Escape from Higher Ed’s Bermuda Triangle
When Jabrielle Jones enrolled at rural Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon, in 2019, a placement test deemed her unready for college-level math. Jones, who has a learning disability, said she never really learned math at the small-town school in Florida where she grew up. Her special education teacher was so disengaged, Jones said, that class time was mostly study hall. “We were encouraged to sort of self-teach through workbooks,” she told me.
Clatsop put her into MTH 70 — Beginning Algebra — a “remedial” class two tiers below college-level math that would not earn her college credit. Though perhaps unsurprised, Jones was still disappointed. “I was like, ‘I’m going to be in math for years just to get to a 100-level class,’” she said. She considered dropping out.
