Doing the Math: BOARS vs. UCOP

From EdSource: An influential committee of the UC Academic Senate weighed in again last month on the contentious issue of how much math high school students must take to qualify to attend a four-year California state university. It ruled that high school students taking an introductory data science course or AP Statistics cannot substitute it for Algebra II for admission to the University of California and California State University, starting in the fall of 2025. The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS reaffirmed its position by accepting the recommendations of a workgroup of math and statistics professors who examined the issue. That workgroup determined that none of these courses labeled as data science “even come close” to qualifying as a more advanced algebra course...

BOARS establishes policies on admissions, but a small office in the UC President’s Office, the High School Articulation Unit, vets tens of thousands of courses that developers and high school teachers submit for approval. Starting in 2014, the unit began authorizing AP statistics and new data science courses as “validating” or satisfying Algebra II or Integrated Math III content requirements. That meant they either built on the content standards that students had covered or would cover in the course...

UC academic committee meetings, including BOARS, are closed to the public. But minutes from the July 2023 meeting indicated that some faculty members were dismayed that the articulation office had validated so many data science courses without their knowledge. “At least one member repeatedly suggested that UCOP has misinterpreted/misapplied the advanced math standard for years — and absent correction, will continue to do so — and so review of all current courses potentially implicated is needed,” the minutes state...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2024/uc-confirms-data-science-cant-sub-for-algebra-ii-unresolved-what-can-it-qualify-for/707043.