UC San Diego released a troubling study that found that 1 in 8 college applicants has middle school-level math proficiency. UCSD has been forced to introduce remedial math courses for college students that cover math gaps from elementary through high school. The common denominator has been COVID as scores have rapidly fallen thirtyfold since 2020.
The number of students who need remedial math refresher courses has soared from 1 in 100 to 1 in 8. American students struggle to answer basic math equations. “Fill in the box: 7 + 2 = X + 6.” An astounding 25% of students were unable to answer that question. Around 37% of students were unable to subtract fractions, and 61% struggled to round large numbers to the nearest hundred. UCSD is currently ranked as America’s fifth-best public university and has an acceptance rate of 24%. The overall situation among all US students is likely far worse.
The study did not attribute the issue to the No Child Left Behind policy implemented by former President George W. Bush in 2001. The UCSD study attributes the steep decline primarily to more recent factors such as the COVID-19 education blackout, the elimination of standardized testing in admissions, grade inflation, and expanding enrollment from under-resourced high schools.
These students were in 8th or 9th grade when the lockdowns halted education. What will happen to the younger students who experienced interruptions when these basic concepts were first introduced in the curriculum?
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is conducted every three years to gauge education among OECD nations. The test is given to around 600,000 15- and 16-year-old students across the world to gauge their understanding of math, science, and reading. As of 2022, these are the top 10 nations in mathematics: Singapore (575), China (552), Taiwan (547), Hong Kong (540), Japan (536), South Korea (527), Estonia (510), Switzerland (508), Canada (497), Netherlands (493). American students have a score of 465, falling 90 points behind China.
COVID lockdowns only exacerbated America’s education crisis, and the next generation of workers will be at an extreme disadvantage.