Posted by Al, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Nov 6, 2009 at 3:42 pm

> one of the biggest challenges facing U.S. education: the

> high failure rates of community college students in basic math.

Huh? The problem is in the public schools, that graduate kids that don't have the slightest idea what math is .. nor reading for that matter.

Look at the California STAR test results for English and Math. Most of the kids in California can't read. Only about 1/3rd read at "Above Proficient" or "Advanced". The other 2/3rds read at levels which are measured below these levels. Then look at the NAEP scores (US Dept. of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress), and the same sort of profile emerges on the national level.

While math appeals to one set of skills, and language arts to another .. unless a student can read it's unlikely they will be able to handle other academic disciplines. Reading is the gateway skill.

> Carnegie hired Fong to design a streamlined and supported math

> curriculum that can bring millions of community college students

> up to speed in one year.

Good luck with that. In the past decade, the CSU schools have had to require remedial Math and English from 40%-70% of their incoming students. This program has been ongoing for over a decade, and the problem has not been dealt with in the public schools yet, which are the "feeders" to the Colleges/Universities.

It will be interesting to see if the Weekly will have the courage to check up on this situation in a year from now and see if "Math for the Millions" is now a reality.

With the Community Colleges only "graduating" about 15% of their students into valid 4-year colleges, it's not exactly clear what math skills are needed. What's also not clear is why the Community College system (which gets about 40%-50% of the post-secondary education funding from the State is not tackling this problem itself.

Posted by Huh?, a resident of the Meadow Park neighborhood, on Nov 6, 2009 at 5:20 pm

I have to agree....by the time someone gets to Middle School, the math skills should be well embedded, with a clear path toward higher math if the kids is so inclined.

I don't understand the concept of working on basic skills being the "problem" of University-level, or even Junior college-level institutions.

Certainly better late than never, but it seems to be a failure of our elementary/middle schools more than anything after that.

Posted by Another stink-tank, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 7, 2009 at 8:19 am

"launched by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered by Congress in 1906 to advance the teaching profession. It aims to spark large-scale changes in public education."

A-ha! So these are some of the devils who engineered the destruction of our schools. Multiple choice answers and True or False... my friggin' cat can answer many of these questions correctly.

Posted by ironic, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 8, 2009 at 8:49 am

That's right -- Carnegie has pushed progressive education for decades. Names change of the current programs de jour such as Outcome Education or Constructivism or Open Classroom -- same stuff. Everyday Math fits right in with this progressive ideal which has contributed to the demise of math capabilities.

I wish Fong all the best in trying to do something about it. But educators are entrenched and will not change to more traditional math that works K-12.