Dishonesty of School Dashboard findings shown by UCSD debacle

Re “UCSD report stunning, revealing” (Nov. 14), “Basic math a struggle for UCSD freshmen” (Nov. 15) and “California School Dashboard releases ratings for county” (Nov. 13): The first two articles tell the sad truth about the complete lack of math ability of many students at a prestigious university and the California School Dashboard story tells a different story. In the Dashboard story, more than 75% of county students scored above average or average in math. And in the college and career readiness categories, relatively few students were found to be unprepared.

I think there was something in the UCSD report that talked about grade inflation. Maybe we are living in Lake Wobegon, where everybody is above average, and not San Diego.

I can now feel a bit better about myself even though I had the highest failure rate trying to teach math at a local high school. I could not teach algebra to students who could not do basic arithmetic. I tried explaining that to our principal when she asked me why so many students were failing my class.

— Allen Stanko, Alpine