LITTLE ROCK — OH, LORDY. Not an algebra test. (Insert flop sweat here.) It's a recurring nightmare for many. You're sitting there at a snug school desk in a chilly room and the No. 2 pencil in your hand just will not fill out the right circle on the answer sheet. If Y-squared is equaled to 3X minus . . . . Hey, what's this parentheses doing there? It says something like: (B plus X-cubed). So now we have to solve that puzzle first before we can move on to the whole convoluted thing? We thought parentheses were for writers, not math-ers.
Even though a lot of us would rather curl up with a good history book or a nice collection of short stories, or even goof around in the chemistry lab or chatter with the French teacher, without algebra and other math courses, there'd be no engineers. No astronauts. No computers. No a lot of things. Also, there'd be fewer journalists, many of whom were steered into writing by charitable guidance counselors who noted the Gentleman's C in all those math classes.
So, chillen, you're going to need those algebra classes. And so will your children's children. In 20 years, you might not have to take a spiral notebook to class-slide rules are already long gone-but two plus two will always equal four. And A plus B will always equal B plus A.
Cynthia Howell-this newspaper's lady on the education beat-wrote a story in Wednesday's paper that didn't bode too well for future college students in Arkansas. Only 10 percent of those who took last year's Algebra II test in high school were prepared for college. Almost 90 percent scored in the not-prepared-enough categories.
This is not good news for Arkansas. Those in charge of education in this state have been trying to reduce the number of high-school graduates who have to take remediation courses in college. A report issued earlier this year showed that almost 43 percent of first-year college students in Arkansashave to take a remedial course in math.
It's not as if nobody's trying. Just this summer, the state's Department of Education worked with math professors to train algebra II teachers for high schools. That's a start.
And not all schools are equal when it comes to math.
School districts in Little Rock, Pulaski County, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff and Springdale are churning out a lot of students who need improvement-and will probably have to pay for another semester or two of college. Those remedial classes aren't free, you know.
But some schools are getting good grades. Among them, Cynthia Howell reports, are Benton Junior High, Conway High School East and Greenbrier Junior. Good for them, their students and teachers.
The state needs to find out what those schools are doing right in algebra class, and let their example spread.
Arkansas' children need to do better at algebra. We can't all be journalists.
AFTER THE algebra scores start inching up, the folks in the Department of Education need to look for other weaknesses to work on. Are high-school students in Arkansas having a hard time in foreign language classes? History? English? Then set the bar higher in those courses, too.
It's been our experience that children will reach the goals set for them. Set the bar low, and they'll play video games at night instead of doing their homework. Set the bar high, and they'll often meet, even exceed, requirements.
Cynthia Howell's story last Wednesday didn't compare how students in Arkansas did on their algebra tests compared with those in other states. Nor did the story rank Arkansas' performance among Southern states or even among just those states that border this one. And the story shouldn't need to. It's enough to know that Arkansas students aren't doing as well as they should. And that this state's teachers, schools, and parents can do better. Our kids just aren't being prepared for college. They need to be.
One happy day, maybe 99 percent of our kids will be prepared for college algebra. Then what? Then focus on the 1 percent who aren't. And get them prepared to do well in college, too. Because, as in so many fields of endeavor, if we're not moving forward, we're slipping behind.
If education never ends, improving education shouldn't, either.
Editorial, Pages 18 on 09/26/2009