A while back, I wrote about a report out of UC San Diego (UCSD) about its students’ struggles with basic math. The report focuses on a remedial math course UCSD introduced in 2016 to help freshmen fill gaps in high school–level math. The course initially enrolled about one percent of incoming students. However, instructors began to realize many students lacked even more fundamental middle- and elementary-level math skills. In response, the math department split the course into two courses: one focused on elementary and middle school math, and the other on high school math.
By 2024, more than 900 students—12.5 percent of the entering freshman class at UCSD—placed into these remedial courses.
I do not believe UCSD is unique; to the contrary, I believe that the degradation of student skills that the authors of the UCSD report had the courage to call out is endemic to our education system. In my earlier post, I wrote about this from the university perspective and used it as an example of the broad shift away from meritocracy.
Over at Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum just released an interview with a student enrolled in remedial math at UCSD, which gives a complementary and valuable perspective. Her name is Cecilia Lopez Alvarado, and you can read the full interview here.
The first part of the interview is what really struck me. It focuses on how Alvarado ended up in remedial math in the first place, based on what happened in high school. She earned mostly A’s and B’s in high school math but now questions what those grades really reflected. With generous retake policies, she says it was easy to improve her scores without fully understanding the material. When asked why she believes she was given so many opportunities to redo her work in high school, she responded: “I’m sure it’s because they wanted us to not have F’s and D’s on our transcripts. It was just wanting us to be able to move on to the next grade.” In retrospect, she believes stricter expectations would have encouraged more discipline and deeper learning.
In short summary, Alvarado’s high school failed her. She did not learn what she needed to know, and the adults in the building didn’t have the guts to tell her. The New Teacher Project calls this “The Opportunity Myth.” It’s sad because our school system is giving up on the hard work of educating our children, and it’s frustrating because no one seems interested in doing anything about it.
Have you had enough yet?
Show Me Institute researchers are pushing for big, fundamental changes to how our education system works. Namely, we want more school choice and more accountability. Alvarado’s story is a great example of why. Our schools show us again and again that they simply will not do the right thing without being pushed.
