What are progressives now?) will reshape the world, they will recast all negatively perceived symbolism into positive and thus reverse all unwanted bad feelings.

    (Oh, this is a very bad idea)

  • Sandra Warren

    As a Cal State grad, I don’t want to defend this policy but would like to give an explanation in context. I started at CSUH in 1976, and at that time, there was no policy to require these English and math tests before or after matriculation. As some of the above writers said, acceptance was based on SAT scores and high school grades, and CSU’s mission was to accept and educate “the top one-third of California’s high school students,” so SAT minimum scores were established to admit that top third. It was a requirement to take algebra to graduate. If one chose to enroll in Algebra 101, one was assumed to be able to understand the curriculum. If one did poorly, one was referred to the so-called “bonehead math.” When I took Algebra and Trig, there was no one in the class with me that wasn’t clearly able to handle the material. In 1978, I took a break which unfortunately lasted ten years, and re-enrolled in 1989. By that time, the CSU had invented the English and math placing tests, and also invented a Writing Skills Test which was a requirement for graduation to prove that you could write without assistance a simple essay. I was very dismayed by the appearance of these tests, as I assumed that they had been instituted because there was an intolerable proportion of students who were not up to college-level work. Egad, was I right. When I took Integral and Derivative Calculus, there was a good fifth of the classes that were unable to manage the material. As a senior, I took several upper division general education classes in English and History, and there seemed to be a large amount of students who could not write a simple five-paragraph essay (Intro, 3 proofs, conclusion). There was an even larger percentage across all subjects who could not follow simple instructions on the syllabus. So I presume that these requirements were instituted in order to manage the problem of unqualified high school students that had been admitted on the basis of grades highly inflated. I have no idea if that problem has been managed, but perhaps the tests are no longer needed. Incidentally, I graduated after attending from 1976-1978 and 1989-1993. It took me 22 quarters to graduate because I worked full time the entire time, and graduated having never had a student loan. I would encourage more students to take that path, not less.

  • wayne

    Sandra-
    Excellent backgrounder!

    I was in college (in Michigan) in the mid 70’s, and I can anecdotally confirm your observations.
    I was expected to take & pass all the required “basic subjects,” no matter what my declared major. (and had taken a “college -prep” curriculum in High School.) Jeez, 1/2 the credits I had to earn were not in my Major, but it was part of receiving a “well rounded education.”
    (I as well had to have a minimum SAT score to be accepted into College.)

    Interestingly, in the 4 intervening years, an increasing number of Freshman were admitted who could not handle these “basic” classes, and they increasingly included the remedial versions, which were not degree-earning credits but ones you had to pass & pay for.
    -In Grad school I found myself working on a newly instituted “mentor” program, aimed at helping precisely those students.
    -By the time you let unqualified students in, it’s pretty much too late unless you are willing to spend an inordinate amount of resources, and essentially re-structure the whole baccalaureate-degree granting system.

  • ipso_facto

    ‘Standards’? Tha’s Racisss!’

  • Edward

    Sandra Warren wrote: “There was an even larger percentage across all subjects who could not follow simple instructions on the syllabus.

    In 2003, I took a programming class, and my partner and I, on the group project, were the only ones to get an A on the project. This is because none of the other groups followed the oral instruction that the instructor gave to us and only followed the written instructions.

    Apparently, it is not just a problem of understanding Mathematics and English, it is also a problem of listening or understanding what the students hear.

    I have no idea if that problem has been managed, but perhaps the tests are no longer needed.

    The tests are still needed. The problem is not gone. I know college instructors who complain about the general lack of ability of their students in the basics. It is not getting better.

  • ken anthony

    In what universe is this rational?

  • wayne

    Victor Davis Hanson at the American Freedom Alliance
    “Failing Grades: The Crisis in Teaching on Our University Campuses”
    2014
    https://youtu.be/EXeiH3Bk4hA
    (50:06)

    “The infusion of ideology into the curriculum, coupled with the unwillingness of university administrations to enforce their own standards of academic excellence, has transformed many of these institutions into little more than hollow intellectual shells, given over to a monochromatic view of the world, deprived of balance.”

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