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HS math teacher here. A lot of these problems existed prior to the pandemic. Parents making excuses for kids. Teachers making excuses for kids to keep parents and admin off their backs. Kids too reliant on calculators to develop "number-sense". Parents perpetuating the myth of the "math gene" they don't have because they failed at the "new math " of the 1970s, etc. The list goes on and on. The whole thing where ELA/Social Studies/History/etc. teachers are struggling with AI like ChatGPT? We went through that when Photomath and the like were released. The shortcuts you take in math WILL catch up with you.

That being said, maturity plays a HUGE part. A dedicated math student will struggle, but won't take shortcuts. They are better for it. The only thing that has changed is that shortcuts are much easier to take and are much more readily available. I cannot count how many shortcuts I took as a teenager, only to realize later that I F$#@! up long-term with my learning journey. Just look at any community college. Students that were "bad at math" suddenly have the realization that if they put in the effort, then the intellectual and/or GPA dividends will pay off in spades.

Are they sure it’s pandemic? And not just a new product of the good ‘ol American education system?

They're blaming the pandemic which caused lockdowns for a couple of years for college students struggling with fractions and exponents? This is math that is supposed to be learned before high school. I don't think the pandemic is to blame for this.

The pandemic made everything worse, but students struggled with math as long as I have been alive. As someone who loved science and math stuff outside school, but hated it with a passion in school, this text really put my thoughts into words as to why :

Lockhart's Lament: https://maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

TLDR: It is taught wrong.

Also an entire education system that does its best to be bad at making math interesting.

the pandemic was three years ago. If these people are getting into college now, they had to have learned that stuff prior to the pandemic

I struggled with certain math concepts that I should have learned in high school because my school district had low expectations and failed to prepare me for college math. I also was unprepared for grad school math because undergrad failed to prepare me cause it was so dumbed down. This has been a fundamental issue for a long time. All of this was over a decade ago.

Don't these colleges have any admissions standards? What's going on that they're admitting these idiots?

I kind of feel bad for thinking this way, but regardless of whose fault it is, if you don't understand fractions you should not be pursuing a STEM degree.

My kids learned these in 6th and 7th grade. But sure, it wasn't the classes 6-7 years before college, it was only the ones 2-3 years ago..

Math was a big issue for me, and all the colleges in CA were shutting down any math classes lower than college algebra. I barely made it into the beginning and intermediate algebra classes before they shut them down.

What they do now if funnel all the students who don't test into college algebra into "college math topics" which is an array of real-life mathematics that you'd come scross, like voting types and loans/interest rates. Which is a good thing to have as a class, but wouldn't have helped me get my degree in drafting.

It's a real good thing khan academy exsists.