The Intermountain Section

of

The Mathematical Association of America

Policy on

CONCURRENT (DUAL) ENROLLMENT

Approved March 5, 2005



The Intermountain Section of the Mathematical Association of America is concerned about the practice of dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment in mathematics and its potential detriment to students. We:

· Encourage high schools to participate in the ETS' Advanced Placement (AP) Program in mathematics instead of dual enrollment. The AP Program is a well established and highly regarded program that is universally accepted and whose standards are set and maintained by high school and college faculty across our country.

Thus we encourage high school students to take advanced high school mathematics courses such as AP Calculus and AP Statistics when they are juniors and seniors rather than taking dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment classes. Students thereby earn college or university credit by means of the AP Examinations.

· Encourage high school students not participating in AP Mathematics to use their high school mathematics experience to place by examination past and into appropriate college or university mathematics courses using existing college and university placement examinations. This ensures proper placement into college and university courses based on a student's knowledge of high school mathematics. Dual enrollment courses, on the other hand, have not proved to assure proper placement into college or university courses.

· Suggest that if a college or university mathematics department does decide to participate in a dual enrollment program, then it should make certain that the resulting courses are beneficial to students. Toward this end, a department should make certain that it retains the authority to determine and enforce its academic policies, including:

            1.  The academic qualifications of its faculty.

            2.  The review and evaluation of its faculty.

            3.  The entrance requirements for its courses.

            4.  The content and pacing of its courses.

            5.  The standards for the assignment of grades in its courses.

    Dual enrollment can be beneficial for students and feasible for college and university departments only if all of these conditions are met.