Having now taken three of those pre-reqs and College Algebra, I can attest that
it was--and still is--a myth that math, particularly algebra, is vital for
careers and life itself. Those whose careers and lives are totally dependent
upon math naturally regard it as essential as breathing or potable water. A
winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching
said as much. Yet her career and life was the aerospace
industry. I find it interesting that Nobel Prize winners such as William
Faulkner, Nelson Mandela, or Paul Krugman never considered their achievements
in that light.
But Clint had been so hardwired that this myth was the
truth, it was a waste of time and even cruel--considering his investment in
College Algebra--to belabor that point.
Instead, I went for cheerleading.
"Clint, believe one thing," I said. "You're not stupid
because you haven't passed College Algebra. Math is rigged against us
right-brainers from grade school on."
He rolled his eyes.
Now, just as dyslexia is a recognized reading disability,
scientists in the late 1980s and early 1990s discovered a math disability
(dyscalculia) through extensive research with the left cerebral hemisphere of
the brain. They found it generally was due to genetics or, sometimes, an early
injury to the brain which affected even those with "superior intelligence." It
shows itself when an individual has difficulty understanding, remembering, or
solving problems involving basic arithmetic concepts, let alone those in, say,
calculus or other higher--math classes. As with problem readers, frustration
over math failures compounds itself in bright people like Clint. Several books
now exist about dyscalculia and other information is available on the Internet.
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The only thing I could do then was to tell him there were
many ways to learn math, but that too many math teachers tended to be set in
their ways. That textbooks were hard to follow because most were written by
math people. Had to be approved by math peers--probably Texans. But never by
non-math students. Or those who'd failed College Algebra.
Clint sighed,
lifted his head and nodded.
"Thanks," he said, put on his baseball cap and went out the
door.
A desk-side pep talk was unlikely to earn him a passing
grade for an eleven-week course covering what I now know would involve nearly
four-hundred processes. But I sensed he was grateful that one professor was
aware of his plight.
As I walked to my office, I began to think about that
plight--and that of so many others I'd advised about that killer class. What was
going on in it not only at our school, but on just about every campus in the
country? I'd read somewhere that it had a national failure rate of fifty
percent. A colleague had told me he had made the rounds of College Algebra
grades posted after finals and found a little more than fifty percent had
flunked the course.
But with four pre-reqs, the rate should have been a
fraction of fifty percent. What kind of teaching was going on in that class? Failure
rates greater than five percent in
the Liberal Arts college brought instant correction. Either the chair or Dean
would call in the offending instructor and order either a change of teaching
methods, ugly repercussions if they were tenured, or firing if they were not.
(Grow or go!)
It was ironic that K-12 schools now face the federal lash
of no cash for failure rates in math, reading, and writing, thanks to the Race
to the Top program. But high failure rates for College Algebra were a
money-making machine.
Then, came the epiphany.
I reached for the Class Schedule and counted twelve sections of College Algebra and began to do a little math myself. Each bloc of fifteen students was counted as one FTE (one full-time equivalent student). The current rate paid by this particular state for public schools--K through college--was six thousand dollars per FTE. So if the class capacity was a maximum of thirty students, the state would be giving the Math Department almost twelve hundred dollars per section (universities skim some of it for their general operating budgets).
Calculating the Profits off "Boneheads' for Math Departments
A few taps of my calculator revealed that twelve sections
of College Algebra at twelve hundred dollars each earned that department more
than fourteen thousand dollars ($14,400)--plus a slice of tuition--per term. At four terms per year, the
take was nearly sixty-thousand dollars ($57,600)--for that one course. Add to
that total two sections apiece for the four pre-req courses: nearly forty-eight
thousand dollars more--per term.
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