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

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

#151

Post by mrguyorama »

wonnage wrote: post #96
frostburg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're avoiding dire outcomes for themselves while damaging society, however. A merely performative education is truly something awful.

I think the cause/effect is reversed. Society is damaged because parents cannot raise kids properly for a variety of reasons. You have kids who don't come to school, entire classrooms where 80% of the time is spent managing behavior, kids who receive zero parental support at home because the single parent is working two jobs, etc. That problem is hard to fix, whereas the curriculum is soft and malleable. You also hav…

>surrogate parents, social workers, mental health counselors, etc

And they're paid dick all on top of it

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

#152

Post by TaylorAlexander »

cwkoss wrote: post #128
kurthr wrote: post #27

From the original letter: While well-intentioned, we believe that many of the changes proposed by the CMF are deeply misguided and will disproportionately harm under-resourced students. Adopting them would result in a student population that is less prepared to succeed in STEM and other 4-year quantitative degrees in college. The CMF states that 'many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration beginning i…

Is calculus an important highschool goal? I feel like I may have benefited more if that time was spent on statistical literacy than calculus. I encounter stats very often in my adult life, calculus style problems are rare and I don't remember the formulas offhand, so end up just looking up what I need.

I'm certainly very happy that I learned calculus in high school. I then got a 5 on the AP calculus test and tested in to third quarter calculus in college. It was important as an engineer to understand those concepts. I don't use them too often and I forgot a lot of it, but I really enjoyed it and I think it would be unfortunate if other students did not have that opportunity. I agree stats would be great too!

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

#153

Post by tshaddox »

School-Cotton wrote: post #4
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…

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.

That doesn't explain what has changed within American public education, if it's true what the parent commenter said: "large swaths of the student population will fail if expected to perform at the prior standards of rigor"

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

#154

Post by bawolff »

kurthr wrote: post #140
taeric wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. Why is calculus a goal?

Because, without it you will be at a great disadvantage in entering any STEM undergraduate program in the US.

Maybe for most of them, however i found calculus totally useless for my CS degree (the only time i recall it mentioned was defining big-oh notation). Otoh i liked calculus so still time well spent.

Of course, that's not counting "mathamatical maturity" which is super important or if you're doing some specific thing that needs calculus (hello machine learning.)

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

#155

Post by klodolph »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #99
klodolph wrote: post #78

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 an…

Considering the fact that the vast majority of students aren't going to go onto 4 year STEM degrees, it doesn’t make sense to track all students towards that goal. I feel as though there is too much focus on giving everyone more or less the same type of mathematical education in high school. This is probably due to limited resources (ie teacher availability and class sizes), but ideally there would be room for a more…

> Considering the fact that the vast majority of students aren't going to go onto 4 year STEM degrees, it doesn’t make sense to track all students towards that goal.

It sounds like we agree 100% on that point.

I'm mostly thinking about the students who are going into STEM degrees later in life, who will (hopefully) come from varied backgrounds in high school and middle school. If you decide in high-school that you're interested in STEM, then it makes sense to develop solid foundations in algebra during high-school. Just like it doesn't make sense for all people to take math like a STEM major, it doesn't make sense to fast-track all future STEM majors to take calculus in high-school, and it doesn't make sense to make decisions in middle school that lock students out of high-school calculus.

The thing that confounds this is that people overvalue high-school calculus as the ticket to a STEM degree, when (like the article says) many people would be better served by developing stronger foundations in algebra. And public schools are generally not good at educating students at their own rate & level.

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

#156

Post by danans »

ckemere wrote: post #85
ckemere wrote: post #46

Text from the CMF: > "Since achieving a solid foundation in mathematics is more important for long-term success than rushing through courses with a superficial understanding, it would be desirable to consider how students who do not accelerate in eighth grade can reach higher level courses, potentially including Calculus, by twelfth grade. One possibility could involve reducing the repetition of content in high schoo…

Update - having re-read the first post about this, it seems that the issue of resources is exactly the problem. I think that opponents of the CMF would prefer to see More Resources put into careful, thorough elementary/middle school math so that middle schoolers would thrive in 8th grade Algebra. And in their view, the CMF simply lowers the bar, masking the need for more resources. I agree with that!

The lack of resources for public education, coupled with the every increasing level of competency that students are required to internalize over time drives many of the fights in education.

I can understand how an electrical engineering professor like yourself is rightly concerned about your incoming students having less calculus proficiency. On the other hand, there many (possibly far more numerous than EE) education and career paths that would benefit from better general numeracy but not necessary calculus.

The terrible thing here is that these goals should be set against one another due to resource limitations. The blame for that lies with the broader societal inequities and their reflection on the educational funding system.

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

#157

Post by zozbot234 »

wardedVibe wrote: post #95
texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #13

Ultimately the solution is better STEM foundation at the very very early ages. Universal pre school would probably be very useful. Empirically [edit: n = 1 or 2], it seems that drilling basic arithmetic and then multiplication tables early in pre K and earlier elementary will give students a better intuitive math foundation to do algebra very well. That would enable everyone to go into more advanced classes at the sa…

As a math PhD with dyscalcula, I'm very skeptical. I was nearly held back as a child because of poor arithmetic performance, and really only started to be above average when we started on algebra. Poor arithmetic isn't that uncommon among the mathematicians I know.

Did that dyscalculia prevent you from learning and attaining familiarity with the standard algorithms? That's the sensible goal of "drill and kill" in early grades, not doing routine arithmetic with high amounts of significant digits.

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

#158

Post by pishpash »

jeffbee wrote: post #142
cwkoss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is calculus an important highschool goal? I feel like I may have benefited more if that time was spent on statistical literacy than calculus. I encounter stats very often in my adult life, calculus style problems are rare and I don't remember the formulas offhand, so end up just looking up what I need.

I had calculus before college, got a 5 on the AP calculus exam, and it did not seem to have prepared me in any way for college-level calculus. I always thought that had been a total waste of one of my senior year class periods.

That's a totally different argument. I mean, did arithmetic "algebra" prepare you for abstract algebra or even linear algebra in college?

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

#159

Post by H8crilA »

kurthr wrote: post #27

From the original letter: While well-intentioned, we believe that many of the changes proposed by the CMF are deeply misguided and will disproportionately harm under-resourced students. Adopting them would result in a student population that is less prepared to succeed in STEM and other 4-year quantitative degrees in college. The CMF states that 'many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration beginning i…

What does "calculus" here mean? I'm not American, no idea what's included in that word and what's outside, in this context. Does it mean limits, derivatives, integration (Newton), maybe even some high level talk about ODEs for the "very best" schools? Anything more, anything less?

Also, in case anyone is also wondering, 8th grade means 13-14 years old.

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

#160

Post by School-Cotton »

sefrost wrote: post #12
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.

Which countries do that and which countries don't?

France does.
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