A longtime professor at the University of California, Berkeley has grown frustrated with her students' lack of college readiness and noted that many of the school's undergraduates struggle with fractions and other middle school-level mathematics.
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Instead of helping them understand the complexities of calculus, Zvezdelina Stankova of UC Berkeley often has to tutor her students on mathematical principles they should have learned years before enrolling in university.
"Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school," wrote Stankova in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard.
Educator Explains Students' Lack of College Readiness
Stankova, a Harvard alum, pins the blame on a loose admissions process. Standardized testing was phased out by UC Berkeley in 2020, removing SAT and ACT scores from admissions decisions.
Subsequently, Stankova said that the admissions process has become "less like careful evaluation and more like chance."
The Bulgaria-born professor cited a diagnostic exam administered to Calculus I students before 2020, which showed 71% of students tested were "ready or nearly ready" to study calculus.
Between 2021 and 2023, that figure plunged to just 44 percent.
Academic readiness has been an issue at the high school level, too.
Literacy Rates Are Trending Down in America
In Houston, a Texas teacher broke down after assessing his students' poor literacy skills.
Darius Williams, a teacher for Houston Independent School District's Wheatley High School, posted a now-viral social media post in which he was visibly distraught by his students' inability to read and write.
"I just finished a three-hour class, and I literally broke down in the middle of class," Williams started.
Williams said he gave his senior class two paragraphs to read and asked them to complete another sentence. Once Williams realized that the high school seniors couldn't complete the assessment, he was devastated.
"I basically completed the sentence for them, he said. "These are 17- and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn't fill in four words. Four words!" exclaimed Williams.
"This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write," Williams said.
In 2025, average reading scores for high school seniors — released by the Nation's Report Card — fell to their lowest level since 1992.
