Sandy Banks: I only took three years of high school math, escaped with a 'D' and turned out OK

I've never managed to master much beyond the nuts and bolts of math. I was an honor student who could ace almost every subject, but ninth grade geometry tripped me up. I slipped through with a C, but needed three tries to pass trigonometry, with a D.

I couldn't understand the point of all that mathematical mumbo jumbo. And not once in the 40 years since I finished school have I ever been asked to factor a polynomial or calculate the cosine of anything.

Maybe that's why I'm not convinced that every California State University-bound student needs four years of high school math or quantitative reasoning courses just to be considered for