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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

#381

Post by zmgsabst »

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #334
zmgsabst wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No — you should fact check that. Middle and high schools start auditioning and training students into “advanced” art, preparing them to go onto competitions and onto serious careers in programs differentiated from the casual art classes. Learning calculus won’t be enough as a professional in STEM either — but AP Calculus is the equivalent of audition-only advanced art classes. (Which exist all over.)

Do most public schools really have the capacity to train students for serious art careers? At least in dance and music, at the highest levels everything is purely student driven (school dance and music is typically not super competitive for the serious artist) and presumably visual art is as well. Unless you go to an arts high school, but there aren't that many of those

I went to two high schools, one very poor and one moderately wealthy.

Both had audition programs in art for “advanced” classes (both music and drawing), where students were matched with more serious training and where their bands went to competitions and drawings were entered in regional shows.

I think you’re confusing “good, on track for professional” with “absolute top tier” — many students from regular schools go on to, eg, be animators at a studio or choir directors.

The same split exists in math:

- advanced classes you have to place into exist at most schools, eg AP calculus

- but to be the “absolute top tier”, you’re talking about STEM schools and private mentoring programs

You need the first for engineers, scientists, etc — even if they’re not going to be Terry Tao.

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

#382

Post by micromacrofoot »

300bps wrote: post #188
idoh wrote: post #120

SF CA resident, parent of two school age children chiming in. The direction with math seems pretty dismal, in that as of right now, everyone is singly tracked together for math through freshman year of high school. This results in children who have higher aptitudes[1] to not be well served by schools. The majority of people I know who have the means opt out of the public school system, which probably makes the proble…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else

I'm not sure that would be worse than the current system where the richer American is smarter, better looking, and more physically able

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

#383

Post by fnordpiglet »

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…

I’d rather linear algebra and discrete math be the goal. Calculus is greatly overrated. I mean, sure you should take it, but IMO linear algebra is considerably more useful in the real world and most people never take it. Knowing how to integrate and differentiate in continuous space isn’t nearly as useful as learning how to count in discrete space. Most people operate in a discrete world.

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

#384

Post by drewwwwww »

jollybean wrote: post #279
klodolph wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that those beliefs are a workable explanation here. These proposals come from committees and groups of people, and it's just not realistic to write off the entire group of people behind these proposals as having some uniform set of beliefs like that, especially when they give other rationales for the proposals! The current school system makes decisions in middle school (8th grade and earlier) which dete…

There are no two people in the world with the same beliefs - nobody is suggesting that. There is however a very broad movement of people who believe that unequal outcomes are a manifestation of racism and so they act accordingly in their roles in government etc.. Many of these people are in the civil service and so this will influence their view. It would be 'insane' to ignore this movement, it's one of the most powe…

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

#385

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

The vision is equality. One way to achieve equality is to get better at doing something and improve the outcomes of what you are doing.

Another way is to lower the standard to make the outcome easier to attain. It’s gross and racist.

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

#386

Post by [deleted] »

russellbeattie wrote: post #291

Here's my experience as a parent of a 20yo who went through the MVLA school district in Mountain View. It's a warning to any parents of younger children: Unless something has changed radically in the past 8 years, your child will be put into a math track in 6th grade: Separated into standard, accelerated and advanced classes. Which track you're in is determined by grades, standardized tests and teacher input after 5t…

[deleted]

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

#387

Post by jollybean »

klodolph wrote: post #309
jollybean wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no two people in the world with the same beliefs - nobody is suggesting that. There is however a very broad movement of people who believe that unequal outcomes are a manifestation of racism and so they act accordingly in their roles in government etc.. Many of these people are in the civil service and so this will influence their view. It would be 'insane' to ignore this movement, it's one of the most powe…

You're saying it's one of the "most powerful social forces in the US right now"... is there any particular reasoning here? To be honest, it sounds like an extremist take on the nature vs nurture argument which has been playing out for millennia and I don't see a reason to believe that somehow the extreme version nurture side of the argument has become dominant here. If anything, it's easy to remember the pendulum swi…

Yes, it's been going on for a while.

Christians are fond if it: "You have an innate, direct relationship with God, in his eyes you are equal to the The King" etc..

But we've only had 'governance' in the broad sense for 100 years.

And we've never really tried to apply such principles into education until the 1960s.

Now we have actually made incredible progress on social issues, we have our 'wars' in Social Media with Holy Anti Racism Fanatics trying to do their best - because 'racism is bad' - which of course it is - and 'systematic racism exists' - which of course it does - but the 'kernel of truth' of these issues drives people into ideological fervour as though it's some giant overwhelming issue, when really it's not. Racism is still pernicious, but it's not fundamental.

And FYI don't think it's all rubbish.

For example - 'Math' is heavily based on prerequisites. If you 'fall back' in Grade 4, you may never be able to 'catch up'. While that's true in general, it's not as acute as in math.

Poor kids might be far more likely to 'fall of the bandwagon' and a lot of poverty might be due to systematic racism, and so the 'Hard Requirements' for certain things may not be ideal.

You could have 'summer school' or 'after school' or 'accelerated catch up' programs.

Those would be 'reasonable' solutions in my view - and FYI these are mostly issues of poverty, not race, they are couched as racial issues because that's what fires people up.

Edit: and yes, I agree 'most people in the civil service' are level-headed. Most people actually are. But some groups have outsized voices, amplified by 'allies' elsewhere.

The 'Anti Racism Agenda' is a 'fundamental pillar', like a religion, of 25% of the US population, and they are pretty active about it. And the actions of the most extreme 5% end up really upsetting other people. Much like a very powerful fool using made up constitutional manoeuvres to try to take over the government would upset a lot of people as well.

Good intentions, surely, but that doesn't make them right.

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

#388

Post by commandlinefan »

cortesoft wrote: post #373
commandlinefan wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we don't want to send the message that some kids are just bad at math But some kids are just bad at math. Some kids are bad at sports, music, dance, etc. Some kids are good at some things and kids are good at different things.

Yes, some kids are bad at math... but they could be better than they are. Let's use your example of sports, for example. Yes, no matter how much I train and practice running, I will never be as fast as Usain Bolt... but I sure will be faster than if I didn't practice at all.

Yes, that's correct. So you (and I) should be taking remedial running and Usain should be taking AP running.

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

#389

Post by rayiner »

deanCommie wrote: post #112
prepend wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like such a bonehead solution to the problem. Of course if you’re doing poorly in math scores, you can make math easier in the hope to increase scores. It’s sad that the state is proposing these changes. I remember in school there were kids who argued “algebra is stupid, who needs it, why waste time” and there were one or two sympathetic teachers who would respond “well, I rarely have to use algebra to balan…

The person quoted ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Boaler ) is a "Nomellini-Olivier Professor of Mathematics Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education" who "won the award for best PhD in education from the British Educational Research Association" I'm not saying I agree with the proposed California Framework. As a formerly gifted maths student, I hate it. But let's not dismiss the rigorous work of an a…

I believe this is a paper from her thesis work: http://math.coe.uga.edu/olive/EMAT6990Sp10/JRME1998-Jo_Boale...

It’s mainly a qualitative analysis that wouldn’t pass for rigorous in any real scientific or engineering field.

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

#390

Post by [deleted] »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #376

The worst thing about the CMF effort is that it would only deepen the disparities between rich and poor. Public education is often the only shot poor kids have to gain knowledge and skills that might propel them into STEM fields. Do we need to mail copies of Stand and Deliver to the entire California school board? Or am I the only one that recalls that movie... based on something that actually happened... in Californ…

[deleted]
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