In recent years, there has been a surprisingly reasonable push in high schools to offer more statistics-oriented courses, both because statistics are useful in the modern world, and because the traditional algebra-calculus track, while utterly crucial for many STEM fields, can be a major stumbling block for graduation for kids who aren’t cut out to be STEM majors in college.

But as an unplanned outcome of the 2020 COVID–George Floyd turn against standardized testing for college admissions, colleges are now demanding that high schools emphasize Algebra II and dump Data Science. Faculty at Stanford, the University of California system, and the lower tier Cal State University system are all up in arms against stats-oriented high school classes.

There are a lot of kids out there who can’t pass a rigorous Algebra II class because they are just not that bright. But that shouldn’t be the end of the world, because the majority of jobs don’t require higher algebra. They’d be better off in a Data Science course, finally learning what “percent” and “per capita” mean, and maybe even mean, median, and standard deviation.

From Just Equations:

The Latest in the Inexplicable War on High School Data Science Courses

FEBRUARY 22, 2024
by Pamela Burdman

For more than a decade, California students have had the option of taking courses such as statistics and data science to meet their required third year or recommended fourth year of math for admission to California’s public universities.

This week, a faculty committee at the University of California took a radical step toward removing both of those options.

Much of the prior debate over these courses had centered on whether they could “validate,” or fill in for, high school Algebra II, a reasonable question that committee answered with a resounding no. This determination echoed earlier statements from the UC faculty on this question.

But the committee didn’t stop there. According to a report published just yesterday, the group also decided that at least some data science courses can no longer fulfill the recommended fourth year of math—even for students who have already taken Algebra II—and sent a clear signal that statistics courses are next on the chopping block.

It is dumbfounding, to say the least, that in the 21st century world of data-driven decision-making, following the very advent of public AI use, courses rich in highly relevant quantitative skills will no longer count as math courses for purposes of university admission.

The report provided no clear rationale for rejecting certain data science courses, beyond that they don’t incorporate topics such as exponential and logarithmic functions, polynomials and factoring, inverses of functions, trigonometry, and conic sections. Such a standard for fourth-year math courses would disqualify most high school statistics courses—even AP Statistics—not to mention other courses, such as computer science, that also meet the recommended fourth-year requirement. (Frankly, it would invalidate most college introductory statistics courses, also.)

In fact, the three popular data science courses the UC faculty targeted—all of them developed at California research universities—were initially approved because they met the criteria for statistics courses. Yet almost none of the topics the UC faculty were looking for in fourth-year topics is part of the standard high school statistics course, according to this chapter of the 2013 California Mathematics Framework. The group didn’t disqualify statistics for fourth-year math—yet. But Stage 2 of the process, which has already begun, will examine the qualifications for fourth-year math courses, and if the group sticks to the rationale used for data science, statistics and computer science courses won’t be able to survive. 

So, how to explicate the inexplicable?

Well, college professors are now frustrated by the quality of students getting in since their institutions banned mandatory SAT/ACT testing in 2020 (and the U. of California banned even the option of submitting test scores as part of the Racial Reckoning).

So, what is left to let colleges guesstimate the IQs of applicants?

Grades in tougher math courses like Algebra II and calculus.

Hence, faculties are demanding, and public school districts are complying, that everybody take Algebra II.

Here’s a better solution: Hey, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, go back to mandating standardized tests for your applicants.