College Algebra Must Die!

Sadly, many people look at situations with such a strong bias, born of history, that obvious problems are hidden.  Such is the case with the American “college algebra” course.  College Algebra is a glacier which has trapped college mathematics faculty for decades, causing harm to students and society.

College Algebra must die!

In support of this assertion, let’s begin with the origins of “college algebra”.  Based on the research of Jeff Suzuki (see https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxqZWZmc3V6dWtpcHJvamVjdHxneDo2MWI5YWE4YzU2MDM1MmY3) our contemporary college algebra course is a descendant of the original ‘math for liberal arts’ course in the 19th century.  Certainly, the content has changed since the 19th century — we now cover factoring and graphing, which were not so much in the original.  However, the topics in a college algebra course indicate a ‘survey’ course orientation — not a focused preparation for success in mathematics.

This college algebra course was created before any standardized high school mathematics existed.  If we created such a course today, we would classify it is remedial — the content is primarily a subset of Common Core objectives.  Even if we live in a state or region not ‘implementing Common Core’, the local K-12 districts have an intended curriculum with similar objectives and goals.

Any effective preparation for calculus, coming from college algebra, is a coincidence of epic proportions.

Many of us combine a college algebra course with a trigonometry course as the prerequisite to calculus I.  Since this trig work — identities and memorization emphasized — is the most recent mathematics students experience before calculus, it is no wonder that our pre-calculus courses often harm the students they are supposed to help.  See the fascinating study by Sonnert & Sadler (https://www2.calstate.edu/csu-system/why-the-csu-matters/graduation-initiative-2025/academic-preparation/Documents/IJMEST-Sonnert-Sadler-Precalculus.pdf)

The other central reason for the assertion that “College Algebra Must Die” is based on the current best thoughts of both preparation for calculus as well as the improvements in calculus content.  Both of these sets of perspectives are based on long-term work of MAA and AMATYC, and have been articulated fairly consistently over the past 20 years.

Take a look at the MAA “Calculus Readiness” instrument (https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/maa-focus/maa-updates-its-test-for-calculus-readiness) and some research on the CR (https://math.la.asu.edu/~carlson/…/CCR-Carlson,%20Madison%20&%20West.pdf).  Our college algebra courses have little to do with these outcomes and goals, even we use the politically correct title of “pre-calculus”.

You might also want to look at the current MAA CUPM report on calculus (https://www.maa.org/programs/faculty-and-departments/curriculum-department-guidelines-recommendations/cupm/2015-cupm-curriculum-guide).  College Algebra is an antiquated non-preparation course for an out-of-date calculus sequence.

Many people and institutions (my own included) have worked hard to make a college algebra course a more reasonable general education course, which is ironic given the history of this course.  The result is usually a ‘modeling and functions’ course, clearly not rigorous.  Although these modeling and functions courses are very valuable, they are no longer college algebra courses.

We need to develop potential precalculus courses which have the content validity to justify an expectation that they will be effective preparation for calculus.  Much is known and understood of the basic design issues for such courses; before we can do this work, we need to escape from the College Algebra Glacier that we have been trapped within.

College Algebra Must Die!

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