All Students Should Have Access to Alternative Math Pathways

By Jacquelyn Lowe, recent graduate of Humboldt State University and a former Statway student at Pierce College in Los Angeles.
Republished from the Los Angeles Daily News

As someone whose college dreams were almost derailed by remedial math courses, I was thrilled to learn that the California State University system will no longer require intermediate algebra as a remedial pre-requisite for general education courses.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and throughout high school and college, I excelled in speech, debate, and all of my English classes. But math was my greatest obstacle.

When I enrolled at Pierce College, I didn’t pass the intermediate algebra placement test and learned I would have to take three semesters of remedial math before I could take a course that would transfer to CSU. After years of struggle, the idea of redoing high school math for a year and a half seemed like a deal breaker. I began telling myself I didn’t need a college education. After all, I grew up in a working-class family, already had a job in sales, and was raised by a single mother who made a living without a formal education.

That’s when my counselor told me about a program at Pierce called Statway. Developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Statway allowed me to bypass those three semesters and begin directly in college-level statistics, with remediation of necessary math skills built in… read more at the Los Angeles Daily News.