A longtime professor at the University of California, Berkeley has grown frustrated with her students’ lack of college readiness and noted that many of the school’s undergraduates struggle with fractions and other middle school-level mathematics.
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Instead of helping them understand the complexities of calculus, Zvezdelina Stankova of UC Berkeley often has to tutor her students on mathematical principles they should have learned years before enrolling in university.
“Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school,” wrote Stankova in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard.
Educator Explains Students’ Lack of College Readiness
Stankova, a Harvard alum, pins the blame on a loose admissions process. Standardized testing was phased out by UC Berkeley in 2020, removing SAT and ACT scores from admissions decisions.
Subsequently, Stankova said that the admissions process has become “less like careful evaluation and more like chance.”…