Friday, February 7, 2014

Good bye Algebra II!

 On January 31 first Kxan published an article about the Texas Board of  Education approving a new curriculum for high schools. In this new curriculum students are no longer required to take Algebra II to graduate high school.  By 14 to 1 vote, the law has been approved and will take effect in September.
Backers of this new law say that it will create more flexible choices to students to focus more on what they want to do with their future. I personally agree with the  opposing side to this new law. Making student choose not take Algebra II is really unfortunate. We are setting the education bar even more lower than it already is. Helping students to pick more fixable plans to fit their goals is different than setting them up for failure. All students will be required to take college level in college, a student who chose not to take Algebra II in high school or decide to take less than advanced algebra class will find himself or herself having to take a  remedial math courses in college before being able to take a college level math. Some argue that  the new law would help student  who want to seek a degree in liberal art, to be less burdened with taking algebra II. And students who want to seek a degree in science would still have to take Algebra and chemistry and it's win win for both sides. I believe this is a really bad decision the legislatures made. Most students especially at a young age are not even sure what they want to do with their lives, so making them pick and choose an easy way out and less challenging classes is not going to beneficiary for them  once they are in college like i mentioned earlier. And not only that we are sending younger people the wrong message here. Next thing you know they will be making some other classes probably English classes or other scientific classes no longer required because some students just don't have going to college as part of their future plan!
I do agree with the other part of the law which is cutting down the standardized test from 15 to five, because it's not about the number of exams  students have to take, it's about the foundation of knowledge they gained during these three years of their lives in high school and to be able to build on that foundation of information and knowledge once they are in college.

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