California State University, Stanislaus

2/AS/17/SEC– Resolution Reaffirming Equal Access To Quantitative Literacy For All California Children Enrolled in High School

Be it Resolved: That the Academic Senate of CSU Stanislaus express its support for more comprehensive preparation in quantitative reasoning and mathematics for California high school students and its agreement that a fourth year of coursework in quantitative reasoning would make that preparation more likely; and be it further

Resolved: That the Academic Senate of CSU Stanislaus request that CSU Chancellor’s Office work in concert with the ASCSU and discipline faculty to monitor the impact of the proposed modification of entrance requirements to include a fourth year of quantitative reasoning coursework in high school. We ask that this effort specifically focus on the impact of said change on first generation, low income or historically marginalized students, and that all efforts be made to ensure that this change assist in eliminating the achievement gap in line with Chancellor White’s expressed goals for the CSU; and be it further

Resolved: That the Academic Senate of CSU Stanislaus request that the Chancellor’s Office and faculty of the CSU work with California’s K-12 systems to provide genuinely equal access to quantitative reasoning courses and instruction for all high school students, regardless of their race, class or neighborhood.

Rationale:

From the QRTF Report:

The Task Force proposes this general definition for quantitative reasoning:
The ability to reason quantitatively is a stable combination of skills and practices involving:
(i) the ability to read, comprehend, interpret, and communicate quantitative information in various contexts in a variety of formats;
(ii) the ability to reason with and make inferences from quantitative information in order to solve problems arising in personal, civic, and professional contexts;
(iii) the ability to use quantitative methods to assess the reasonableness of proposed solutions to quantitative problems; and
(iv) the ability to recognize the limits of quantitative methods.
Quantitative reasoning depends on the methods of computation, logic, mathematics,
and statistics. [p 9]

The report may be found at:

http://www.calstate.edu/AcadSen/Records/Reports/documents/QRTF.FinalReport.KSSF.pdf

The Academic Senate of the California State University, Stanislaus supports the right of all children to have equal access to an appropriate variety of quantitative reasoning/mathematics classes in all four years of high school. The Academic Senate of the California State University at Stanislaus also supports ASCSU resolution 3244-16-APEP, the recommendation for the CSU to require a fourth year of mathematics/quantitative reasoning as part of the high school experience of entering first-year students, if equal access to such quantitative reasoning/math classes is available for all California high school students.

The Quantitative Reasoning Task Force Report explicitly acknowledges that there is a wide disparity in resource levels and availability of courses across K-12 systems in California. Indeed, one of the Report’s recommendations is that the CSU establish a Center for the Improvement of Instruction in Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning to provide a locus point for our work with K-12, CCC and UC faculty. CSU prepares more than sixty percent of the K-12 teachers in California, and should be a primary stakeholder working with our K-12 colleagues to increase the effectiveness of instruction in mathematics and quantitative reasoning. The Task Force vision of the CSU Center working with K-12 and intersegmental colleagues to develop workable modules for inclusion / adaptation in a variety of high school courses is compelling and one we believe the CSU should instantiate. ``

Without the deliberate efforts on the part of California’s K-12 system to provide the necessary resources to all of its high schools, ASCSU resolution 3244-16-APEP actually expands the educational apartheid system beyond the K-12 and into the CSU system. Specifically, it remains difficult for first-generation, working/poverty-class, historically marginalized students to attend The People’s University because, according to the UCLA Civil Rights Project’s “E Pluribus … Separation” and “Segregating California’s Future,” California has one of the most segregated K-12 systems in the nation. The result is that black, brown, and poor students disproportionately attend schools that have the fewest financial resources with which to hire qualified faculty and provide the materials necessary for a robust educational curriculum. Thus, black, brown, and poor students become the least able to take the kinds of classes recommended in ASCSU resolution 3244-16 APEP. The effects of this are that the unequal opportunities and outcomes embedded in the K-12 system are then reproduced in the CSU system for our Black and Latino students, something antithetical to the purpose of the CSU.

This rationale is also well expressed in Orfield and Ee’s Segregating California’s Future: Inequality and Its Alternative 60 Years after Brown v. Board of Education. They argue that, “California schools now face severe segregation in a state with segregated communities and no significant state or federal policies pressing for integration of schools or housing. [This] study shows the results of a history of half measures, mostly abandoned, on an issue that is clearly directly related to educational opportunity in the state. In a state with excellent public universities, but with fiercely competitive admissions, where few of the gains of California’s abundance go to those without college degrees, a separate and unequal system of public schools is a fundamental threat to its future.” (26).

We reaffirm the importance of quantitative literacy and we reaffirm the right of all of California’s children to have equal access to quantitative literacy. Academic Senate of the California State University at Stanislaus affirms the CSU system’s role in working with California’s K-12 system to ensure that all students are afforded the same opportunities and access. We wish to ensure that the most marginalized amongst us are not left out.