Educators tackle a math problem

Thousands of college students in Washington don't understand simple algebra and must take classes to learn what they should have mastered in high school.

Nearly half of the high school graduates who enrolled in a state community or technical college immediately after 12th grade had to take precollege courses such as Algebra I before they could enroll in classes needed to earn a degree, according to statewide statistics from the 2005-06 academic year, the most recent for which full data are available.

Those students have to spend more time and money earning their degrees to learn what they could have learned in high school.

It's a problem that educators around the state are trying to tackle as dismal numbers show how unprepared students are when it comes to solving basic algebraic equations.

Educators want to increase the amount of math students must take to graduate from high school, revise the minimum admissions requirements for the state's public four-year universities and change what high school students learn in the classroom.

They are also seeking to revise the math-placement exams that students take when entering college so they test what students actually learn in high school.

"Reducing remediation work, precollege work that recent high school graduates take in higher education, that's the single most-important bottom line," said Bill Moore, a policy associate for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges who runs the Transition Math Project.

At Seattle Central Community College, a student intending to earn an associate degree and transfer to the University of Washington must demonstrate a basic understanding of intermediate algebra and take a five-credit quantitative or symbolic reasoning course such as statistics, economics or psychology.

Yet this past year, more than 2,100 students there had to enroll in one of the college's four precollege math courses, which range from a basic math skills class to intermediate algebra.

Some of those taking precollege math are older adults returning to the classroom for a refresher. But there are recent high school graduates who didn't score high enough on the college's math-placement exam to take college math.

"In many cases, it's not fair to really call it 'remediation.' They didn't get mediated in the first place," Moore said.

During a recent session of Math 84 -- introductory algebra -- Seattle Central instructor Daniel Botz taught students how to solve equations with x and y.

He wrote out in words the steps the students would need to take to solve the problems -- "Put both equations in 'Ax + By = C' form" -- and then worked through the equations on a chalkboard as the students copied his work.

Such problems are typically introduced to students in high school algebra, or even in middle school.

Botz's class is the second math course that Kathleen Whitney has taken at Seattle Central.

Whitney, 19, had a hard time in high school, attending three different public schools in Seattle before graduating last year.

When she enrolled at Seattle Central last fall, she was placed in a beginning math course. She admits that she didn't take her studies very seriously in high school, but now she is trying to learn something at the community college. So far she has had two good math instructors, and the college offers tutoring for extra help.

"Math seems a lot simpler now," Whitney said.

There are even some students at four-year universities who need remedial math.

A third of the 9,671 students at the state's five public universities who took a math-placement test this past academic year tested into intermediate algebra or below, although that number has fallen in recent years. (Not all college-bound students take the test.)

About 150 students at the University of Washington had to take remedial math this past academic year. Many students who need remedial math take a community college math course that is taught on the UW campus.

The university usually doesn't enroll many students needing remedial math, typically because the admissions requirements are so high, said Virginia Warfield, a senior lecturer in math at the UW who has worked on the state Transition Math Project. In addition, many students don't have to take the math placement test.

2 credits to graduate

High school students are required by the state to take only two credits of math to graduate. Districts can set their standards higher, but just a quarter of the state's high school students are enrolled in districts that require more than the two-credit minimum, according to the state Board of Education.

Seattle Public Schools requires two credits of math. It does not specify what kind of math a student must take.

Until recently, teachers were allowed to teach math using whatever textbooks or teaching styles they preferred. But in an attempt to boost students' math skills and bolster disappointing scores on math tests, the Seattle district has recently adopted standardized math programs for its elementary and middle schools, and intends to adopt a uniform math curriculum for its high schools.

To be college-ready, a student should take at least three years of math, including algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus, said Rosalind Wise, mathematics program manager for Seattle Public Schools.

A proposal would increase the math requirement for state high school graduation to three credits, one of which would have to be taken during the student's senior year.

		Meryl Schenker / P-I
	Kathleen Whitney, 19, left, and Siobhan Parker, 17, a high school junior, take a group quiz during one of Daniel Botz's introductory algebra classes at Seattle Central Community College. It was Whitney's second math class.

The state Board of Education is expected to approve that plan by the end of the year, as required by the Legislature. It would go into effect for students entering high school in 2008.

Earlier this year, the Higher Education Coordinating Board approved additional admissions requirements for math that would force students to take a course in their final year of high school.

Students would have to pass intermediate algebra or integrated math III during their senior year of high school or enroll in another course such as statistics to get into one of the universities.

They could also take a science class during their senior year that uses algebra, such as physics or chemistry.

In addition to forcing students to take math in their senior year before entering college, educators are encouraging teachers to build math curriculum around college standards.

The Transition Math Project, which is funded by the state and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has established "college readiness" math standards that students should be able to meet upon entering higher education -- such as determining angles in triangles and explaining the meaning of square roots of numbers.

The statewide effort is taking place locally through the Seattle Transition Project, which brought high school and community college math instructors together last year to collaborate on a curriculum.

Some high school math courses have focused more on standardized tests -- such as the Washington Assessment of Student Learning -- rather than on college math standards.

Students take the WASL during the 10th grade, but the amount of math they learn by that time isn't enough to prepare them for college, said Paul Kurose, a math instructor at North Seattle Community College and project director of the Seattle Transition Project.

Even though student test scores have been low -- about 53 percent of the high school class of 2009 met the math standards on the test, according to figures released earlier this year -- high schools need to prepare students for more than just one exam.

"A whole lot of curriculum and instruction decisions are being made looking through the WASL kind of lenses, and we want to not ignore that but to expand on that," Kurose said.

The state's public colleges and universities are redesigning their math-placement exam to reflect the "college readiness" standards that high school teachers will be incorporating into the classroom.

The project will also produce a version of the test that can be given to high school juniors to test their preparedness for college math -- and help them determine what math courses they'll need to take their senior year.

Some districts are now looking to expand the math offerings in their high schools, adding probability and statistics courses to appeal to students who would otherwise have to take calculus.

Others are adding classes designed to engage students in "real world" problems. A math modeling class, for instance, would ask students to design a roller coaster.

"You've got to get a hook for a lot of students to really get them to see why does this matter and what's the point of this," Moore said.