UC students may struggle with basic math, but -- hey! -- they graduate!

Since applicants stopped submitting test scores in 2021, the University of California has increased access for black, Latino and first-generation students "without sacrificing excellence," writes Miriam Pawel in a New York Times commentary. Students "may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates."

Going "test blind" rather than "test optional" -- UC will not consider any applicant's test scores -- led to a rise in black and Latino enrollment. The fact that most make it a degree, though probably not in science, engineering or any math-y major, does not make the case for academic excellence. That's why STEM professors (and others) want UC to reinstate the SAT/ACT. They're tired of teaching middle-school math to underprepared students.

Pawel, author of the forthcoming California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California, believes the university's mission requires opening the doors to students who match the state's demographics. Instead, she wants the state to improve its K-12 system so more high school graduates from first-generation black and Hispanic families will be prepared for college.

It's been tried before, she writes. In the years after 1995, when California voters banned racial preferences in university admissions, UC "spent more than $300 million annually on professional development programs and partnerships with dozens of middle and high schools to increase the percentage of underrepresented students who qualified for admission."

But K-12 schools remain "inequitable," Pawel argues. Disadvantaged students are less likely to have qualified math teachers, and less likely to go to high schools that offer advanced math classes.

Two-thirds of students enter high school without proficiency in grade-level math, and non-Asian minority students are more likely to be behind, she writes.

I agree with Pawel that many students don't get a fair chance to prep for college expectations in elementary, middle and high school. As I wrote before:

It's not students' fault that the math teacher was a substitute who majored in psychology and thinks the Pythagorean Theorem is racist. Or maybe the third-grade teacher wanted students to discover multiplication for themselves, and they didn't. The problem is that they were passed along without learning what they needed for the next level and they were lied to about how well they were doing. 

Improving K-12 math education is a worthy goal, but I think the people who cry "equity" the loudest have the worst ideas for how to do it. They want kids to talk about math ideas and apply the math they don't understand to solving "real-world" problems. They're down on teaching fundamentals, practicing and testing fluency. And, I think focusing on race, ethnicity or gender identity is distracting, at best.

Considering test scores in admission to California's top university system -- California State universities are the second tier and community colleges are open to everyone -- is a first, small step toward sanity.

Seattle Public Schools focused on equity, ignored the education basics and saw a decade of decline, writes Sandeep Kaushik. Despite an array of progressive policies that aimed to cut achievement gaps, those gaps have widened.

"Dating from well before the pandemic shuttered schools, Seattle school district leaders made a series of purposeful, ideologically driven decisions to lower academic and grading standards, hollow out the district’s once thriving gifted and talented program, loosen discipline and consequences for truancy, and limit educational opportunities," he writes. They refused to notice declining achievement. Disadvantaged black and Hispanic students have paid the highest cost.

The new superintendent is trying to turn the district around, but it's early days.