Until the early 1990’s High Schools Acted as Buffers between K-8 and Universities But the weakening of the High School Curriculum Started for Real with the NSF Sponsored High School Curricula

Until the early 1990’s High Schools Acted as Buffers between K-8 and Universities But the weakening of the High School Curriculum Started for Real with the NSF Sponsored High School Curricula in the 1990’s

Today we have geometry without proofs Algebra without conics and logarithms And a large number of NSF funded curricula that have even less content.

Core Standards Goes Even Further and Dramatically Weakens the High School Courses Needed for Admission to State Universities

The Definition of College Ready is “passed Algebra II” in Core Standards It is worth checking what this means

Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institute recently looked at this question. Here is what he found:

Here is a table of percents of students taking Algebra II

But at the same time, look at NAEP scores

We can conclude The more students are shoved through Algebra II, the less they (typically) learn And as a result, the less “college readiness” means.

But this has huge consequences Only 2% of STEM intending students whose first college course is pre-calculus or less ever major in STEM areas. The inability of our kids to work in these areas has extremely serious consequences for our economic well being.

Members of Validation Signing off on Core Math Standards Dr. William Schmidt, Professor, Education Policy Center, Michigan State University Feng-Jui Hsieh, Associate Professor, Taiwan Normal University. mathematics learning, mathematics teaching, and teacher education, Sarah Baird, Mathematics Teacher with Kyrene Elementary School District in Arizona.

Members of Validation Signing off on Core Math Standards Jere Confrey, Professor, Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University’s College of Education. Jeremy Kilpatrick, Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Georgia Norman L. Webb, Research Scientist, the Wisconsin Center for Education Research

Members of Validation NOT Signing off on Core Math Standards James Milgram, Professor of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, Stanford University Dylan Wiliam, Sr. Research Director at Educational Testing Service, research on use and design of formative tests.