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An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#71

Post by danans »

lr4444lr wrote: post #3

Efforts like this are well meaning, but only treat symptoms. The major impetus for watered down curricula is the very rational fear that large swaths of the student population will fail if expected to perform at the prior standards of rigor. Schools are not prepared to hold back massive numbers of kids, drop out proclivity for students held back rises, and teachers will be poorly evaluated by virtue of their students…

> The major impetus for watered down curricula is the very rational fear that large swaths of the student population will fail if expected to perform at the prior standards of rigor.

I don't think the previous standards of rigor were ever so high for most students.

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s in the suburban working class Midwest, the vast majority of the students in my high school didn't advance beyond algebra. This was in a well resourced school district.

But that was a time when it was felt that most people didn't even need to know anything past basic math to be employable. Times have changed of course, but the vast majority of educational paths, even STEM paths, don't require calculus.

However a great many do require basic data analysis abilities, so it's reasonable to emphasize those.

This shouldn't be done at the cost of offering calculus as an option for students who are prepared for and motivated to do it, though. Of course in the end this is about cost. Assuming the same resources, to teach a broader set of students data science will require reducing the availability teaching resources for something else.

I also recall that in the 1980s in some places there were programs that taught calculus at public community colleges for students who were on an accelerated academic path in high school. That is another option to consider.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#72

Post by dc-programmer »

nemo44x wrote: post #50
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are all the extra engineers going to come from? Unfortunately, maybe where they come from now? India, China, and other immigration.

I have to imagine these countries are going to begin limiting or restricting this type of emigration as a nation's people is its biggest asset. Brain draining the world without reciprocity is the greatest foreign policy we've had.

I have strong suspicions that certain countries are Astro-turfing movements on western social media to lure talent back.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#73

Post by burner556 »

legalcorrection wrote: post #65
daveslash wrote: post #10

Sorry for being out of the loop and asking a (possibly) dumb question: What is the stated reason that the CMF suggested these changes? Is it about budgets? Is it because some people might think these classes " aren't that important? ". The open letter seems to suggest that it's about closing gaps between privileged and less privileged - is that it? Honest question - I'm not trying to stir the pot.

Quoted post unavailable.

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Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#74

Post by [deleted] »

nafix wrote: post #61
cortesoft wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the gist of the argument is that when you split students into 'normal' and 'advanced' classes at a young age, the students who are not put into the advanced classes will believe they are just naturally not good at math and will give up on trying to get better because they will think they just "don't have a math brain". Here is a short blurb about the idea: > The framework would not forbid districts from acc…

Sounds like more woke nonsense. Sounds nice and easy to a layman from a super high level but not practical or put through any kind of rigorous rational thought.

[deleted]

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#75

Post by spicymaki »

The tension here is that educational achievement is a proxy measurement for IQ and in capitalist societies IQ is directly correlated with income. The cultural ideal here in the US is that hard work, effort, and grit is what is necessary for success. It is supposed to be purely egalitarian; you get what you give. However whether you are born with a high IQ is purely random, and even worse IQ is heritable. This is creating a technocracy which is at odds with the egalitarian ideal. This along with the expanding wealth gap is causing the schism you see today.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#76

Post by idoh »

2sk21 wrote: post #49
jl6 wrote: post #43

Which states are doing it right?

In New Jersey and Massachusetts at least, there is absolutely no move to water down the math curriculum in any way. On the contrary, the schools here compete on how many AP courses are offered.

Here's a comparison between MA and CA standards: https://twitter.com/BethKellySF/status/1518991575526699008?s...

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#77

Post by chadash »

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #51
chadash wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-K (4 year olds) seems a bit young for teaching multiplication tables.

In context I meant get really good at addition/subtraction starting pre K and then multiplication once +/- is mastered. Though empirically, I don't know about age 4 but kindergarten is definitely not too young for learning up to 12*12. And once you figure out multiplication and eventually mental division, it's not too big of a leap to have one variable algebra with "move a plus to the other side to become minus" etc.…

Out of curiosity, is that a hunch or are you aware of any schools teaching multiplication tables even in Kindergarten? This used to be done in second grade when I was a kid.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#78

Post by klodolph »

I don't live in CA and this isn't my circus, but I have some things to say about math education. From the statement:

> We write to emphasize that for students to be prepared for STEM and other quantitative majors in 4-year colleges, [...], learning the Algebra II curriculum [...] in high school is essential.

Problems with math are one of the most common reasons why students encounter difficulties in STEM education and careers. The most common problem is difficulty with high-school level algebra.

I agree, fundamentally, with the relevant premise of the CA effort here (and agree with Aaronson's criticism of its implementation). That premise is that you shouldn't have to be on an accelerated track in middle school in order to take calculus in high school. And yet... the fact is, we get a lot of adults in college or graduate school pursuing STEM degrees, who have shaky foundations in high-school algebra.

Just looking at the "typical" math track in US high schools it does seem a bit arbitrary. Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, Calculus--this is the most common math track I see, with accelerated students starting Geometry in 9th grade, Calculus in 12th grade.

The thing is... individual performance is highly variable in math classes, and to make sure that everyone gets good foundations in mathematics, we see high-school mathematics curricula that repeat the core algebra concepts in different classes. This repetition and focus on fundamentals is why the division between classes seems so arbitrary--what is presented as a sequence of classes is really more of a unified curriculum spread across multiple years. When you combine these two factors (variable performance, repetition in the curriculum), you end up with a population of high-school students who develop good foundations in algebra early on and are bored by the repetition, and a population of students who really benefit from the time spent mastering algebra, and it's hard to serve both.

I think we can figure out a way to let high-school students take AP calculus in 12th grade without expecting them to take Algebra I in 8th grade, and we don't need to push everyone into calculus faster in order to do it. And yet, my experience with high-school education in the US has left me very cynical about it. Letting students progress through the high-school math curriculum at the right rate requires a kind of "personal touch" that seems to only happen to individual students when their parents are involved, but not pushy. It's rare. The school system would rather do the easy thing (everybody moves in lockstep to the next class in the sequence), and parents are largely either uninvolved or overinvolved.

(This is more or less what the article says, I'm agreeing with the article.)

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#79

Post by alimov »

zozbot234 wrote: post #44
School-Cotton wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a natural consequence of the American myth/narrative that everyone is suited for academic high school and university. Other countries simply sort people into different schools much earlier, and spend the high school years teaching meaningful vocational skills to those not on the academic track, rather than wasting everyone's time.

Unfortunately, tracking is awful for the low-track students because guess what, no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers. So the students are trapped in that situation, being taught by terrible teachers who don't actually care for their educational achievement, and unable to improve. You see those outcomes across the board, including in the celebrated German system of academic vs. vocatio…

> “…no self-respecting teacher wants to be stuck teaching underperformers.”

If you look at people that are not academically inclined and call them under performers then maybe that’s part of the issue. I think everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and if someone is more inclined to do vocational training rather than the standard track I think their strengths and interests should be developed / encouraged. An educator teaching someone that is actually interested in what they are being taught sounds like a more rewarding experience than lecturing a class where maybe 5 of 40 (not an actual stat) students are actually engaged.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#80

Post by amanaplanacanal »

frostburg wrote: post #29
acchow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the very rational fear that large swaths of the student population will fail if expected to perform at the prior standards of rigor. Why is this a rational fear? It seems shocking to me that students can't perform at the same prior standards given their parents are more educated than the prior generation's parents.

Are the teachers as good?

Hard to know. The public perception of public employment as a whole has gone considerably down since about the Reagan era. The pay is mostly not very good, and states and the feds have much more power over things that were traditionally local.
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