California Candidate: UC Professors Should Teach Basic Math Skills

California state superintendent candidate Richard Barrera stated that University of California professors should be responsible for teaching students who arrive on campus without foundational math skills, and rejected the idea of reinstating standardized testing requirements for the UC system.

Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education and a senior policy advisor to state superintendent Tony Thurmond, made the remarks during an interview with NBC Los Angeles. When asked about concerns raised by professors regarding students entering the UC system without basic math proficiency and whether the SAT should be reinstated as a requirement, Barrera responded, "Absolutely not." He added, "So math teachers at UCLA and Berkeley and every place else, part of your job that you get paid by the taxpayers to do is to teach our kids."

Barrera told Fox News Digital that concerns about UC students' inability to perform basic math are "completely overstated." He argued that some incoming students may simply need review in subjects they have not studied recently and that universities share responsibility for helping them catch up.

"What we're seeing is students who take a placement test, in the summer before they attend their freshman year at UC, who might miss questions on algebra, on trigonometry, maybe subjects that they haven't had in a couple of years. That's just about review and acceleration," Barrera said. "This is not about students who are incapable of doing the work. This is about students who need some review and acceleration, and it is the responsibility of UC to participate in that acceleration."

Sonja Shaw, Barrera's opponent in the race for state superintendent of public instruction and president of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board, criticized Barrera's stance. "Richard Barrera heard professors at Berkeley and UCLA sound the alarm that incoming students can’t do elementary-school math and his immediate response was to blame the professors. Not the students. Not the system that passed them along. The professors," Shaw said. "His brilliant solution? Force college faculty to teach remedial middle-school math on the taxpayer dime, and claim that bringing back the SAT is somehow ‘exclusionary.’ That’s not a plan. That’s a career politician scrambling to cover up a failure he helped create."

Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, suggested that Barrera's opposition to standardized testing serves to shield California's K-12 education system from accountability regarding students' readiness for college-level math.

"Richard Barrera’s answer tells you everything you need to know about who he works for. The California Teachers Association is bankrolling his campaign for state superintendent, and he is returning the favor by protecting the system from accountability," DeAngelis stated.

Barrera defended his position against restoring SAT or ACT requirements, citing historical discrimination against students of color and first-generation students by such exams. He argued that the focus should be on developing effective strategies for college math preparation, rather than relying on standardized tests that have historically excluded certain groups.

"It's not the elimination of the SAT, you know, that is what we need to look at," Barrera said. "The question that we all need to be asking ourselves is, what are the best strategies to get students prepared for college-level math? And simply having a placement exam like the SAT, which is historically discriminatory towards students of color, towards first-generation students — it's a tool that has historically excluded students."

This debate comes after more than 1,400 faculty members signed an open letter advocating for the restoration of SAT and ACT math requirements for STEM applicants. By August, over 3,000 faculty members had expressed concerns about academic preparedness.

California's Smarter Balanced assessment results for the 2024-25 academic year indicated that 30.49% of 11th graders met or exceeded the standard in mathematics, contrasting with 56.96% in English language arts. DeAngelis pointed to these results as evidence that the issue extends beyond students needing minor adjustments upon arriving at college.

"About 30 percent of California 11th graders meet math standards," he said. "That result is not a story about first-generation students who just need a little catch-up once they reach campus. That failure is a system that handed out diplomas without requiring mastery, then blamed the score for noticing."

The University of California Board of Regents' current policy prohibits the use of SAT and ACT scores in admissions reviews, although the system is formally reconsidering standardized testing. Shaw emphasized the need for K-12 education to ensure students master core subjects before college admission, arguing that lowering standards further would not resolve existing issues but merely obscure them.

"Students are not helped by being lied to about their skills," Shaw stated. "They’re helped by actually learning to read, write, and do math before they get to college. That requires high standards in K-12 enforced consistently and measured honestly. It does not mean turning UCLA and Berkeley into expensive elementary schools and then blaming the faculty for noticing the problem. Lowering the bar one more time will not fix a decade of failure. It will just hide it longer."