In Reply to: Berkeley calculus students can’t do middle-school math posted by mh on August 17, 2026 at 12:06:18
There have always been students at UCLA and UC Berkeley who struggle with algebra. That is one reason they historically offered freshman summer programs after students took an initial assessment test.
UCLA used to offer developmental courses for students who needed additional preparation, but eventually began referring those students to community colleges for remediation in both math and English.
Math is one of the biggest reasons students fail to earn a college degree. In response, with 100% support from the California Legislature, the state eliminated the ability of community colleges and CSUs to offer courses below transfer-level math and English as a standard part of the college curriculum.
The irony is that the universities themselves still know that many students arrive without the math skills they need. Many majors at UCLA and UC Berkeley now require calculus because they can't force the students to take Algebra by law. Even students pursuing nursing are required to take calculus which is useless for their professional pathway just to ensure they know Algebra.
At the same time, California community colleges and CSUs are no longer allowed to independently determine the appropriate starting level for every student in English and math. A few colleges offer remediation through noncredit or adult education, but doing so can put millions of dollars in state funding at risk. My college will not take that risk so if you can't start your business pathway in Calculus, you can't be a business major.
I’m still against the SAT and ACT, largely because they measure, at least in part, your ability to buy test preparation and support. I also think they are a tremendous waste of time.
The math on the SAT and ACT is essentially at the Algebra 2 level. It is nowhere near the mathematics students need to succeed in calculus. Yet our strongest students can spend hundreds of hours preparing for these tests—time that could be spent learning something far more valuable.
Because we put so much emphasis on tests that don't actually help students graduate, we sometimes send students to college with excellent test scores but very little real-world experience or understanding of what they actually want to do.
My kids were fortunate enough to have the option to avoid the SAT/ACT. My son used that time to work on robots. He became a robotics major. My daughter spent her time exploring animation. She was told she had the ability to become an animator, but after talking with people actually working in the industry, she decided that lifestyle wasn't for her. She's now a marketing major.
That's exactly what I think college preparation should allow students to do: explore.
The Ivy League schools often complain that students arrive on campus with no idea what they want to major in or how they want to spend their college years. But you can't have it both ways.
Either our best students spend hundreds of hours preparing for the SAT and ACT so they can remain competitive, or we give them that time to explore the world, develop skills, work on projects, and figure out what they actually want to do.
I think the second option is far more valuable.