""The United States faces a crisis in student achievement at the K-12 level that has begun to spill over into higher education, especially in math," Cassidy wrote in the letters. He cited the widely discussed November report from the University of California, San Diego, in which a university working group said that one in 12 first-year students in the fall placed into math below a middle school level, despite having a solid math grade point average from high school."
"A Cassidy spokesperson didn't respond to requests for comment Friday on why he's only investigating selective institutions. The UC San Diego report provided some reasons for its first-year students' math deficits. "This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools," the report said. "The combination of these factors has produced an incoming class increasingly unprepared.""
A Senate committee chair launched an investigation into declining math preparedness among freshmen admitted to selective colleges. Letters were sent to 35 institutions, including Ivy League schools, Georgia Institute of Technology and Rice University, requesting data on freshman math placement, placement procedures, precollege-content math classes, universitywide math graduation requirements, and whether SAT, ACT, or other math tests are required, with a Feb. 5 deadline. The effort cites University of California San Diego findings that one in 12 first-year students placed into math below middle-school level despite solid high-school math GPAs. UC San Diego identified pandemic disruptions, elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and expanded admissions from under-resourced high schools as contributing factors.
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