Article 2- Requiring Algebra II in High School Gains Momentum Nationwide

Click here to read the article from The Washington Post's Business section.

Your assignment: 

Work with a partner to answer the following questions.  You can write them on a sheet of paper and turn them in to Mr. Taormina, or you can email them to james.taormina@mnps.org or erin.gentry@mnps.org.

Discussion Questions for "Requiring Algebra II in high school gains momentum nationwide":

1. Define: imaginary number, Algebra II, economic strength, Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, rigorous, tier, asymptote, prerequisite

2. “There was a fair amount of judgment that went into this.” Why was researchers’ judgment part of the study? How can you tell if their judgment was good?

3. Do most students take Algebra II, according to the article?

4. Is the purpose of students’ education for their own benefit, or for the benefit of the country and its economy?

5. Should we require kids to take a course because it leads to more college graduates?

6. What is correlation? If A causes B, why will A and B be correlated? If A does not cause B, why might A and B be correlated anyway?

7. How would you try to control an experiment to determine whether Algebra II was causing success, or whether some other factor was causing both?

8. What is the purpose of graduation requirements--why don’t high schools and colleges just offer classes and let kids choose?

9. Suppose that somebody failed to complete high school because of the Algebra II requirement, and applied to work at the Kimberly-Clark plant. How would that company likely respond? Does the company care about Algebra II?

10. What kinds of businesses, if any, would benefit from an Algebra II requirement?

11. What kind of thinking does mathematics encourage? What about algebra? Do you think ability to think this way will help you in life?

12. Look at this question set again. Where do you see letters used similarly to how they are used in algebra? Did you understand this use? How can such understanding help you?