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Requiring Algebra II In High School Gains Momentum
ChadHurley writes with this quote from the Washington Post:
"Of all of the classes offered in high school, Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success, according to research that has launched a growing national movement to require it of graduates. In recent years, 20 states and the District have moved to raise graduation requirements to include Algebra II, and its complexities are being demanded of more and more students. The effort has been led by Achieve, a group organized by governors and business leaders and funded by corporations and their foundations, to improve the skills of the workforce. Although US economic strength has been attributed in part to high levels of education, the workforce is lagging in the percentage of younger workers with college degrees, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development."
Come on, people! We should all know this already. Just because "Algebra II" is a predictor of success, doesn't mean that it causes the success. It is much more likely that the smarter students who are (or at least were, before the depression) more likely to succeed are also more likely to take Algebra II. Making everyone take it is going to have about as much success as cargo cults did.
No kidding. Just because education is a predictor of success does not mean that we should educate our kids. Some kids are guaranteed to succeed without education whatsoever.
Is this catchphrase a restatement of the "Necessary vs Sufficient" principles? So Algebra might be Necessary (on a percentage scale) but it is not Sufficient. Also the percentage scale means you can succeed without it if a more difficult spread of counterbalancing factors shows up.
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Come on, people! We should all know this already. Just because "Algebra II" is a predictor of success, doesn't mean that it causes the success. It is much more likely that the smarter students who are (or at least were, before the depression) more likely to succeed are also more likely to take Algebra II. Making everyone take it is going to have about as much success as cargo cults did.
Require Algebra II - teachers will teach to the exam. Alas, this is what is happening. We don't want you to be able to think for yourself, just memorize a lot of stuff and hope it will get you through. Never mind once you understand concepts of Algebra it's really easy stuff.
Beware the candidate who says "I'm an Education Candidate, I want to revolutionize educations!" What they really mean is I'm going to pretend and just throw another mandated test at the schools.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
im guessing its an American thing .. like Web 2.0
Maybe we should require Probability and Statistics, then, since people still think they can reverse cause and effect.
"Look! Successful people drive expensive cars! Tell your brother to go buy one, that ought to get his business back on its feet in no time!"
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Boy, that's backward thinking. It is because it is optional that it is such a good indicator. Only people who are planning ahead to college, or who actually enjoy math take it. Forcing everyone to take it won't magically make everyone else start planning ahead to college or enjoying math too.
Personally I think Calculus 1 should be required as well, I mean are limits that hard?
Algebra, Algebra II, Geometry and Calculus were available at my school.
I remember not doing so hot in geometry, but the teacher was also evil incarnate.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Yay! Another uninsightful "correlation is not causation" post that spews that phrase out when no one in the article or in the research was making the claim they were attempting to debunk.
From TFA:
Of all of the classes offered in high school, Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success, according to research that has launched a growing national movement to require it of graduates.
... and ...
The study showed that of those who held top-tier jobs, 84 percent had taken Algebra II or a higher class as their last high school math course. Only 50 percent of employees in the bottom tier had taken Algebra II. “Algebra II does increase the likelihood of being employed in a good job,” they reported, although warning that many factors come into play.
Yes, the article makes exactly the claim the OP says it does, and yes, the OP's point is well-made. It's like saying "most of the world's geniuses could read novels by the age of 4, so parents should focus on teaching their kids to read novels by the age of 4 if they want them to be geniuses." It's an absurdly stupid claim.
Let me guess... you didn't take Algebra II in high school? :P
That said, I'm in full support of requiring Algebra II in high school. I think continuously pushing students is a great learning technique, and I also think the world would be a better place if everyone had an understanding of these principles.
Schools that just haven't required Algebra 2 are the working-class providers of America. Schools that do require it already seem to be producing students that do succeed better in college and beyond.
I took Algebra 2 in 10th grade and then Precalculus in 11th grade, and then Calculus in 12th grade. I went on to college and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. I have a friend who took Algebra 2 in 12th grade. He went to Devry and.... well, let's just say he wished he worked harder back in high school.
I think at the very least, pre-calculus should be required by the 12th grade.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
if all the schools do is rubber stamp the grades. Having worked as a tutor in college math lab when I was a piss poor student, there were people seeking help in the lab that can't handle basic fraction arithmetic.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I will second this. When did Algebra II fall off the curriculum? It was not optional in my highschool. Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II were minimum requirements. Those interested in sciences and college took pre-calculus and Trigonometry as their fourth year (unless they qualified for the AP calculus)
I am shaking my head.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
"Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success"
This is not precisely true. The most accurate statement is "The taking (and passing) of math levels beyond Algebra I (and maybe Geometry) is the leading predictor of college and work success." There's nothing about Algebra II as a subject that would innately give humans an edge in college or life success. It's going above and beyond the minimum requirements that's good for the student.
Moreover, a student going above and beyond the minimum may be more than a sign of innate mathematical competence. It may be a symptom of certain school, peer, or family pressures-- all of which combine in the "culture of education" which is a fantastic predictor of being accepted into 4-year institutions of higher education.
Teach it in context of its potential applications. Without this, it's no different than diagraming sentences all day.
Sure, you'll know all about sentence structure, but you won't be able to write worth a damn.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Calculus is the foundation of SO many different things. Almost every discipline from medicine to engineering to economics requires a foundation in calculus to understand.
Not every student needs to go into engineering or economics. A couple of my high school buddies went into auto body and they live FAR better than I do as a programmer (not to mention they were buying homes and starting families while I was still starving in college).
I'm much more concerned that schools are eliminating vocational electives than not requiring algebra II or calc. There is nothing wrong with being an HVAC tech.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
This was my thought. How was it not already required? I took it in 9th grade along with geometry. 10th was Pre-Calc & Trig. 11th was AP Calculus (one of 2 Juniors in the class) and senior year I drove to a community college for Statistics & Calculus II.
Although what we REALLY need a class on is "common sense" how to deal with money. Interest, balancing a 'checkbook'/banking account. Hell I'd settle for 'this is how you count back money.'
Many schools offer a course on geometry via mathematical proof.That covers a lot of abstract logic theory.
From TFA:
Among the skeptics is Carnevale, one of the researchers who reported the link between Algebra II and good jobs. He warns against thinking of Algebra II as a cause of students getting good jobs merely because it is correlated with success. “The causal relationship is very, very weak,” he said. “Most people don’t use Algebra II in college, let alone in real life. The state governments need to be careful with this.”
...told me what exactly Algebra II is.
IT'S AWESOME, didn't you see it? Wellm you remember at the end of the first one where Trigonometry had a gun to Calculus's head and Differentiation was fighting the zombie and vampire hoards. Well the Theory gang arrive just in the nick of time, destroy Probability and Statistics to put an end to the the Dynamic Systems and save the day. The 3D is EPIC
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Yeah, Benjamin Franklin, for example.
Ok, let's look at this. First part of the quote:
Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success
Ok, that makes sense. Second part of the quote:
according to research that has launched a growing national movement to require it of graduates.
That is idiotic. The reason why Algebra II is a predictor of success is because it is one of the classes you opt-in and take if you're going to college. Only people with career plans in high school take Algebra II - of course it's a predictor of success. And conversely, if you make it mandatory it won't be an indicator anymore.
Reminds me of the joke about the guy who heard that most accidents happen within ten miles of his home, so he moved.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
At least Stats or Calculus 2xx and Biology, Chem or Geology for Liberal Arts.
More for people getting a teaching certificate, even if you are going to teach English or Arts, have some background knowledge.
Although what we REALLY need a class on is "common sense" how to deal with money. Interest, balancing a 'checkbook'/banking account. Hell I'd settle for 'this is how you count back money.'
That's what Home Economics used to be...
True, correlation is not *necessarily* causation. But you cannot show causation without correlation.
It is equally possible that Algebra II teaches the necessary math tools and problem solving skills to be successful, or that those likely to be successful will take algebra II. Well, actually, I would be inclined to guess the former. I don't know specifically what Algebra II teaches in the US, but in canada to do well at any of the sciences and a large chunk of math/econ knowing how to do algebra makes a huge difference.
I should probably expand on how Algebra II *could* cause people to be successful. By itself a single course seems unlikely, but there's no harm in throwing out a theory. Again though, I reiterate, having not been through the US system I am not in detail familiar with Algebra I vs II vs anything else taught. Algebra II from what I can understand, in 3 minutes of research (note that searches for 'algebra II' from canada tend to produce canadian oriented results which isn't all that helpful) teaches you how to factor polynomials, deal with complex numbers, and the basics of numerical methods. These topics introduce students to a number of important concepts, first, at least that I can see, is that relationships aren't always linear, and just because they aren't linear doesn't mean they can't be quantified. Secondly it gives tools to examine how non-linear relations can relate to each other (one set of polynomials as an inverse of another set), and lastly an introduction to numerical methods is pretty handy when you deal with anything involving numbers. If Algebra II can be taught in such a way as to impart an understanding of problems that reflects a non trivial analysis, and can teach students some useful math tools it can be a driver of success. And it's of course also possible that Algebra II happens to sit just on a particular cusp of usefulness at this moment in time, and 40 years ago it wouldn't have had the same correlation effect and 40 years from now it won't either. Part of what might make it valuable is the relative number of people who can do it.
This ^. My kids already are enjoying Khan Academy.
Also, it took quite a few seconds before I remembered that Algebra II was optional at my high school (back in '94), though I partook.
I have to wonder if that's the real predictor: the willingness to take Algebra II, rather than the act of taking it itself. And perhaps the willingness to take it is based at least in part on aptitude in math in particular or academics in general.
I am not a crackpot.
"Making everyone take it is going to have about as much success as cargo cults did."
Oopsie. You not only assumed a correlation (smarter kids take algebra), you also assumed it was also causation (smart kids taking algebra do better later in college). Yes, you should know better.
The proper thing to do is an experiment. Make some kids take algebra and see if they do better. Oh, that's what they're trying to do.
That said, I'm in full support of requiring Algebra II in high school. I think continuously pushing students is a great learning technique
I'm not sure I agree. In my experience, the kids who succeed in higher math in high school were the ones who were challenged by earlier classes but rewarded for their successes, which inspired them to keep going on to still more challenging classes. If you go around "pushing" students, pretty soon you'll find you're dragging them instead. Resentment sets in, then defiance, and you've pretty much switched off any part of their brains that enjoyed the process of education.
Breakfast served all day!
According to the article it covers quadratic equations, logarithms, and imaginary numbers. I took it in grade 11 (out of 12) in the province of Ontario as MCR3U; IIRC it also included misc. function theory, some financial and compound interest stuff, and conic geometry.
The map is not the territory.
I got that, along with "repair" level sewing, some cooking, and baking skills when I took Home Ec.
Being the only straight male in class with 24 females was just a bonus.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Agreed. I didn't even realize it wasn't required to begin with -- I though Algebra III and/or Pre-Calc were the optional bits.
There seems to be some confusion of terms here, as my high school did not have any Algebra III class, and if you took the Algebra II/Trigonometry series, that was "Pre-Calculus"; there was no other required class before you could go directly into Calculus. Even at my local community college, Pre-Calculus is a refresher class for people who don't feel confident enough about the core algebra/trig concepts to move on to Calculus (perhaps because they're adults and it's been a while since they had math in school).
Breakfast served all day!
Every single male should be able to produce 3 kick ass dinners and a great breakfast. Will help said single male to become a not single male.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Although what we REALLY need a class on is "common sense" how to deal with money. Interest, balancing a 'checkbook'/banking account. Hell I'd settle for 'this is how you count back money.'
We had tracks based on ability, and you're describing the "general math" / "consumer math" track.
Lots of bitter feeling toward it... Generally speaking, the kids who were not going to make any money got all the education about money, while the kids who were going to make fat stacks of cash were carefully not educated about money but instead educated on stuff far beyond what they'd ever use on the job.
Set up for failure, by careful design.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Algebra forces you to work with abstract mental representation. Algebra I gets you thinking "if I two X's equal 24, how many will 6 X's get me". Algebra II kicks it up to a whole other level of abstract thinking, like working with multiple variables and modeling mathematical relationships. Never mind the benefits from having access to higher math, this thinking is hugely helpful in cognitive development.
No single class is going to make you win at life. Algebra definitely gives you some tools that will help.
> And the uncomfortable elephant in the room is what do you do with the ones who can't specialize and can't apply? The ones who can barely pass rote memorization even with lowered standards? Pat them on the back and throw them at the nearest menial labor recruiter?
Auto shop. Electric shop. Plumbing shop.
And for the record that doesn't mean they won't do well in life. The oil change in my boat was quoted at 80$ an hour and cost me a total of $700, since the mechanic had to move a battery, remove the alternator to get around at things.
On the contrary. Highschool level Geometry is important. It is where you are taught to derive proofs based upon postulates and theorems. It is the process that is important, not the results, per se.
I thought much the same as you while I was taking it, but later on when I took linear algebra, and modern algebra, the lifeline of the teachings from my Highschool geometry course were of incalculable value. Of course, I took it back in 1980, and the times/curricula may (or likely) have changed.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
One of the study's authors actually says that:
It's a mindless "We gotta do something!" attitude. From what I've read over the years, your early childhood environment (nutrition + parenting + stimulation) plus your parents (educated parents => educated kids, successful parents => successful kids) are the strongest factors for a child doing well in school and life.
For America's school children, the first problem is that a surprising amount of American parents seems almost anti-education, anti-intellectual. The second problem is that a child's neighbourhood and the other kids attending the school also have an effect (which lead to the infamous "busing" experiments of the 1970s).
But I don't know if there are effective methods to transform a neighbourhood and an entire school population into high performers, so I don't know if there is anything any single government or organization can do. I don't know what can be done to change America's parents. This problem, IMHO, has always plagued America, but generous immigration laws and the freedom to rise always compensated for it: America attracted the best & brightest with the opportunity to become rich thus saving the rest of America from itself.
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I hear the complaint "teachers will teach to the exam" all the time as an argument against standardized testing. Damn right they will. If this results in a poor education, it means they weren't good exams (e.g., the SAT). I had standardized exams at the end of my secondary education and we had to know the material damn well to do well on them.
"Teaching to the test" is a talking point, not a valid criticism. It presupposes the system will be implemented badly. Anything and everything will fail when the execution is poor.
It's a common talking point to complain about "teaching to the exam" but if the exam is compiled appropriately to test the students' knowledge of the material, how exactly is that a bad thing, especially in STEM classes, where the knowledge being gained is objective? If the student can pass a reasonable exam over the material covered, that's evidence that the student has learned that material. That's the whole point of an examination!
If they lack the necessary intellectual prowess why "should" they be allowed into college? College used to be about actually learning something, not putting up with incompetents that slow the pace of learning and erode academic standards. College should be more than a piece of paper that permits a job interview. It shouldn't be necessary to waste time and money on an advanced degree simply because dumb asses were permitted entrance and allowed to waste everyone elses time as an undergrad. We have trade schools for a reason.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Algebra II could be neither necessary nor sufficient, but still correlated with success. For instance, it could be that kids who are able and/or motivated to take Algebra II are likely to be successful.
For most people, it would be more useful to teach either statistics or financial math than calculus. We teach calculus because it's next in math or engineering education. But for ANY of the social sciences and several of the sciences statistics is more useful, and for life financial math is more useful.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
To be frank, for most occupations Algebra II is simply not necessary, and most will forget it anyhow.
I suggest that Boolean logic, set theory, and basic statistics be required instead. Those are more applicable to the actual work world. As manufacturing drifts overseas and the US specializes in fads, marketing, and finance, "physical" math is less needed, while discrete and statistical math is replacing it as a need.
Table-ized A.I.
Don't put down those fields. You would be absolutely amazed at how much MORE difficult those are than, say, getting a BS in computer science. Yes, I said it, MORE difficult.
You want to be a construction electrician, with the top end license? Here's the requirements:
- Approximately 5 years of experience in the field to get your journeyman's license. Until you have that, you cannot work alone (except in a building without power, I believe). You also cannot apply power to any circuits without them having been examined by a journeyman (this rule gets broken pretty quickly once you advance and are trusted, though). You *must* work in an industrial/construction environment. Those working in a residential or commercial environment need not apply (They get a lesser license that does not permit them to work outside of their environments).
- Attend college regularly during those 5 years to be able to pass your various exams so you can get your journeyman's license. I believe if you can pass them early, it's too bad, you get to sit in class anyways.
- To pass the exams, you will basically not only memorize the entire electrical code, but you will need to know exactly WHY the electrical code requires those things, and, of course, you'll need an in-depth understanding of electricity. Not in-depth electronics knowledge, though, so you won't be building a space shuttle or solving K-Maps. But in-depth enough to understand Kirchoffs law, Reactance in a multi-phase stystem, calculate instantaneous load (including instantaneous power factor), etc.
- Spend another minimum 3 years working as a journeyman, attending more classes in college so you can pass your masters exam.
So, after a minimum of 7 years (and, honestly, for anyone who wants this badly, it's going to be 10 years, I have never heard of anyone doing this in 7) you can get a full masters C&M electrician license and can then do any work anywhere anytime in any conditions. I tried to be a C&M electrician. It is unbelievably difficult (mentally and physically) and I guarantee 50% of any students at a university would fail the exams, and 95% (Who am I kidding!? 99%) would fail the work conditions. I passed the exams, but the work conditions were just to much, so I went back to working on computers.
To get a BS in computer science is easy in comparison. 2 2/3 years of classes and exams and you're done. You never actually need to *do* anything to prove your knowledge (of course, to get the Masters/PhD, you will need to).
I hear plumbing is somewhat easier, and auto mechanic work is probably somewhere in between, though. But people assume those in professional occupations like these aren't smart, and they're wrong. It's not easy to get those jobs, and it's not easy to pass the top-level exams, although the basic ones are, admittedly, easy.
No, no. Some of it's real.
This is about requirements, not options. When I was a teenager, you didn't have to require me to go to school. I didn't like it, mind you, but a necessary component of getting ahead in life is putting in effort to become good at things that people will pay you to do, and I was smart enough to understand this.
"Education" in the abstract is one of the most overrated things around. A good elementary education covers the vast majority of people's needs. Anything beyond that ought to be up to parents and kids to decide - we certainly aren't doing any favors to 16 year olds who don't like school, don't do well in school, and serve primarily to disrupt other people from learning when we force them to go to class instead of going out and getting a job. Maybe the job will teach them that they ought to go back to school; maybe it will teach them that they're much better suited for the real world. Housing them in a brick building for two more years while they smoke weed, skip classes, and do nothing productive is a waste of money.
Everyone should watch the school documentary Waiting for Superman:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100929/REVIEWS/100929981
It's possible to take the same group of kids from the same underprivileged neighborhood, and send some of them to public schools where 50% will fail to graduate, and send some from the same pool to charter schools where *for less money per student* 90% will go on to attend college. It really is all about the schools, teachers, and methods, not the students, neighborhoods, or money.
The biggest culprit is teacher tenure. After a measly 2 years of teaching, public school teachers can get tenure and be almost impossible to fire for the rest of their lives, even if they're actively bad at their jobs. At the university level tenure is a useful tool for retaining teachers with unconventional views, who add to the campus experience; but at the high school level tenure is useless since kids have too many basics to learn for unconventional views to be given time. We should institute merit pay for teachers, and eliminate tenure--good teachers could make twice what average ones make, and bad ones could be fired.
"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
As I've said elsewhere, at my school there was sort of an unspoken division between college-bound students and those who were not college-bound. For college-bound students, you didn't really need to make specific class requirements for graduation, because you don't get to be an engineer without studying math, you don't become a doctor without taking biology, etc. You won't get into upper-division college courses without fulfilling the prerequisites, so the kids who want to get out of college in four years start taking those classes in high school. It's the colleges -- and to a large degree, their parents -- who "require" it of them, not the high schools.
Breakfast served all day!
In my group of friends, it's mostly the guys who can cook, although the one nutritionist can also cook (also, she's hot & dances).
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
This is going to sound cruel and like crazy librarian ranting but I the only reason that anti-education and anti-intellectual thinking persists is because people can get away with it!
If not doing well in school (for a regular person not being disabled or something) doomed one to life of virtual slavery taking any job you can get for any pay someone might be willing to give you and usually not having enough to eat, I suspect few people would waste the opportunity public education affords them. Teenagers are not know for being at the top of the decision making game but even they can be driven by fear. Frankly the idea of being the guy under the bridge after mommy and daddy are gone is much scarier than collecting and unemployment check and watching cable TV half the day.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
When I'm waiting in line behind you at lunchtime, I'd much prefer you count your money on your own time. Walking people step-by-step through basic addition and subtraction on every transaction wastes everyone's time.
I think it's legitimate to have a high school diploma be a certificate of basic competency for the workforce. If you have a diploma, a prospective employer can assume you can read at an adult level, spell decently well, and do enough math to handle a cash register. Hopefully you also know enough about science, history, and civics to get along in society. But does an auto mechanic really need to know how to compute the number of moles of exhaust that comes out of an engine when each piston fires? I don't think so.
The problem is, modern high schools don't seem to even fulfill this role. "Social promotion" means kids are rarely ever held back a grade in K-12 these days, and once you turn 18, they basically have to turn you loose, ready or not. All a diploma means is that you played the game.
Breakfast served all day!