Georgia and other states intensified high school math requirements in the belief students would ultimately benefit. Now, that assumption is being questioned.
Texas, a pioneer in requiring algebra II in high school, has joined Florida in retracting the mandate.
Credit: Maureen Downey
Credit: Maureen Downey
Algebra II became a gateway course in many places after research showed it predicted college and career success. In its decision to mandate algebra II, Georgia sought to bolster the state’s historically dismal math performance. Georgia students consistently rank in the bottom quarter of states on SAT
scores.
About 60 percent of Georgia high school students who took the end-of-course test in coordinate algebra last spring failed to meet the state’s standard for content mastery. In analytic geometry, 65 percent failed to meet the standard.
Has the pendulum swung too far? Are we wrong to expect all students to master advanced math skills? Should we offer applied math classes that focus on the practical rather than the abstract?
That was the rationale of Jobs for Texas, an industry coalition that told the Texas Board of Education algebra II was not as important as vocational training for many of the good jobs in the state for which a college degree wasn’t necessary.
Texas school district administrators agreed, contending, as one assistant superintendent did at a public hearing, “To require these courses in high school is to deny to many students the opportunity to graduate high school because they have not mastered a sequence of mathematics courses they will never need.”
But do students need half of what they learn in high school?
How many high school graduates will ever draw on Miranda v. Arizona, atomic mass number or “The Canterbury Tales” in their daily lives?
We still teach landmark Supreme Court cases, chemistry and Chaucer to help students develop literacy and an understanding of how the world works.
We know the jobs entailing basic skills or repetitive tasks have all but disappeared, replaced by automation. What’s left are jobs that depend on critical thinking, problem-solving and the ability to work effectively with others — skills once expected of bosses and managers.
Georgia is now beginning a conversation about its single college prep diploma. The state Board of Education voted in 2007 to eliminate Georgia's "tiered" diploma , in which there were different expectations for different students, especially those on the vo-tech track.
Georgia may have ended up with a high school curriculum that is more than some students need. However, we don’t want to return to one that is less than our students deserve.
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