Even top students show signs of decline in mathematics preparation A Johns Hopkins mathematics professor reports that the mathematical prowess of JHU freshman in his Calculus I class has declined dramatically since 1989. Click here to read report. ******************************** Remedial Math Courses for College Freshmen According to the report Diploma to Nowhere, a conservative analysis of the data on college students in 2004 showed that: - Forty-three percent (43%) of all students at public two-year institutions had enrolled in a remedial course.
- Twenty-nine percent (29%) of all students at public four-year institutions had enrolled in a remedial course.
The 2008 survey of remedial students found that: - Nearly four out of five remedial students had a high school grade point average of 3.0 or higher.
- More than half described themselves as good students who worked hard and nearly always completed high school assignments.
******************************* Nationwide, 63% of students taking remedial math do not earn degrees. -NJDOE Commission on Higher Education and Achieve, Inc. This adds up to a huge financial expense for families and lower graduation rates for students For more information, read: Notes on Remedial Math Problem by Professor Jerome Dancis of the University of Maryland. In college, remedial math is defined as arithmetic and Algebra I. Strong foundational skills must be established during the elementary years in math. Far too often, this is not occuring. | 
l comparisons show that U.S. students lag behind their international peers in mathematics achievement by as much as two years by the end of elementary school. This slower pace of instruction might be defensible (or even laudable) if our students achieved high levels of mastery in these elementary topics, but that is not the case. Even when international comparisions include only topics that are routinely covered in U.S. curricula, our students are consistently and markedly outperformed by their peers in many other countries.
State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)1 is based on hope that the outcome will improve mathematics and English-language education in our public schools. However, we fear that this initiative may actually make the situation worse; if the math standards that result from the 
