{"id":18464,"date":"2013-05-09T11:03:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T15:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=18464"},"modified":"2013-05-09T11:03:46","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T15:03:46","slug":"study-schools-and-colleges-are-teaching-the-wrong-type-of-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/05\/09\/study-schools-and-colleges-are-teaching-the-wrong-type-of-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Schools And Colleges Are Teaching The Wrong Type Of Math"},"content":{"rendered":"
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mjymail (tiggy) \/ Flickr<\/p>

Most students are being taught math they will never use, while schools skimp on or omit foundational skills student use more according to a new study.<\/p><\/div>\n

Community college students are needlessly assigned to remedial math classes to learn lessons they won’t use during their studies, according to new research from a Washington, D.C. group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And the study also found that many high school graduates are not learning subjects they will need to use in their careers.<\/p>\n

The study was produced by the Washington, D.C.-based National Center on Education and the Economy and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n

“What these studies show is that our schools do not teach what their students need,” the authors wrote, “while demanding of them what they don\u2019t need; furthermore, the skills that we do teach and that the students do need, the schools teach ineffectively. Perhaps that is where we should begin.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A StateImpact Florida and Florida Center for Investigative Reporting series showed more than half of the students who took Florida’s college placement exam<\/a> in 2012 were assigned to at least one remedial class.<\/p>\n

The series noted that colleges and K-12 officials said they had done a poor job of coordinating on the type of classes high school graduates would need to complete college-level work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The National Center on Education and the Economy study found that first-year college math work was generally on a level they called Algebra 1.25. That means community college students would have to know most of the concepts in Algebra I, plus some geometry, statistics and other lessons.<\/p>\n

But the study found that some students were never taught elementary-level concepts necessary for college-level work, such as geometric visualization and complex measurement.<\/p>\n

The authors argue schools need to ensure students master elementary and middle school-level concepts, and that the more advanced subjects, such as Algebra II, are less vital.<\/p>\n

Just five percent of workers will use the math taught in the sequence of courses typically required by K-12 schools: Geometry, Algebra II, Pre-Calculus and Calculus.<\/p>\n

“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,” the authors wrote.<\/p>\n

They cautioned that the study should not be used to make the case for lowering high school graduation requirements. In fact, they argue, colleges should slowly raise their standards — “greatly” — and adjust what students are expected to know.<\/p>\n

You can read the study here<\/a>. The Miami Herald<\/em> included how Miami-Dade College is already adjusting to these concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And you can read our full “13th Grade” series here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community college students are needlessly assigned to remedial math classes to learn lessons they won’t use during their studies, according to new research from a Washington, D.C. group. And the study also found that many high school graduates are not learning subjects they will need to use in their careers. The study was produced by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":18465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[778,139,1070,1169,1160,1110],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18469,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464\/revisions\/18469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}