"Schools across the country have been lowering standards and removing penalties for failure," writes Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic. Colleges have stopped requiring applicants to submit test scores. The results of this vast experiment are in. Joe College can't do math well enough to succeed in a science, engineering, computer or business major. The odds are he'll struggle to complete college reading assignments and write a coherent essay.

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The University of California system went "test-free" five years ago. SAT and ACT scores aren't considered in admissions. The percentage of new students who can't meet high school -- or middle school -- standards soared.

At UC San Diego, where remedial math enrollment went from 30 in 2020 to 900 this year, a tutor said students can't think their way through a word problem.

“We call it quantitative literacy, just knowing which fraction is larger or smaller, that the slope is positive when it is going up,” Janine Wilson, the chair of the undergraduate economics program at UC Davis, told Horowitch. “We are just seeing many folks without that capability.”

Students seem to think they don't need to learn math, said Maria Emelianenko, chair of George Mason University's math department. AI will do it for them.

“Who is going to trust somebody who got a degree in airline engineering who doesn’t know how to think through a problem without a computer telling them the answer?” Brian Conrad, a Stanford math professor, said. “The premise that foundational ideas don’t need to be learned anymore is a recipe for idiocracy.”

Horowitch points to several culprits for the decline in achievement, starting with the distractions caused by smartphones in schools, and the federal government's weakening of accountability measures.

Of course, remote learning was an educational disaster. Students learned very little, and teachers were told to lower standards even further.

"Equity" initiatives led to "no zeroes" grading: Students can get partial credit for assignments never even attempted, much less successfully completed. I used to think "A" stood for "average." In some schools, "A" is for "alive."

Students move through high school getting A's and thinking they're prepared for the next step, writes Kelsey Piper in The Argument. "They were lied to."

"Year after year, they fall farther behind," and it becomes harder for teachers to give them honest grades, she writes. "It would ruin the kids' GPAs and college prospects."

They get to college and end up in low-level remedial classes, Piper writes. If they'd failed earlier, they might be prepared to excel in college. Giving them undeserved A's wastes their time and makes it likely they'll waste time and money in college. "Cargo cult equity needs to die."

Requiring SAT or ACT scores would identify college applicants with inflated grades and weak skills. Some selective colleges have abandoned test-optional policies, and I predict nearly all will do so very soon. (UC is more extreme: Test scores aren't considered at all.)

But what about all the kids who aren't trying to get into selective colleges, but do need math and reading skills to learn a skilled job or qualify for military service or function in the adult world? They need to be taught the basics, retaught if they've failed to achieve mastery, and given an opportunity to build on that foundation during their many years of free education.

https://www.joannejacobs.com/post/idiocratic-education

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5800395&forum_id=2]#49447390)

uhhh why are they graduating these people?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5800395&forum_id=2]#49447478)