The TechEd Podcast

The episode delivers concrete, substantive claims about remedial math placement rates (1 in 12 at UCSD), grade inflation dynamics (A-/A students failing calculus), and systemic admissions bias against high-performing schools. However, the guest repeats several core points across the interview (SAT reinstatement, K-12 failures, equity backfire), and host follow-ups often restate rather than probe deeper. The Santiago report examples are valuable but underexplored.

“one in 12 entering students was placed into a remedial math program to learn material taught in sometimes as early as middle school and in high school”

“about a quarter of students in that class got A's on their high school AP calculus”

The contrarian framing - that eliminating SAT requirements harms underrepresented students and that high-performing schools are systematically disadvantaged - is not entirely novel in 2024 discourse, though the specific UC system data and faculty coalition backing is newsworthy. The core tension between equity rhetoric and actual outcomes is well-articulated but builds on established critiques of grade inflation and holistic admissions bias that have circulated for years.

“this abolishment of SAT was done supposedly in the name of equity, but it was counterproductive in this respect”

“we are placing 1000s of students at the mercy of a coin flop, risking academic disaster and calling it equitable access”

Svetlana Jitomirskaya is a tenured mathematics professor at UC Berkeley with direct teaching experience in gateway calculus courses and graduate-level mathematics. She led a faculty coalition of 1,400+ STEM professors across UC and beyond, demonstrating institutional clout and credibility. She speaks from operational reality (her own classrooms, departmental data) rather than ideology, and her co-authored WSJ op-ed signals significant platform. This is a practitioner-researcher with real stakes.

“Svetlana Zertomiska of the University of California, Berkeley, where she serves as a professor of mathematics”

“we get support from everyone...53 department chairs”

Strong on concrete data: 1 in 12 UCSD remediation rate, ~1,000 Berkeley undergrads in remedial writing annually, 25% of remedial students with A/A- in AP Calculus, grade deflation from 60 to ~25 admissions from one elite high school, 35% acceptance from Mission High vs. only 7% proficient in state testing. However, some claims lack hard numbers (percentage of students misallocated, exact nature of admissions rubric weighting) and the Santiago report is referenced but not fully detailed in the transcript.

“one in 12 entering students was placed into a remedial math program”

“about 1000 undergraduates each year are placed into remedial writing program”

The host asks competent foundational questions and validates the guest's expertise, but rarely challenges or pushes back on claims. Follow-ups often restate the guest's points rather than probe gaps or test logic. The host does eventually ask about objections from Academic Senate leadership and employer impact, showing some directional improvement, but misses opportunities to press on causality (does SAT elimination alone explain the decline?) or to request concrete policy proposals beyond 'reinstate SAT.' The conversational energy is cordial but relatively soft.

“So you're saying that the good teachers have jobs that are AI proof”

“What would that look like? And, and then, you know, what are you hearing is the objections to that?”