The Current Situation with Developmental Students

Loftsgaarden, Rung, & Watkins, 1992) survey of 1,295,000 two-year college students, 56 % were taking remedial mathematics. At the four-year college and university levels, 15 % were taking remedial courses. Recent and typical examples include 1995 data from California State University, Northridge at 54 % of incoming freshmen taking remedial math. In the City University of New York system, 1997 data shows the rate to be over 50 % (Stout, 2000). Once students get to college, data shows that a vast majority of those starting in developmental mathematics drop out before graduating. For example, at The Ohio State University, a 1995 Ohio Early College Mathematics Placement Testing Program study showed that 52 % of the students placing at the remedial level (level 5) didn’t graduate. At the same time, only 16 % of those placing at level 1 didn’t graduate. The point is that we are currently not doing a good job – both in school mathematics and in collegiate mathematics education. To improve the situation at the post-secondary level, mathematics educators seemed to have focused on student learning problems and teaching methods as the solution. That is, if you review the presentations made at NADE and AMATYC conferences, or survey the articles published in the Journal of Developmental Education, what you find, many times, addresses learning issues and teaching techniques. So, the conclusion must be that mathematics educators perceive the problem to be with learning and teaching deficiencies, and the solution must lie within. But what about the focus and sequencing of the algebra content, why isn’t it considered a solution