High school math not adding up in college

Published 11:59 am Thursday, March 6, 2008

At Edmonds Community College, new students take a placement test for math. Of about 1,100 high school graduates who enrolled for 2006-07, only 48 percent tested into college level math and the rest had to take pre-college math to catch up.

Statewide, 46 percent of high school graduates who enter two-year colleges right out of high school need to take pre-college math.

The transition to college math can be rocky for several reasons, said Pat Averbeck, Edmonds Community College math instructor.

“The catch is that some of our math is geared traditionally toward the science/math/engineering track,” he said.

In contrast, high school students throughout the state are taught reform or “inquiry-based” math, which relies on student exploration and real life context rather than direct instruction and drill.

The issue isn’t confined to community colleges.

Many freshmen can’t do basic math, said an open letter recently signed by 60 University of Washington math, science and engineering professors. The letter, released Thursday, Feb. 28, said that professors are seeing more and more students who can’t solve math problems at even a middle school level.

The professors in the letter blame the way math is taught in the state, specifically the “inquiry” approach.

To address the transition between high school and college math locally, officials and teachers from the Edmonds School District and Edmonds Community College, including Averbeck, have been working together.

They’ve created a course that adds inquiry methods to a traditional college course. The class is supposed to act as a bridge for district high school students about to enter college and for Edmonds Community College freshmen who placed into pre-college math.

The course will be piloted at the college this spring and at three district high schools next year: Edmonds-Woodway, Meadowdale and Lynnwood.

A “Transitions Math Project” grant from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, and the Gates foundation has funded two years of work on the topic.

The course is called “Transition College Math” at the high schools and Math 95 at the college. It can be described as Algebra 2 with more real-world applications and other inquiry-based teaching methods.

“A lot of kids get lost in Algebra 2 because it’s heavily involved with the symbolic manipulation of algebraic symbols,” said Ken Limon, assistant superintendent for the Edmonds School District. “This course makes relevancy a huge part of the curriculum, so people see real life examples of how that formula would help you answer something in real life. People feel the content is rich with the formulaic (part) and it’s a good balance.”

The goal is to take the grade level expectations and the learning standards of K-12 and push them into the college so they have a similar set of standards, Limon said.

“Our goal is to help college math teachers understand those standards and use them in their classes so there won’t be as much a need for a bridge,” he said.

The Edmonds School District has been looking at the issue for several years. Five years ago, officials looked at the number of students not making it to college-level math.

At the time, about 60 percent of Edmonds district students who graduated and went to Edmonds Community College placed into pre-college math when they got there. The numbers are reduced now, Limon said.

Three years ago, district officials did a study to find out why so many students were placing so low. They found that students who took at least up to Algebra 2 and who had good grades in their math classes did better on the college placement tests, Limon said.

“Math is kind of like a foreign language,” Limon said, referring to students who don’t take math their senior year. “If you’re out of practice for a whole year, it’s pretty hard to take a college assessment.”

Averbeck said there are many reasons that the transition between high school and college math can be rocky. The material is taught more quickly, students are expected to work more independently and some work full-time, he said.

The current pre-college math course at the college is Math 90, which uses traditional teaching methods.

“My students are saying: ‘Why do I need to know this? I’m a drama major, I’m a lit major,’” Averbeck said. “I can’t give them an answer – they’ll never use it in their real life and won’t use it in classes later on.”

More traditional math instruction should be aimed at math and science majors, he said.