A growing consortium of University of California professors is urging the state university system to bring back standardized testing, warning that the elimination of admissions tests has degraded academic readiness and forced instructors to teach ‘middle school math’ to college undergraduates.
Concerns Over Academic Readiness
More than 1,400 UC faculty members have signed an open letter calling on leadership to reinstate the SAT and ACT mathematics requirements for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors. The massive pushback follows a dramatic multi-year decline in student proficiency after the university went completely ‘test-blind’ in 2021.
Karajean Hyde, Co-Director of the UC Irvine Math Project and a Lecturer of Education, told Fox News Digital that objective benchmarks are desperately needed to restore academic baselines. ‘I’d say we need some objective measures to go along with the whole picture,’ Hyde said. ‘A student’s not just a single number or a single letter, but standardized testing can play an important role in ensuring one level of measuring where that bar is so that the bar doesn’t move.’
Impact on Students and Instructors
The open letter, spearheaded primarily by STEM faculty, notes that instructors are witnessing preparation gaps so severe that they must dedicate finite university class time to remedial math instruction. Data cited from diagnostic testing across several campuses—including UC Berkeley and UC San Diego—revealed that a significant portion of incoming calculus students displayed severe foundational deficits.
Neetu Arnold, a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital that ‘grade inflation’ in high schools has left universities flying blind. ‘I think these professors are dealing with the consequences of relying too heavily on grades, especially when grade inflation has made GPAs less informative,’ Arnold said.
Arnold noted that the lack of standard metrics ultimately hurts both professors and students, resulting in a distinct loss of academic rigor across university classrooms. Because instructors are forced to slow down advanced lectures to catch up underprepared students, STEM courses have become increasingly polarized, leaving classrooms fractured between those ready for college-level work and those missing baseline skills.
Equitable Access to Education
Hyde emphasized that standardized tests can act as a tool to spot talent in underserved areas, referencing successful localized programs in Southern California that provide free SAT prep to dozens of middle and high schools. ‘Standardized tests – they can play a great role in ensuring more equitable access for students to reach that bar,’ Hyde noted, adding that foundational standards must be raised starting in kindergarten.
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
