I feel like this is equivalent to saying "if you are a STEM major, why even study writing?" I do some technical writing for work, but absolutely none of the kind of writing I did in my college writing classes. Would anyone, especially a non-STEM major, care to make an argument that the two cases are different?
"It is also the single most failed course in community colleges across the country".
The author is saying that a lot of people that don't need algebra end up failing it, so if we remove it from their curricula we'll raise graduation rates. That's the end goal.
Not as many people fail writing courses, so there's no need to remove those courses as they're not a barrier to graduating.
This is what's wrong with our education system. Who cares if anyone is actually learning anything, get those useless metrics up!
Employers seem to disagree with you about the usefulness of that metric.
When being able to get a job depends more on what piece of paper you have than what knowledge you have, that is no longer a useless metric.
Students and colleges are responding rationally to what the employers are demanding.
Of course, once they made "college degree" a proxy, everybody on the production side responded correctly and reduced into to its core essence as you said: "pay for this piece of paper and who cares about quality since an interview won't test me anyway".
If it actually mattered, the most rational action is for employers to either 1) interview people without college degrees or 2) train people without college degrees. The fact that neither of these is occurring tells me that the employers aren't really that bothered by the current situation.
If we wanted to raise graduation rates, we could just hand out degrees after two weeks and no exams.
I'm not agreeing with the author, but that's what the author is saying.
FWIW: I have a "Bachelors of Science In Liberal Arts & Sciences" from math.illinois.edu and enjoyed the human sexuality, critical theory, etc courses I took in addition to the math courses.
I have a sneaking suspicion there'd be a revolt if all humanities students had to pass MATH 347[1] to graduate.
I don't think STEM majors should have to take writing courses nor non-stem majors take math courses.
This should not be done in University but earlier. I'm skeptical that forcing these two categories of students take these courses make them effective with in the subject matter or a more enlightened person as the excuse goes.
IMO it is a way to keep professors who teach unneccessary coursework employed.
I wonder how many engineers get hired for their writing ability?
In fact I bet a college educated engineer or at least one who went to college writes well enough as to not interfere with their work.
If you want regular promotions, probably watch your spelling too.
I sincerely wish that this was the norm, but my experience has been that, on average, people with the word "engineer" in their degree can't be bothered with such piddling details as spelling and grammar.
The ability to express ideas, concepts and procedures in writing is a fundamental skill for any professional.
However, if I had to pick one mathematical subject everyone should learn, it wouldn't be algebra, it would be statistics.
Plug into SPSS/etc -> p-value calculated -> result = ifelse(p<0.05, success/trueTheory, failure/falseTheory)
This isn't algebra in the "groups and rings" sense, it's algebra in the "use the quadratic equation", "is this a graph of x or x^2 or x^3?", "FOIL" sense. Think middle school or early high school.
It's basically impossible to do any statistics past a bit of hand waving if your students can't identify the difference between a graph of x and a graph of x^2...
We're not talking about teaching everyone Calculus or Group Theory. We're talking about making sure everyone knows what they should've learned in their middle and high school algebra course.
"Real" math is also about those things, but it's typically not presented that way until it's too late.
Understanding compound interest at a minimum probably provides an immense benefit to those it keeps from making bad assumptions about taking on and getting out of debt.
A financial planning course, on the other hand, would be immensely valuable. People should be forced to take that, not algebra. Knowing how to save money on tax returns, how to calculate a budget, software to manage it all... If school is being used for job training, then I wish it would train that.
Of course since the argument can't be practical, ie you will use this someday which you won't, opponents talk about the importance of a liberal arts education and being well rounded.
No one should be forced to take such a useless course. Learn algebra and all the non-ephemeral aspects of basic financial planning comes basically for free.
> Knowing how to save money on tax returns
Talk about ephemeral knowledge!
> how to calculate a budget
...is literally the first example used in a lot of college algebra courses.
We're not talking about "strong" math skills. IME most kids who will go on to take AP Calculus mastered at least half of the material covered in a CC Algebra course before even starting high school.
> People are far more likely to benefit economically from strong communication skills than strong math skills
I'm not entirely sure this is true in many local economies. Especially outside of cities, communication isn't as important as competency in skills/trades. And a lot of those skills/trades require a functional understanding of elementary mathematical objects -- understanding ratios, functions, some useful trig properties, and the ability to follow complicated directions (algorithms) precisely are all basic core competencies for most trades.
The article is probably correct -- we could stand to have alternatives to the standard CC algebra course. But an effectively similar level of quantitative skill is required for most trades. And no amount of "pretty talkin'" will prep you for, e.g., CNC machining.
Which trades are you referring to? Truck driving? Retail? Cashiers? Secretaries? Managers, sales reps, school teachers, janitors, waiters, cooks, customer service, freight laborers, stock clerks, maids, receptionists, construction laborers, child care workers, grounds maintenance?
None of those require a wit of algebra. Yet they represent tens of millions of jobs.
It's not good to divorce ourselves too far from the reality of most normal peoples' lives.
None of those are skills (except maybe truck driving). And none of them require a CC degree. Those are all things you do with a GED or less.
I'm thinking of the sorts of things people go to CC for. Dental Hygiene, Paramedics, EMTs, Morgue work, Respiratory therapists et al, various medical diagnostic technicians, vet techs, nursing, CNC, Engineering technicians, etc. Visit your local CC website and look through their programs of study.
> Managers
Depends. Engineering? Construction? Absolutely.
Again, we're not talk about groups and rings. We're talking about stuff like knowing the difference between x and x^2.
> sales reps ... customer service
Outside of cities there are a lot fewer sales jobs... and a lot of them require BA/BS just because they can.
> school teachers
STEM teachers need a LOT more than just CC algebra. At least Calculus. The algebra taught in CC's was once taught in high school, but is now often taught in middle school. Middle school science curricula have kept pace. So, yes, any STEM teacher -- even at the elementary level these days -- needs to know basic algebra.
> janitors, waiters, cooks
Not skills and/or don't require CC, and so irrelevant to this conversation.
> freight laborers, stock clerks, maids, receptionists, construction laborers, child care workers, grounds maintenance?
Again, not skills, and for the most part don't require CC.
It's sobering to see all of the job types listed out like that though, isn't it? Our combined lists represent most peoples' options. Kind of strange to think about.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree that morgue keepers or dental hygienicists benefit from even a little bit of algebra, though.
To re-iterate, most of the jobs you listed do not require a Community College degree!
Whether a truck driver or store clerk needs algebra is utterly irrelevant. People doing those jobs are not required to have -- and usually do not have -- community college degrees. Their needs are irrelevant in a discussion about community college curricula.
Regarding my examples, I'm not "seeing what sticks". I'm literally just listing what are pretty much uniformly the most popular programs at most community colleges. Again, look up enrollment and funding statistics for some of your local CC's.
> dental hygienicists
Again, I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of the material that students need to master in order to pass community college algebra.
As I said in my original post:
>>> The article is probably correct -- we could stand to have alternatives to the standard CC algebra course. But an effectively similar level of quantitative skill is required for most trades.
I think that's spot on for dental hygenists. They absolutely have to understand ratios, for example, and that's one major stumbling block for CC Algebra students.
So do they need CC Algebra? Maybe, maybe not. But IMO a course covering only the portions they do absolutely need is going to be just as much a stumbling block for these students.