Re: 8th grade algebra in California

[Le1212@aol.com]

Is there truly a algebra-for-all need?  Here's something by Susan  Ohanian:
 
Gerald Bracey warns that officials in states that are pushing algebra into  
earlier grades should start looking for a correlation between forcing kids  
to 
take algebra and increased dropout rates. Dennis Redovich, who runs the  
Center for the Study of Jobs and Education in Wisconsin, says that only 60  
percent of the students who take algebra in Milwaukee pass it. He says the  
ninth grade in Milwaukee schools is getting larger each year because  
students 
who fail algebra don’t have enough credits to move on to tenth  grade.

The slogan "all children can learn" is not only simplistic, it is  also 
dangerous. Certainly all children cannot or should not be required to  learn 
algebra. But don’t tell that to people in California. With a nod to  the 
state’s high-stakes exit exam, this past December the Curriculum  Development 
and Supplemental Materials Commission recommended for approval  only algebra 
texts for the state’s eighth-graders. 

I worry that  because we have let the Standardistos steamroll an algebra 
requirement onto  high school exit exams— thereby insisting that if students 
can’t qualify for  university admission, they won’t get a high school 
diploma—hundreds of  thousands of youth will be denied that diploma. Algebra 
thus becomes a  gatekeeper, not just to the university and promised 
affluence, 
but to a  productive life after high school. We must not forget that we need 
plenty of  people to undertake the jobs that don’t require university 
training. People  cannot become licensed beauticians, plumbers, brick masons, 
dental  hygienists, and hundreds of other occupations without a high school 
diploma.  

Yes, let’s encourage as many students as possible to take higher math,  but 
let’s not damn those who don’t into minimum wage jobs.
 
_About  Radical Equations_ 
(http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/archives/Oct2001/msg00179.html)  



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