UC San Diego Reports 'Steep Decline' in Student Academic Preparation
- Reference: 0180056412
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/12/1834253/uc-san-diego-reports-steep-decline-in-student-academic-preparation
- Source link:
The Mathematics Department redesigned its remedial program this year to focus entirely on elementary and middle school content after discovering students struggled with basic fractions and could not perform arithmetic operations taught in grades one through eight. The deterioration extends beyond mathematics. Nearly one in five domestic freshmen required remedial writing instruction in 2024, returning to pre-pandemic levels after a brief decline.
Faculty across disciplines report students increasingly struggle to engage with longer and complex texts. The decline coincided with multiple disrupting factors. The COVID-19 pandemic forced remote learning starting in spring 2020. The UC system eliminated SAT and ACT requirements in 2021. High school grade inflation accelerated during this period, leaving transcripts unreliable as indicators of actual preparation. UC San Diego simultaneously doubled its enrollment from under-resourced high schools designated LCFF+, admitting more such students than any other UC campus between 2022 and 2024.
The working group concluded that admitting large numbers of underprepared students risks harming those students while straining limited instructional resources. The report recommends developing predictive models to identify at-risk applicants and calls for the UC system to reconsider standardized testing requirements.
[1] https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissions-review-docs.pdf
I Blame... (Score:3)
I blame Excel, AI, Republicans, and climate change.
Re: (Score:1)
You may as well add the Kardasians, TikTok and Epstein to your list, for completeness.
Re:I Blame... (Score:4, Insightful)
Math teaches logic and problem solving. If you want to get anywhere in life you might need to be able to do that. To stay on topic though the real problem is that AI is to learning what a calculator is to math; it takes out understanding.
Re: (Score:2)
Especially when you can't add two numbers in your head because you didn't want to sit through math class.
Re: I Blame... (Score:1)
What if you add two numbers and they fire you because they don't like the result?
Re: (Score:2)
I'd call that "Another day in the Trump administration."
Re: (Score:1)
> I blame Excel, AI, Republicans, and climate change.
All 4 are merging into the Bigly Annoyance Party.
If only there was a way to TEST for this... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the report: "In 2020, the University of California Board of Regents, against the advice of the report by the Academic Senate’s Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF), voted to eliminate the SAT and ACT from admissions consideration. Beginning with the cohort entering in 2021, standardized test scores were no longer used in the admissions process. The decision aimed to broaden the applicant pool, based on concerns that otherwise qualified students were deterred from applying by standardized testing requirements. The number of applicants from California to the UC system did grow from 99,156 in 2020 to 116,805 in 2024, an increase of 18 percent (see Figure 4). The elimination of standardized testing resulted in more reliance on high school grades even though the STTF report notes the worrisome trend of grade inflation in many schools that had already been substantial in 2020.5 During COVID, grade inflation and lowered standards in California high schools likely accelerated. The disruption created by COVID made it very difficult to objectively evaluate students. Many classes moved from letter grade to pass/fail for that period, and teachers often felt compelled to lower grading standards in acknowledgement of students’ special challenges.6"
Re: (Score:2)
"otherwise qualified students" -- what other qualifications are relevant?
Re: (Score:3)
Every other qualification besides SAT/ACT scores. GPA. HS Class selection. AP Class selection. Extracurricular participation. Volunteer work. Your application letter. For those who don't perform well on standardized tests, or just don't want to take them, but are otherwise good candidates for post-secondary education? Or were you hoping for another bullshit rant against anything that even looks like DEI?
Re: (Score:1)
Extracurricular participation and volunteer work are disguised DEI.
Re: um what (Score:1)
How many drug dealers make a profut but would fail basic math?
Re: How many drug dealers make a profut (Score:2)
Was that a question in the math or spelling test?
Re:If only there was a way to TEST for this... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm amazed by the bastardized logic in play. For example, students who were deterred from applying because there was a test involved were not at all qualified to go somewhere where they would be taking tons of tests. Bad at taking tests = bad at college, don't go. Why make that complicated?
Re: (Score:2)
I suck at standardized tests. My ACT scores, particularly outside of math, were middling at best. I did just fine at college. And maybe there are just people out there who don't see the value in payin $100 for the privilege of sitting in an uncomfortable char filling out a bubble-sheet for 8 hours?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You took the test and passed. You demonstrated, among other things, that you can sit and do something tedious and or stressful for 8 hours. This was a skill relevant to both college and any future career. You demonstrated academic qualifications. You got into college and did "just fine".
I think you're telling me that I'm right.
Re: (Score:2)
> You took the test and passed.
My composite score would have automatically disqualified me from most "selective" colleges. So I guess you could say I failed the ACT, by UCSD's standards.
> I think you're telling me that I'm right.
You're entitled to your opinion.
> You got into college and did "just fine".
I did get into a college, yes. Certainly not one that was considered "selective", like the one we're discussing here.
People with college aspirations still take the ACT/SAT, or at least they did 5 years ago when my kid was going through that process. This college isn't necessarily "broaden[ing] the applicant pool, based on
Re:Told you so (Score:4)
Fuck off. You're making everyone look bad by being an asshole.
"steep decline" vs gradual decline (Score:1)
The downward trend for college preparation has been on a decline for many years. It has accelerated perhaps but the direction has not changed.
Re: (Score:1)
The study pdf does acknowledge the larger decline briefly, but it's specifically reinforcing the idea that covid and the effects of covid policies that are to blame for the recent steep decline. It's actually a little weird the /. summary isn't specifically saying that this is the whole point of the report. They are very specifically pointing towards that
Remote learning? (Score:2)
My kids school just shut down. They got a packet of worksheets each Monday and a one hour zoom meeting each Friday for two years.
Re: (Score:2)
I hope your school taxes were cut to match. oh, they weren't?
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, right. Kind of like all the federal employees who just got a 41 day paid vacation.
Chickens coming home to roost (Score:3, Interesting)
During the height of Covid, my local high school was NOT going to flunk anyone not meeting standards. Students were given multiple opportunities to meet the bare minimum standards. A 20% grade average was deemed good enough for a passing grade.
Re: (Score:1)
At least they got to censor the fuck outta everyone for years. That's what was really important to them. Glad those teachers got a couple years off work and managed to get everything they and their unions asked for in lieu of helping the kids learn. Too bad about all that well-proven learning loss and their utter failure now. WHOOPS. Oh weeeelll!
Do these schools not use standardized testing? (Score:2)
Wouldn't SAT testing filter out these students? Or is that considered to be classist or something?
Re: (Score:1)
Some grade schools, even public schools, teach and test in a manner consistent with SAT preparation. No special paid SAT prep classes required.
Intelligence helps a person be financially successful. Successful people can provide at least two advantages for their children: better genes for intelligence and money for SAT prep classes. Without lots of data and good statistical analysis, the relative influence of those two (and other) factors cannot be stated with certainty. (Other factors include tendencies tow
Maybe stop graduating students who aren't (Score:2, Troll)
qualified to graduate? If they can't do 8th grade math, how did they graduate high school? They shouldn't have been allowed to do so, they clearly hadn't learned anything yet.
Not only are these students unqualified to be in college, they were not qualified to graduate high school. That's two things that are broken. When I was in high school, not being able to do 8th grade math meant not graduating the 12th grade. Why did that change? Why hasn't it been changed back?
Re: (Score:2)
The system(s) can't handle that low of a graduation rate. The public school district has 9 elementary schools with around 300 students each. It has 4 middle schools with around 600 students each. The district is forced to close 2-3 of these schools this year due to lack of funding. The buildings could not handle the increase in remedial students, much less the staff.
Re: (Score:3)
So, California trashed its education system so badly that y'all can't see a way to recover? Maybe they have, but continuing to graduate students who can't perform at a Jr. High level is not going to do anything but make it worse. It's not unsolvable, the solutions are simply unpalatable to the current political leadership.
Graduating students that should graduate and sending them to college to take ELEMENTARY classes is not a solution. It's a vain attempt to sweep the problem under the rug. It can not
Re: (Score:2)
It's not politically correct to fail minority students (and there are a lot of them now) so no students can be failed, even for nonattendance. This ideology is not going away so most practical solution is to shut down the public schools.
Snowplow parents (Score:2)
> It's not politically correct to fail minority students
BS, its not politically correct to fail any student. There are plenty of white "snowplow" parents who clear anything that obstructs their kids advancement. They object to a B, much less an F.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you see how those are completely different situations? One is an individual parent worried about their child (rightly or wrongly), the other is a government policy applied to every student. Maybe that first kid needs to be held back, maybe it's just a dumb example of a parent fighting the wrong battles. Nobody will ever know if the government says that no student can be held back.
Re: (Score:2)
> Do you see how those are completely different situations?
I don't see how the result is any different for college admissions.
Re:Maybe stop graduating students who aren't (Score:4, Interesting)
My oldest son goes to a high school on the other side of the country. It has an award winning Engineering magnet program. Every year multiple students from this school go to Ivies and other top 25 schools.
Simultaneously, ~55% of the school is poverty level, ~45% is low English proficiency, and about 30% of the students are considered habitually absent (meaning a minimum of 10 _unexcused_ absences).
My son is taking APs, very intensive engineering classes, and participating in multiple extracurricular activities.
In the same school building, more than half of the students regularly rank in less than the 30th percentile on both math and English end of grade tests.
What I commonly hear from teachers and administrators--if you're a teacher teaching classes of the poverty level non-English speakers, what good does it do to fail them? They're just going to drop out anyway. Maybe if you encourage the kids along, a few will get something out of it?
It's an awful situation to be in. The school has at least a dozen ELL teachers. The school offers pretty much all the standard freshman courses (English, US History, etc) in both Spanish and English versions. This drains so many resources from other parts of the school. The arts program operates on a shoestring and all the arts programs are constantly fundraising to keep the lights on.
The soccer team is damn good, though..
Covid Chaos (Score:2)
This lines up with school disruptions.
I'm sure that's not the only contributing factor, but I'm also pretty sure you don't upend kids' lives (don't forget the impact on parents - lots of people lost jobs, which also disrupts kids schooling) across multiple years without disrupting their math training.
Oh, also, the shitbag trolls here are funny. Now that they can't pretend the white kids aren't pig-ignorant, this is suddenly all about testing.
Re: (Score:2)
School disruptions shouldn't impact whether or not a university is getting students that need elementary level remediation. Those students shouldn't be making it to the college applications process. They shouldn't be out of high school.
That schooling was disrupted is no excuse for these districts to be graduating students that haven't learned anything yet. It is no excuse for admitting them into college, where they will incur debt as they are taught things they should have learned for free. Just thin
COVID (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a predictable consequence of closing schools during COVID. We will pay for that decision for a very long time as the kids who missed a year of school go through the education system and then into the work force. Or onto welfare because they lack the skills to participate in the workforce. Panic always leads to terrible outcomes.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's a consequence of COVID and a series of political decisions that made it unlikely that students would be educated. The kids who fell a year behind should have been held back a year. That's the sane and established response to a student falling behind. It worked for generations. California doesn't seem to hold students back anymore, instead they are graduated without being able to do elementary math. That there are students starting college who cannot perform elementary math isn't because of Cov
Re: (Score:2)
> The kids who fell a year behind should have been held back a year. That's the sane and established response to a student falling behind. It worked for generations.
It was done rarely. This would have been most students and required staffing to handle an extra year for almost every kid. And a lot of Universities would have been hurting when there was no senior class graduating and going to college. That's probably a slight exaggeration. There are kids who learn regardless of the quality of their education. There was a time when students were mixed together, but most school systems now categorize kids in tracks. So the "good students" get educated by the "best" teachers
The root causes being .. (Score:2)
a. The elimination of standardized testing (like SAT/ACT) led UCSD to rely more heavily on inflated high school grades, which did not reflect true academic readiness, thus admitting students with lower skill levels.
b. State political pressures to increase access and diversity led to admitting more students from underrepresented, low-income backgrounds who often came from lower-resourced high schools with less academic preparation.
c. Social media usage and screen time, including texting and watching sh
college for all is the real issue that needs chang (Score:2)
college for all is the real issue that needs change!
We need to have more tech / trade schools that are not college.
Jobs need to stop saying you must go to college for all jobs.
Student loans need to go to an point where the schools and banks take at least part of the risk.
Re: (Score:1)
The historical success rate of students from various schools and their GPAs is available to the colleges. Colleges that act wisely can adjust the GPAs reported by various grade schools by the school's historical reputation.
Do colleges still require a pre-acceptance interview? That should weed out many dullards and ignoramuses.
Re: (Score:2)
4. A political unwillingness to hold students back when they are not ready to move on to the next grade. Apparently on the basis that it will make them sad if they are held back. Even though promoting them anyway ensure they only fall further behind and eventually get pushed out into the world with no education. Which is, I suppose, somehow not worse than being sad for a few months because you got held back.
Unrelated note - my favorite way to order lists is: A., 2., D., and so forth. Like when I lis
My kid was HS senior for COViD (Score:1)
Graduated w honors from top college w STEM degree. Guess im just an awesome parent.
Re: (Score:2)
Correlation does not imply causality.
phones on airplane mode (Score:2)
The college entrance exam I took required writing an essay on whether cell phones should be allowed in schools.
I guess we know the answer now.
Pandemic, Trump policies, the expiry of Federal funding that wasn't well planned for, tax cuts for the wealthy, Crypto-christian extremists, general lack of motivation in a world where social media influencers get paid more for a little fan service than hard working wage slaves.
Re: (Score:3)
So everyone and everything is to blame except removing standardized testing as an admission criteria in California (2021), schools in CA being closed for in-person education for ~2 years due to Covid, and perhaps most importantly, California adopting a a radical new math curriculum that focused on equity and removing cultural barriers in math education. (See, e.g., [1]EdWeek [edweek.org]
Right, it's Republicans (all those nasty California Republicans who dominate state and local governments) that have put us in this mess!
[1] https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/california-adopts-controversial-new-math-framework-heres-whats-in-it/2023/07
private (Score:1)
Does that decline in college preparation also hold for students coming from private or Catholic schools ? Does it hold for traditional HOME-SCHOOLED kids. And does it also hold for people entering the "skilled" trades ? Are new writers from The Paris Review and The NewYorker less literate than previous generations. Question really is: has America stopped preparing it's able citizenry for intellectual challenge. Of-course in previous eras --- if you didn't work smart, then
A lot of factors, but... (Score:2)
The main one is that they took fewer kids from good high schools and more kids from bad ones. What makes a high school good or bad? The attitudes and abilities of the students, which are strongly correlated with the wealth of their parents. These also fall generally along racial lines, but then America sets income opportunities, from above and below, largely along racial lines.
Re: (Score:2)
> The main one is that they took fewer kids from good high schools and more kids from bad ones. What makes a high school good or bad? The attitudes and abilities of the students, which are strongly correlated with the wealth of their parents. These also fall generally along racial lines, but then America sets income opportunities, from above and below, largely along racial lines.
> --
> Musk is a Nazi: salutes, dog whistles, nationalist beliefs, natalism, history revisionism. Looks, talks, and quacks.
So I have a serious question for you (this comes on the heels of me doing a deep dive on PISA testing results, and it honestly has been weighing heavily on my mind lately).
I 100% believe that socioeconomic factors are probably the single biggest factor in academic success.
Is there any possibility that average population-wide genetics play a role in academic success? (I very much do NOT want to use the word "race" because I think it's basically meaningless). Is it possible that, on average, Americans with a
The shift (Score:2)
High schools, except for a few, are no longer about academics. They are about social matters.
Surprising (Score:2)
UC San Diego has a good reputation. Not Harvard good, but it is one of the best public educations in the US. I am seriously surprised, especially considering their average Math SAT is 700.
Considering that the cost is double for non-California residents, I bet the problem is Californian education system. Disappointing considering how much money they spend on it.
Re: (Score:2)
> UC San Diego has a good reputation. Not Harvard good, but it is one of the best public educations in the US. I am seriously surprised, especially considering their average Math SAT is 700. /quote.
> It makes you wonder what the student distribution looks like. Presumably not a remotely normal distribution if the avg SAT is 700 and "one in eight" freshman need this remedial math class.
The problem is the education system (Score:3)
I'm in Ontario, Canada, and this will be a subjective post, as I don't have evidence.
I have been at parent teacher nights where teachers are proud of their incompetence. The grade 5, 6 and 7 teachers were laughing that they didn't understand the math curriculum, and one of them made a joke (paraphrased) “word problems are difficult to understand, so I get together with other teachers, and try to understand them.” Why? This is primary school math, there is no excuse for any adult to struggle with any of it. If by grade 4, you can't compute 1×1 12×12 in under 1-minute, on a test sheet, you're falling behind, by grade 8, you should be comfortably performing simple variable algebra in your head, without a calculator.
When it comes to reading comprehension, for some reason, we take that seriously. No child would be hugged, and cuddled, and comforted if they couldn't read. When they can't multiply 5×5, in grade 8, they get treated like the world is against them. I don't know if it was just Ontario, or it was all of Canada, but, you teachers were asked to complete a basic math test, elementary math test, and the teachers sued the government over it. Think about that, teachers, who we trust our children to, sued, because numbers are scary? “https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-court-mandatory-teacher-math-test-1.7042352”, then we wonder why our kids are functionally retarded? They can name 50 f'ing genders, have in dept know about butt plugs and rainbow dildos, but can't perform grade 2 math, by grade 12?
Re: (Score:2)
> I have been at parent teacher nights where teachers are proud of their incompetence. The grade 5, 6 and 7 teachers were laughing that they didn't understand the math curriculum, and one of them made a joke (paraphrased) “word problems are difficult to understand, so I get together with other teachers, and try to understand them.” Why? This is primary school math, there is no excuse for any adult to struggle with any of it. If by grade 4, you can't compute 1×1 12×12 in under 1-minute, on a test sheet, you're falling behind, by grade 8, you should be comfortably performing simple variable algebra in your head, without a calculator.
I attended a (public) middle school teacher meeting about two years ago. The 8th grade math teacher said "I am supposed to be teaching XYZ for the 8th grade statewide standardized math test. I can't do it. Around 1/3 of my students can't multiply two numbers. They don't know." (She went on in this vein--it wasn't laughing or flippant, it was a cry for help)
She didn't say 1/3 of her students struggled with some of their multiplication tables, or algebraic concepts, it was that they literally didn't know how
Re: (Score:3)
I absolutely believe you! My grade 11 daughter struggles with grade 3 math concepts, and that bothers me because in primary school all of her teachers congratulated her on her exceptional grasp of math concepts, she got over 90% in grade 5, 6, 7 and 8. Exceptional? She can't multiply in her head, if I walk up to her and ask something simple like 4×5, it will take her a good 30 seconds to come up with 20, and she'll question that after she says it. Our primary schools went to zero homework, years a
most people don't get what this really means. (Score:2)
Most people interpret this as: "kids these days are dumber" and "education is getting watered down".
Those are incorrect conclusions. Not what this means at all. This says something about UCSD itself, and not much at all about K-12 education. UCSD is a near-ive-league, world-class school. One of the very best on the planet. If they're seeing more students that need remedial math, it means is that.... wait for it.... UCSD IS DELIBERATELY ADMITTING MORE WEAK STUDENTS.
This has been happening for the las
How convenient for the UC system... (Score:2)
So let me get this straight. We have a large amount of students coming in that both can't do math and need remedial writing courses. The school has no problem letting ANYONE in, as they will just get a government backed loan. The UC wins regardless if the student ever finishes or not.
Seems to me, they are just insuring their income stream stays nice and healthy.
Education has to start at home at a young age. The parent really does need to take whatever time they can and teach the kids to read BEFORE they get
Who's a Red Dwarf fan? (Score:2)
I can't see this without thinking about how "Ace" Rimmer was held back in school, and prat Rimmer was not.
These students needed to have been held back, not promoted again and again. They have been done a terrible disservice by people who, in their foolhardy weakness, thought they were helping.
Re: Who cares about preparation when race trumps a (Score:2)
I can't tell whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. Both are against this form of racism, just in different ways.
Re: Who cares about preparation when race trumps a (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm Asian.
And the UC system here in California hates asians.
Re: (Score:3)
I can't tell whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. Both are against this form of racism, just in different ways.
“We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem.” [1]Kamau Kambon [youtube.com], adjunct instructor at North Carolina State University
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqAU471GBhc&t=482
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Only one side is against this. Democrats in CA are very much for affirmative action (aka: racism)
Re: Who cares about preparation when race trumps (Score:2)
The Republican position is that using race as a factor to guide decision making is racist. The Democratic position is that ending up with a disproportionately white male population is also racist. Now, both sides have a point, but it's not clear how to fix one without doing the other. Hopefully we can solve this eventually.
Re: (Score:1)
It's quite easy: stop being racist and judge on merit.
Re: Who cares about preparation when race trumps (Score:3)
And how do you enforce that? How can you prove that the company that hired 100% caucasians for 10 years straight did so based on merit? For that matter, how do you know a priori what the total ordering of merit is? You can't. An application isn't enough to establish a total ordering, only reasonable binning if you're lucky. So then how do you choose within those equivalence classes? The "just use merit" thing sounds good, but has lots of problems in practice. Just like affirmative action.
Re: (Score:1)
AA has been outlawed in CA for 30 years
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_California_Proposition_209
Save the children (Score:2)
Not from AI slop spam, not even from AC morons, but mostly from learning to think like machines as we live into the singularity.
Cue the song "It's too late, baby, it's too late."
Really. I think the greatest danger we face is that many people are much too good at learning to think like machines. But especially the children.
My latest prediction for the human extinction event is that "Justice delayed is justice denied" will be solved with AI courts empowered by all those robocops Musk will create for his trill
Re: (Score:3)
I find this whole conversation amusing because it is one group who has explicitly said one particular group shouldn't be allowed to go schools with the other. In fact, that same group went after the other group by using police, police dogs, fire hoses, and even guns.
And yet, we're to believe this group suddenly wants everyone to be treated equally.