A recent article in the Los Angeles Times says that UC faculty want to return to standardized tests because their students lack math skills.

I am sympathetic. Teaching students who lack skills is hard.

It is also the work of those of us who are called to teach, so that makes me a little less sympathetic.

And we should be concerned about more than their lack of math skills. Those are a symptom of something bigger.

If we are concerned about how well or poorly students are prepared for university studies, rather than making this about us, the faculty, we should be concerned about the students well before they arrive at the university.