Co-Requisite Remediation and CCA (Saving Mathematics, Part V)

Complete College America (CCA) released a new report on co-requisite remediation this week. Actually, that statement is not true … the CCA released a web site which shows some data on co-requisite remediation, with some user interaction. What’s missing? Anything that would help a practitioner judge whether they should consider co-requisite remediation! #CCA #Corequisite #SaveMath

Many of us are dealing with policy makers in our states or institutions who see co-requisite remediation as the solution to the “developmental math problem”. There are, in fact, serious problems in developmental mathematics; there are also serious problems with how ‘college math’ has been defined, and how policy makers are defining a problem away instead of solving it.

Within developmental mathematics, we have been working hard teaching the wrong stuff to our students, frequently using less-than-ideal methods to help them learn. Our curriculum has too many courses, and the combination is lethal … not many students reach their dream. When students proceed from developmental math to college algebra or pre-calculus, they often find that the gap in expectations between the two levels is very difficult to deal with.

Co-requisite remediation steps in to this complex problem domain, and declares that all will be fine if we just put students into college math with some support. The most common (and sometimes the ONLY) co-requisite remediation done is in Intro Statistics and Quantitative Reasoning [QR] (or Liberal Arts Math). The history, frequently, is that students had to pass intermediate algebra prior to these courses … even though that background has nothing to do with the learning; the requirement was to establish “college level”.

So, the CCA and allies declare that students can take Stat or QR instead of developmental math. Of course this is ‘successful’; the old prerequisite was unreasonable, and the co-requisite method puts students directly in to courses they are relatively ready for, and also provides extra support (in some cases). Many colleges, including mine, had already lowered the prerequisite for Stat and QR years ago; our results from both Stat and QR are better than what the CCA states for their co-requisite model.

The co-requisite ‘movement’ is an illusion. The work succeeds (almost totally) because students are placed in to math courses that have minimal needs for algebra. I get better results by just changing the prerequisite to Stat and QR.

We also face a risk to mathematics in this illusion: students with dreams that involve STEM are frequently told that this dream is being shelved in favor of co-requisite remediation, that they will take either Stat or QR. The path to calculus is either not available or involves work that is not articulated well to students. Policy makers are treating math as a barrier to cope with, a problem to solve with the least remediation. The need for mid- and high-skill STEM workers is well documented, but the co-requisite ‘solution’ often blocks the largest pool of students from those fields … the minorities, the poor, the students served by under-performing schools.

Society needs our work to succeed for all students. We can not accept a solution which reduces upward mobility; a solution which does not provide ‘2nd chances’ is a risk to both mathematics and to a democratic society.

Don’t get me wrong — Stat and QR have a major role to play in our curriculum, and these courses might be the most common math courses students should take in college. My main message is that we need to question the illusion called ‘co-requisite remediation’, AND we need to articulate a vision of our curriculum which enables ALL students to consider STEM and STEM-like careers. [The New Life Project provides a vision of such a curriculum.]

If you really want to read the CCA “Report”, go to http://completecollege.org/spanningthedivide/#the-bridge-builders

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college completion, Math curriculum in general, politics of developmental mathematics | Jack Rotman | January 22, 2016 11:06 am

11 Comments

By Laura, January 22, 2016 @ 3:12 pm

Exactly.
By schremmer, January 22, 2016 @ 3:32 pm

I find it dispirinting in the above that the terms and the contents are nowhere defined. I do not see anything wrong “co-requisite remediation” per se. Consider the following situation.

You are constructing a course in which requires an aknowledgment of, and respect for, logic. So, you are focussing on the contents of the course. But, occasionally, you need to carry out some computations which the students have of course forgotten about since this was “shown and told” to them and therefore instantly forgotten.

Here is an example from Schremmer’s Precalculus I. After having dealt with Polynomial Functions, the text ends with Rational Functions done right. But students have forgotten how to divide polynomials and sure do not know how to divide polynomials in ascending powers. So, what do you do if you do not have time to do it in class? Either you have to cut the rational functions out or you have to provide the students with side remediation with polynomial division.

So, what is wrong with a bit of side remediation?
By Jack Rotman, January 22, 2016 @ 3:48 pm

Good question … all teachers “worth their salt” do remediation as needed.
The issues here deal with the mythology developing around the methods called ‘co-requisite remediation’; that term is not defined, except in a vague operational sense. However, policy makers use the phrase as a disciplinary stick on math faculty … as an argument to do co-req … and as an obviously always good thing. Instead of saying “Sorry, we made a mistake when we required intermediate algebra for all college math — you can now do what makes sense” the policy makers want to end all course-based remediation; we need to minimize remediation, not eliminate it.
By schremmer, January 22, 2016 @ 3:39 pm

Sorry, botched the link again. Hope this works”

Schremmer’s Precalculus I
By schremmer, January 22, 2016 @ 4:02 pm

1. “Policy makers” do what they have to do in order to get the money they need to be re-elected in the general indifference.

2. It should not be forgotten however that we the math teachers gave them, and continue to give them, the ammunition they are using.

3. It should not be forgotten however that we the math teachers are now embracing the stuff Pearson is selling.

4. And where are the discussions on the table of contents of courses which would make sense? Where are the collective, open source efforts to create decent materials accordingly?
By Jack Rotman, January 25, 2016 @ 7:58 am

1. True
2. Yes, sadly; we need to toughen up, and be more ‘political’ (managing power) in our work.
3. True, but due to other causes
4. Open source is not required; open sources are not sufficient for this basic change. The majority of college mathematics is still going to be commercial based; changing the commercial climate to support positive change and progress is necessary and sufficient, I believe. [The contents that ‘make sense’ is a long professional conversation all of us need to be engaged with.]
By Bruce Yoshiwara, January 22, 2016 @ 4:47 pm

The Dana Center and other education leaders who once considered co-requisites as a core principle have evidently changed their minds.
The Nov 2015 “Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education: A Joint Statement” (http://www.jff.org/publications/core-principles-transforming-remedial-education-joint-statement) from the Dana Center, Complete College America, et al., updates the Dec 2012 “Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education: A Joint Statement” (http://completecollege.org/docs/CCA_joint_report-printer.pdf). The 2012 report’s core principles included
“Principle 3. Enrollment in a gateway college-level course should be the default placement for many more students.
“Principle 4. Additional academic support should be integrated with gateway college-level course content — as a co-requisite, not a pre-requisite.”
The 2015 document has instead
“Principle 3. Academic and nonacademic support is provided in conjunction with gateway courses in the student’s academic or career area of interest through co-requisite or other models with evidence of success in which supports are embedded in curricula and instructional strategies.
“Principle 4. Students for whom the default college-level course placement is not appropriate, even with additional mandatory support, are enrolled in rigorous, streamlined remediation options that align with the knowledge and skills required for success in gateway courses in their academic or career area of interest.”
By Jack Rotman, January 25, 2016 @ 7:54 am

Good eye, Bruce!
The new wording suggests that the groups have softened their co-requisite stance. I suspect that this is due to the involvement of the Dana Center in the new wording, though I have no evidence for that; I do know that CCA has solidified it’s stance on co-requisite. Many practitioners are experiencing the demands to use co-requisite remediation as a consequence of the CCA messages (also known as ‘propaganda’).
By Peter Brown, January 22, 2016 @ 10:14 pm

< 4% of college graduated are STEM majors. And the mathematical experience of the other 96%? Factoring?
By ladyofthelake, February 2, 2016 @ 12:32 pm

So, if we want to offer support for regular college courses, should we consider “co-requisite” for pre-calculus, or is pre-calculus “preparatory enough” for calculus?
By Jack Rotman, February 8, 2016 @ 6:09 pm

I’m not a fan of co-requisite structures, in general … nor am I a fan of most pre-calculus courses. To me, the first question is always “What is the mathematics needed?” (or, possibly “What is the best mathematics for this situation?”)
The long-standing work of the MAA suggests that we consider a very different experience prior to calculus. I think we are best served by moving in that direction, and consider innovations later (like co-requisites).

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