News Roundup: California, College Algebra, and Placement Exams

Over the past few months, California officials have made waves in the national media with several systemic adjustments to the math requirements in their state colleges and community colleges. While we will reserve our own commentary on these changes for a later date, we thought it might be helpful to guide our readers to various news articles published throughout the summer, which detail what the state is doing to help non-STEM majors get through their general education requirements.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Cal State plans to drop placement exams in math and English, “as well as the noncredit remedial courses that more than 25,000 freshmen have been required to take each fall.” (link)

This elicited a strong reaction from readers. (link)

Here is another piece on the same subject, this one from the New York Times. (link)

One month earlier, the LA Times also reported that the chancellor of the California Community Colleges system aims to eliminate the intermediate algebra requirement for non-Stem majors. (link)