Math course aims to make high-schoolers more college-ready | Education - vtdigger.org

Educators from the Vermont Student Assistance Corp., Vermont State Colleges and the Agency of Education, jointly developing the course, want to help students avoid remedial math in college, as vtdigger.org reports.
 

Students who graduate from high school often are not ready for college level math courses.
Photo: Cate Chant/VTDigger

For high school graduates making their way through college, math is a perennial roadblock. Students who didn’t take higher-level math courses in high school are less likely to go to college – but even for those who enroll, far too many need a remedial course in the subject.

So the Vermont State Colleges, the Vermont Student Assistance Corp., and the state Agency of Education have pitched a joint plan: a specialized math course, offered to high school seniors, that will ensure college-readiness upon successful completion...

Students who successfully complete the course and pass its assessment will be automatically qualified to take math courses within the Vermont State Colleges System without needing to take a remedial course. The project, which is underwritten by a federal GEAR UP grant, will also measure how often students who complete the new course also do well in their first-year math courses once they get to college.

Vermont isn’t the only state taking notice and retooling math remediation with a specialized course. And teachers at work on the project used an open-source math curriculum developed by the Southern Regional Education Board as a springboard for their work, according to Yasmine Ziesler, the chief academic officer for the Vermont State Colleges System.
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Source: vtdigger.org