Staff editorial: A new formula

Since most university students were in diapers, there has been talk of raising American educational standards for a new, globalized world. In 1983, a blue-ribbon commission released "A Nation at Risk," which laid out in bleak terms how young Americans' poor knowledge of math and science threatened U.S. technological development, industry, and general economic dominance and growth.

The report set off a movement toward education reform. Today, results from this reform can be seen in nationwide standardized testing that gauges results across state lines, and the issue of math and science education is considered important enough that presidential campaigns can't afford to ignore it.

Next month, the Board of Regents will likely vote to require all undergraduate applicants to university system institutions to have completed a fourth year of high school math. The system only requires applicants to have completed four years of English, three years of science, three years of social science/history and two years of a foreign language or advanced technology.

With the luxury of only three years of required math, many high school seniors pass on the opportunity to take another year of the subject. This has two effects. First, many of them are never exposed to more advanced math topics such as calculus. Second, they go a year — or even two, in some cases — without facing a chalkboard with a formula scrawled on it. Their math skills, accumulated during more than a decade of schooling, decay. Almost half of all students educated in state public schools do horribly on college math placement tests, and are forced to take non-credit, remedial classes. This university has to offer dozens of these courses, costing thousands of dollars a year.

By requiring a fourth year of math, the regents would eliminate the gap between high school and college and perhaps dramatically reduce the number of students enrolled in remedial math courses.

But as some professors have pointed out, this one step will not solve the nation's long struggle with mathematics. Although this is a step in the right direction, the solution for the problem with math education extends beyond just testing well to a true understanding of the concepts. Although testing can provide insight into development, there has been too much focus placed on memorization. As Joseph Ganem, a physics professor at Loyola University Maryland, wrote in The Baltimore Sun earlier this month, teaching advanced algebra to middle schoolers is similar to trying to teach a 6-month-old to walk — it flies in the face of normal development.

The incessant pushing of students through the public education system is more focused on the pass/fail ratio than actual learning. With many students scraping by with minimal understanding and climbing the mathematical ladder because of a passing test score, they hit a wall when faced with college-level math.

The university, at the behest of the state, has worked feverishly to increase the number of math and science majors. But without being able to pass college level math placement exams, these students stand no chance of majoring in many of the sciences that will play such a large role in the emerging, globalized economy. If the state is truly committed to increasing its technology-based workforce, the onus must be shared. If public high schools in the state can't get their students ready for college-level math courses, something needs to change.

The board would be right to increase math requirements for state universities. By requiring interested applicants to continue with math for an extra year, the board would give students more time to develop and increase their understanding. There then would be no extended break from formulas and long division, and the decision would be an advance in preparing the nation for a globalized world.