More pre-college math doesn’t add up

My nephew is a bright boy, a junior at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane. A year or so ago, he was struggling with math.

So my sister, a public school teacher, hired a private tutor. By the next math test, his score had improved markedly. The tutor was so flummoxed he asked my nephew if he’d come by his good grade honestly.

Having survived Washington state public education, I’m not surprised that a smart boy like my nephew could go to math class every day, toil at homework and still not get it. Neither am I surprised that the teacher never expected him to succeed.

In the year I cried my way through algebra at Spokane’s Ferris High School, our teacher focused on the elite few who caught on quickly. For help, we were encouraged to ask our peers. Our teacher couldn’t explain beans about what he knew.

Anyway, I gutted out algebra and did fine in geometry, but that was it for me and math. I graduated from the University of Washington in spite of that educational deficit.

Tuesday, I nearly had steam coming from my ears as I read about the Higher Education Coordinating Board’s support of a plan to require four years of high school math for admission to our state universities.

It’s not a done deal. You can have your say about it at public meetings in April. I’ll have my say today. My objections are both practical and philosophical.

Who’s going to teach all those pre-calculus and statistics classes? In Tuesday’s Herald article, Jackson High School math teacher JoAnne Robinson said: “If they have a good work ethic, pay attention in class, and get help when they need it, those kids will be successful.”

Who is going to provide all that help? My sister, whose husband is a lawyer, could afford that tutor. Many can’t.

Bob Craves is concerned that the new requirements, which would also add a second year of lab science, could weed out all but the best students from affluent families. Craves, chairman of the coordinating board, opposed the changes in the board’s 4-3 vote in December.

“I thought it was too rigorous,” said Craves, head of the nonprofit Washington Education Foundation.

“Right now, we’ve got the WASL. That test covers math, reading, writing and so forth. With these complications to go to a four-year college, I just feel it would really be a burden to students. It’s going to end up with only the very brightest and only the very wealthy, if tuition continues to increase.”

Craves, who majored in philosophy at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., is also a founding officer of Costco Wholesale Corp. Clearly a success, he doubts he could have fulfilled the stringent requirements in high school.

He wonders, too, whether schools in poor rural areas of the state could even offer the required curriculum. “Places like Mabton, I would ask if this would automatically eliminate those students,” Craves said.

Aside from the practical, I have a philosophical problem with universities putting a high value on one type of knowledge.

Someone might be the best of the best in art. That someone might bypass Washington’s universities because of the four-year math requirement, denying schools here a top art student.

Doesn’t anyone care? The University of Washington can boast of illustrious alumni, among them English major David Guterson, author of “Snow Falling on Cedars.” Do you suppose he took four years of high school math?

Did master sculptor and painter George Tsutakawa, who earned his UW bachelor’s in fine arts in 1937, excel in algebra?

I value their contributions more than the work of any mathematician.

“The process hasn’t had a public airing yet,” said Kris Betker, spokeswoman for the Higher Education Coordinating Board.

If approved this summer, the changes would be required beginning with the graduating class of 2008. “Universities would still be allowed to admit up to 15 percent of students using alternate standards,” Betker added.

Math isn’t the end in itself, she said.

“What we have found is that rigorous high school preparation is the best measure of success in college. We were probably the exception to that,” said Betker, a UW graduate who admitted it’s unlikely she’d be admitted today.

Are we the exception? This undereducated writer did sort of succeed, after all.

There, I’ve had my say. Your turn comes at 3 p.m. April 12 at Highline Community College in Des Moines. The Higher Education Coordinating Board can expect an earful.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.

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