UC committee changes admission standard for data science, causing confusion over math framework

A high school student writes out the answer to a math problem on a whiteboard.

Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages

The UC faculty committee that oversees high school courses eligible for admission to the University of California has reversed itself and will disallow data science as a substitute for Algebra 2 as a course requirement.  

The committee, the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS, made the decision Friday but has not yet disclosed it to the public or to the State Board of Education, which is meeting Wednesday to consider a new K-12 mathematics framework that will include guidance on high school math.

The decision will have a significant impact on students’ plans for college and will leave the state board scrambling to amend the framework after three years of debate and multiple revisions.

Over the past two years, BOARS has approved courses in data science offered in hundreds of California high schools and taken by tens of thousands of students. They have less math content than Algebra 2, which usually students take after geometry and Algebra I. 

In petitions to the state board and dozens of comments, university professors in math and math-heavy majors have expressed opposition to equating data science courses to advanced math, arguing that they will leave students unprepared for majoring in science, technology, engineering and math in college. The academic senate of the California State University system has raised the same concerns and, in a resolution in March, expressed “the complete lack of control that the CSU has over the A-G high school requirements that are used for admission to our system.”

At issue is not whether data science should be offered as a third- or fourth-year high school course; the framework cites data science as vital to engaging students in math and encouraging especially those who aren’t interested in a STEM major in college, to continue taking quantitative courses, including statistics.

“Data drive students’ lives, whether they see it or not. Making sense of data, being able to identify data that are misleading, and using data to make decisions are all important skills for students in their roles as global citizens,” the framework says.

The challenge is that California had set no standards for data science, and some students may take data science courses under the assumption they will adequately prepare them for precalculus and eventually calculus in senior year or college.

BOARS made the decision Friday, hours after BOARS’ chair had sent a comment to the state board to meet a noon deadline for submitting comments on the proposed framework. Her comment requested word changes to the document. She asked for two deletions tying data science to advanced math in the framework chapter on high school. One referred to text for a diagram of pathways that implies that data science could be taken instead of Algebra II.  

Referring to the use of data science as advanced math, Barbara Knowlton, a psychology professor at UCLA and chair of BOARS, wrote that the practice is “problematic because Data Science is not well-defined; indeed, BOARS will be examining the content of Data Science courses going forward.” BOARS is made up of one representative from all nine of the UC campuses.

But, soon after that comment was sent, BOARS took further action. According to a Friday afternoon email from the director of admissions for the UC system, Han Mi Yoon-Wu, to admissions officers at UC campuses, BOARS “just voted to disallow ‘data science’ advanced courses to validate AlgI/II.” BOARS also will establish a math workgroup, Yoon-Wu relayed, “to convene this fall to address definitions of ‘advanced math’” and the rules for determining what courses qualify for advanced math.

EdSource obtained a copy of Yoon-Wu’s email. Yoon-Wu could not be reached to comment on the email and there was no comment from the UC president’s office. 

In another email obtained by EdSource, a BOARS member confirmed that the board had made the decisions. Knowlton has not responded to repeated requests on the committee’s actions.

On Monday, in a response to EdSource, the UC Office of the President reported the creation of a working group on math, known as Area C in the A-G requirements, with no deadline to report back. But the response did not mention that at the same meeting, BOARS also had voted to undo allowing data science as an advanced math course. 

To the contrary, it said, while the working group is studying the issue, nothing would differ for UC admission requirements, and there would be no impact on the upcoming class of applicants. “Thus, to reiterate, no changes were made to the mathematics admissions requirement, or to what the University deems to meet that requirement for undergraduate admission to the system at this time,” it said.

The contradiction creates a quandary for the state board, which was set to adopt the 900-page revised math framework on Wednesday. Asked for comment after being provided with Yoon-Wu’s email,  Brooks Allen, executive director of the state board, wrote in an email, “We are reviewing submitted public comments about the proposed math framework to understand concerns raised and to ensure that the framework is accurate and up to date. The letter from Barbara Knowlton of UC BOARS is among those public comments under review.

“We are also aware that BOARS may have taken action on Friday that impacts framework language. We have not yet received confirmation of the action from the UC,” he wrote. “As with other frameworks, the Board would consider amendments during deliberations on Wednesday to ensure framework language is correctly aligned with the UC system.”.   

UC did not respond to requests Tuesday to comment on the apparent contradictions between the action of the committee to reject data science as a replacement for Algebra II and its statement to EdSource on Monday.

UC issued another statement late Tuesday that reiterated the ongoing debate over data science and the creation of a working group. It did not mention the reported action by the BOARS committee to reject data science as a replacement for Algebra II.