{"id":54319,"date":"2025-11-15T09:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/54319\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T09:35:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:35:15","slug":"new-report-reveals-lag-in-math-preparedness-at-uc-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/54319\/","title":{"rendered":"New report reveals lag in math preparedness at UC San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5\/KUSI) \u2014\u00a0A\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) released on Monday\u00a0suggests\u00a0a five-year decline in academic preparedness from\u00a0first-year students, with\u00a0some incoming students having below middle-school math levels.<\/p>\n

Released by the UC San Diego Academic Senate,\u00a0the report of Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions (SAWG) details a decline in writing\/language skills but specifically in mathematics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of students whose math skills\u00a0fall\u00a0below middle-school level increased\u00a0nearly thirtyfold, reaching\u00a0roughly one\u00a0in eight members of the entering cohort,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

The university is\u00a0taking\u00a0steps\u00a0to address\u00a0this\u00a0report and meet\u00a0student needs. UCSD Executive Vice Chancellor Elizabeth H.\u00a0Simmons\u00a0and\u00a0San Diego Division Academic\u00a0Senate Chair Rebecca Jo Plant\u00a0shared a\u00a0statement to FOX 5\/KUSI News\u00a0regarding\u00a0the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need to bring\u00a0students\u00a0up to\u00a0speed has\u00a0placed our Math Department under extraordinary\u00a0strain,\u201d\u00a0Jo Plant and\u00a0Simmons\u00a0stated. \u201cThe department responded quickly, introducing and refining courses\u00a0covering high\u00a0school and even elementary and middle\u00a0school math topics\u00a0that had not previously been taught at UC\u00a0San Diego. Yet, high failure rates\u00a0in introductory courses\u00a0have left both professors\u00a0and\u00a0students\u00a0feeling demoralized.\u201d<\/p>\n

A growing trend<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a><\/p>\n

Students strolling through the UC San Diego campus. (Salvador Rivera\/Border Report)<\/p>\n

University leaders\u00a0attribute this decline to several factors, but specifically to the COVID-19 pandemic and its lasting\u00a0impacts<\/a>.\u00a0The report\u00a0also addresses the\u00a0elimination of\u00a0standardized testing,\u00a0grade\u00a0inflation\u00a0and the expansion of admissions.<\/p>\n

Throughout the pandemic, many\u00a0students\u00a0conducted remote classes\u00a0or hybrid models, leading to what the\u00a0SAWG\u00a0states\u00a0is\u00a0a \u201cwell documented\u201d decline in preparedness.\u00a0According to the\u00a0Department of Education\u00a0assessment<\/a>\u00a0(CAASPP), language\u00a0and math\u00a0levels\u00a0have not recovered\u00a0since\u00a0a decline in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the pandemic, and especially in the past few years, departments\u00a0with math-intensive majors\u00a0have faced a rise in the proportion of\u00a0students\u00a0entering UC\u00a0San Diego without the math\u00a0skills\u00a0necessary to\u00a0succeed in their desired majors,\u201d\u00a0Jo Plant and\u00a0Simmons\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

The SAWG believes the\u00a0University of California Board of Regents\u2019 elimination of\u00a0standardized testing\u00a0requirements\u00a0also\u00a0contributed to this decline. With no standardized testing to\u00a0evaluate,\u00a0heavier\u00a0emphasis was given to high school grades, including\u00a0inflated\u00a0grades.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0larger-scale events like the pandemic\u00a0impacted\u00a0students, the report also details San Diego specific reasons.\u00a0The university believes their math\u00a0preparedness\u00a0is worse than other UC schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe math preparation problem at UC\u00a0San Diego is\u00a0significantly worse than at other UC campuses, based on local testing and placement, on what has\u00a0been\u00a0shared about the experience at other campuses\u00a0through the\u00a0survey, and on public data,\u201d the report\u00a0states.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there are UC San Diego-specific aspects to our conundrum, this is a problem more widely shared across the UC system and the\u00a0nation as a whole,\u201d Simmons\u00a0and Jo Plant\u00a0added.<\/p>\n

According to the report, San Diego\u2019s undergraduate population increased more than any other UC over\u00a0the past 10 years.\u00a0The report also suggests the university is aware of schools inflating their grades, which they plan to address.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should\u00a0advise\u00a0those schools\u00a0that we\u00a0see evidence of grade inflation in their grading practices but also note if there is evidence of low-quality math instruction or the lack of availability of advanced math classes,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

\u201cCentral to the problem is that the grades on high school transcripts too often bear little relationship to a student\u2019s mastery of crucial skills: a student may have graduated with an A in\u00a0calculus, yet\u00a0lack the capacity to solve simple algebraic equations,\u201d Simmons\u00a0and Jo Plant added.<\/p>\n

UC San Diego\u2019s plan to address decline<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Geisel Library on the campus of UC San Diego.<\/p>\n

The report provides several recommendations for how academics can address the decline in preparedness. One proposal, the Math Index,\u00a0would move away from\u00a0emphasizing\u00a0overall GPA\u00a0and\u00a0focus on a math GPA for majors that require heavy math courses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main guide to admission is still the Holistic Review Score, but the Math Index is used to evaluate the fit between the student\u2019s chosen major and their math skills,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

SAWG believes more research is needed to evaluate language and English heavy studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new challenges posed by widespread use of artificial intelligence tools make this an important time to examine the state of our incoming students\u2019 literacy preparation,\u201d the report reads.<\/p>\n

The university also hopes to address cross-unit communications across departments.\u00a0Leadership\u00a0states\u00a0the university is still a well-respected and\u00a0exceptional\u00a0college.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a moment when so many of our public institutions are under exceptional budgetary pressures, it is critical to underscore that what we are accomplishing at UC San Diego is nothing less than extraordinary,\u201d Simmons\u00a0and Jo Plant said.\u00a0\u201cWe are a top-tier research institution AND a public university that serves as a powerful engine of social mobility. Both are and will remain central to UC San Diego\u2019s identity as faculty and administrators work together to solve this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (FOX 5\/KUSI) \u2014\u00a0A\u00a0report\u00a0from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) released on Monday\u00a0suggests\u00a0a five-year decline in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[34013,34012,30096,34015,74,76,75,34014,33433,14725],"class_list":["post-54319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-academic-senate-chair-rebecca-jo-plant","tag-jo-plant","tag-math","tag-report-states","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sawg","tag-standardized-testing","tag-ucsd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}