蜜桃影视

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In recent years, particularly since the pandemic, countless news articles have bemoaned a crisis in math learning. Whether defined by introductory courses at , math placement in the or, a consistent refrain is that students emerge from high school 鈥溾�� and opening access to math courses could mean 鈥�.鈥澛�

Stripped of careful phrasing, the logic is familiar: Some students are deficient, fixing them is costly, and enrolling too many of them threatens institutions.听

That is deficit thinking dressed in the language of stewardship. When an institution implies that certain students are the problem, it has already made a judgment about who belongs.

Consider what deficit framing erases. Imagine a first-generation student who graduates near the top of her class from an under-resourced high school in a rural district. She has taken every math course available to her through Algebra II, taught by a long-term substitute, from a textbook nearly a decade out of date. She arrives at a university, sits for a math placement exam, scores below the cutoff and is routed into non-credit remedial coursework that she may have to pay for out of pocket. It delays her progress and drains her financial aid. Within two years, she leaves without a degree.听

The institution calls this an outcome. The data suggests it was a decision made the day she sat for that test. But context is key.

The label 鈥渦nderprepared,鈥� when used to disqualify students rather than support them, turns a snapshot of current performance into a verdict about their potential. Researcher Gloria Ladson-Billings argued that we should stop focusing on the so-called 鈥渁chievement gap鈥� and instead examine the 鈥溾�� 鈥� a historical accumulation of disinvestment that shapes who gets access to strong instruction, advanced coursework, advising and college preparation.听

The core issue is not what students lack. It is what institutions have failed to provide. 

The math placement problem is not neutral. Given what , a significant portion of remedial placements may have been unnecessary. A placement exam, however well constructed, measures what a student has had access to, not what they are capable of learning. When a single test score is the primary determinant of a student鈥檚 math pathway, universities routinely mistake opportunity gaps for ability gaps. 

The result is that capable students 鈥� disproportionately students of color, multilingual learners and students from low-income backgrounds 鈥� are funneled into remedial sequences that delay and derail degree completion, while the system presents that routing as objective.

Research from Policy Analysis for California Education has documented in high school math access: Despite strong evidence that taking advanced math courses in high school predicts postsecondary success, access to and achievement in those courses remain unequally distributed.听

A student who completes Algebra II in an under-resourced high school and a student who completes the same course in a well-resourced district may arrive at the same institution with the same transcript notation and radically different preparation 鈥� not because of any difference in their capability, but because of differences in what their schools were able to offer. 

The evidence on alternatives is clear. The Community College Research Center found that incorporating high school transcript data into placement decisions could . Studies of corequisite remediation 鈥� where students enroll directly in gateway, credit-bearing courses while receiving concurrent academic support 鈥� show stronger outcomes than traditional聽 prerequisite sequences.

聽For example, Tennessee community colleges found that students in such courses were more likely to pass gateway math within one year. The conclusion is not complicated: Institutional design choices, not student deficits, determine who succeeds.

For more students to succeed, colleges should provide support alongside college-level instruction. The University System of Georgia replaced traditional, non-credit remedial math with a that places students directly into college-level courses while providing just-in-time support through labs, tutoring and aligned instruction. This approach has significantly improved outcomes, tripling completion rates in gatework coursework and boosting pass rates while offering more responsive, individualized help that keeps students on track, including in STEM pathways.听

The students described as “profoundly underprepared” are not a liability. They are young people who have navigated inequitable systems 鈥� under-resourced schools, inadequate counseling, economic instability and placement exams that measure circumstance more than capability 鈥� to arrive at a gateway that institutions gatekeep. The question is not whether today鈥檚 incoming college students are capable. The question is whether colleges are willing to invest, build, and deliver the supports that remove the institutional barriers hindering their success.听

Students do not fail the system. The system fails to build what they need to succeed. Restricting access is not stewardship. It is a choice and it is worth being honest about who bears the cost of the choice.

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