Twenty years ago, only one in six U.S. 8th graders studied algebra. Thanks to a national push dating back to the Clinton administration, today more of them take algebra than any other math course. Take it, yes. But are they learning it?
A new report from the Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless notes many students are being pushed into algebra without having mastered basic skills such as multiplication, division and fractions. Among the poorest math students, nearly one in three were taking advanced math. As Loveless’ report, “The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth Grade Algebra,” notes:
These students tend to be some of the nation’s most vulnerable children. We already know that they struggle at mathematics, scoring among the bottom 10 percent of all eighth graders in the country. They also possess characteristics that make recovery from a lost year of math instruction unlikely.
The push to make algebra universal was about increasing educational equity. ”It’s really counterfeit equity,” Loveless tells USA Today, noting that the mismatch inordinately affects black, Hispanic and poor kids in urban schools.
The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews, a booster of 8th grade algebra for all, says the Brookings report is giving him second thoughts. “It would be better to think of algebra as we do swimming,” he writes. “Something everyone should learn, but most importantly learn well. Get everyone into the pool as soon as possible. But let’s not mark them as having passed the course until we are sure they can swim several lengths without drowning.”
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I’ll be interested to read the report. I have yet to meet a math teacher who thinks CA’s new 8th grade Algebra requirement is a good idea.
Dan Koretz writes about the push for Algebra in his book Measuring Up.
He cites it as an example of mistaking correlation for causation. Years ago, apparently, data showed that students who took Algebra did well in college. Without examining the demographics of the kids who took the class, we (as a nation) pushed for more kids to take Algebra. No surprise, except to educational policy planners, I guess, that the reason the kids took Algebra was that they were generally high achievers in the first place. Who doubtless had mastered whole number operations by 4th grade
I heartily agree with the Leavy comment, but I do not think policy planners have reached that conclusion, given the push for everyone to take 8th-grade algebra. Their seeming inability to differentiate between correlation and causation has been going on for decades. First it was the finding that high-achieving kids had self esteem, then it was that kids who had taken Latin did better on SATs, then those who had taken debate/music/art (separate studies), then AP/IB, now algebra in 8th grade. In all of the above cases, the reaction of the establishment was to say that the course in question caused the improved outcome. In fact, I suspect very strongly that the course in question merely served as a proxy variable for identification of the best students. After all, only strong students tended to take Latin/debate/music/AP/IB/8th grade algebra. Pushing unprepared/uninterested students into the above courses solves nothing and is likely to drop the level of the course.
I agree with momof4 and wish to add as a retired university history professor that what she wrote in her final sentence, viz “Pushing unprepared/uninterested students into the above courses solves nothing and is likely to drop the level of the course.” is what has happened to colleges and universities. High school have repeatedly told children that if they want to be a success in life they must get a college degree. Rigor in college courses has fallen precipitously and faculty are told that if they don’t dumb down courses and give only As, Bs, they will be fired. This is especially true at California’s community colleges where more than half of the class sessions are taught by grossly under-paid part-time teachers. Easily half of the students enrolled in my freshman history class in the last year I taught (2002) didn’t belong in college because they lacked the requisite reading comprehension and writing composition skills, but they are there no longer any options for them. Everyone must be college-ready even if it means that we have to import illegals from Mexico to build houses because American students never learn to hold a hammer.
In 1994 I warned the educational community about the waste of time involved in trying to teach elementary school children to compute fractions, in an article in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology (1994, 25, 549-561). I have not found any relative empirical evidence since 1994 that refutes my prior conclusions. I became interested in this topic as a result of many elementary school teachers inquiring of me if I had any solution to the great difficulty they have in teaching their pupils to calculate fractions. The greatest barrier to resolving this matter, I discovered, are professors of mathematics who insist that young children must become able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions.
Patrick Groff, Professor of Education Emeritus, San Diego State University.