Letters: Dumbing down college
Re “Colleges to offer tool for success,†April 9
The California community college system’s student success score card is yet another salvo in the misguided campaign to equate educational success with course completion. Administrative reliance on such “key measures†as completion rates are actually counter-
productive, inducing many departments to improve completion rates by lowering standards for their students.
You might ask those who are advocating the use of these tools how they would feel about being operated on by a doctor or flown by a pilot who benefited from higher completion rates.
James Stein
Redondo Beach
The writer is a math professor at Cal State Long Beach.
ALSO:
A cure for the common opinion
Get thought-provoking perspectives with our weekly newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
