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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

#511

Post by thelock85 »

jollybean wrote: post #387
klodolph wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> Racism is still pernicious, but it's not fundamental.

How did you reach this conclusion in the face of 300+ years of verifiable, well-documented federal, state and local racist legislation and policies? If it’s pernicious now then it’s always been pernicious since generations have persevered irregardless of these policies… but that doesn’t make sense to me.

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

#512

Post by pyuser583 »

klodolph wrote: post #215
FFRefresh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt that the people crafting these proposals care. I think they truly believe they are doing the right thing. I personally think it's just increasingly popular, mistaken moral beliefs that inform these types of proposals. Some of the underlying beliefs: 1. Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability 2. Any observable differences between humans are merely the result of social factors 3. Any observable diff…

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…

I suggest reading: https://publica.org.au/marriage-beliefs-un/

It’s an account of how a very diverse group of scholars advising the United Nations ignored research contradicted their ideological views.

One of the scholars even admitted in private some of their recommendations were “wrong.”

The group was chosen for its expertise and diversity.

I’ve served on school boards. They’re heavily susceptible to group think.

Once the culture wars get involved, peoples minds turn off.

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

#513

Post by colinmhayes »

300bps wrote: post #465
micromacrofoot wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t bother you sometimes that some people starve while others hoard wealth that rivals the gdp of entire countries? I don’t want everyone to be the same, but unbridled disparity seems equally as bad to me… especially considering how arbitrary it can be.

It doesn’t bother you sometimes that some people starve while others hoard wealth that rivals the gdp of entire countries? People going hungry, especially children, is a travesty. What is your solution to it? We already have food stamps, welfare, fully subsidized healthcare, child tax credits, social security disability, free school breakfasts and lunches, Section 8 Housing, SNAP, WIC, CHIP, Medicaid, churches, chari…

> People are still hungry.

THe child tax credit cut child hunger by 26%. We let it end. Giving people food isn't an especially hard problem in the US, yet we're not able to do it.

https://www.thebalance.com/new-child-tax-credit-cut-hunger-s....

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

#514

Post by ascar »

WalterBright wrote: post #432
namelessoracle wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think that but there are work arounds. Yes pretty much every college requires "college algebra". But some schools have "college algebra for stem majors" vs "college algebra for non stem majors". Guess which one is easier, has lots of bonus credit and extra curricular stuff to earn extra credit. (You attended the college showing of "vagely related math movie?! Here's 10 points on your final!") And also grades on…

> pretty much every college requires "college algebra". Caltech didn't. In fact, they expect you to know calculus before entering. I didn't, and that nearly capsized my college career before it left the dock.

I could have put this comment nearly anywhere in this thread. As a German I'm really surprised by this. Calculus was part of regular math school education and just expected knowledge for the mandatory math classes during my CS undergraduate studies. I did graduate at one of the universities that do use the first years to weed out students though and dunno if less competitive ones are more lenient.

We also do split students as early as after the 4th year (end of elementary school) in three different school systems with about 50% of students attending the highest university track tier. The other two tiers might not have calculus or only in a limited form, but also don't qualify for university without further education. Thus setting students on different paths based on ability/performance early on seems very natural to me. Students always can up/downgrade schools based on performance at any year later on.

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

#515

Post by mbg721 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #513
300bps wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t bother you sometimes that some people starve while others hoard wealth that rivals the gdp of entire countries? People going hungry, especially children, is a travesty. What is your solution to it? We already have food stamps, welfare, fully subsidized healthcare, child tax credits, social security disability, free school breakfasts and lunches, Section 8 Housing, SNAP, WIC, CHIP, Medicaid, churches, chari…

> People are still hungry. THe child tax credit cut child hunger by 26%. We let it end. Giving people food isn't an especially hard problem in the US, yet we're not able to do it. https://www.thebalance.com/new-child-tax-credit-cut-hunger-s... .

Increasing the eligibility and amount of the credit is helpful, but doling it out in repeated checks that you then have to go back and report on your 1040 is annoying. How many news stories are run about people who depend on their annual tax refund for living expenses? Reducing that refund by paying the money out earlier and celebrating it as a free handout is awfully manipulative.

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

#516

Post by ummonk »

rayiner wrote: post #498
smugma wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that the proposals are bad, I don't blame "committees full of government employees". One of the lead proponents/authors is distinguished Stanford Professor Jo Boaler. It's interesting that a lot of the arguments made in favor of the changes are done in the name of equity, but Boaler herself has been put on the wrong side of racial equity, threatening to call the cops on a Black Berkeley CS professor. Th…

It's mind boggling to me that this Twitter fight gone wrong is a bigger deal to people than the lack of scientific rigor in Boaler's work.

No, the point is that the fight undermines Boaler’s use of the racism / equity card which she uses in response to critics of her work.

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

#517

Post by colinmhayes »

umvi wrote: post #250

Just my opinion but... is Calculus an important high school goal? I took AP Calc in high school, got a 4 on the exam. I did Electrical Engineering in college and took college level math through differential equations. And yet... a) I've never used calculus once in my STEM career, b) looking back I realize I never really understood calculus back when I was in high school and college. I came to that realization a decad…

> without really understanding how calculus works.

I think this is the key. No, calculus isn't incredibly applicable in day to day life. But understanding how it works builds critical thinking skills that absolutely are. Math should be about critical thinking, not memorizing. Common core seems to be moving us in the right direction.

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

#519

Post by dahfizz »

cortesoft wrote: post #363
nafix wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, sounds good to a layman in general terms (just how you explained it). But the actual implementation is half-baked, short-sighted, and favors a weak/easy solution rather than something more well thought out and complex.

Ok, so what would your approach be to address the issue of huge groups of kids underperforming what they are actually capable of? I feel too often the people who play the 'woke nonsense' card think that we should just allow the current failings to continue, and any work to help struggling groups is wrong.

> what would your approach be to address the issue of huge groups of kids underperforming what they are actually capable of?

Huh? Are you suggesting that removing upper level maths classes helps kids achieve their potential?

If the current system is untenable, then I would force all students to have one "tutor" period. Everyone has to take a tutor period, so the social stigmatization you're worried about it not a factor. This way, kids gets extra help in their "worst" subject (decided by some combination of grades / introspection/ parental involvement).

This way, the kids who need more help in math can get it, without pulling down the kids who belong in more advanced classes.

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

#520

Post by rayiner »

klodolph wrote: post #339
rayiner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is well-intentioned, what was the intention... to dumb down math in high school? Bingo. It's well intentioned, but the intentions aren't to ensure that America can keep up with a rising China. It's shocking to me that people in California aren't more worried about this. About 15 years ago, I was talking to an engineer at Juniper/Cisco. We were joking about how Huawei had copied one of their router designs dow…

In the 1960s, it was the USSR. In the 1980s it was Japan. Now it's China. I'm not trying to suggest that the US is fine and we shouldn't fix anything, but if you look at the world by comparing test scores and grade levels in mathematics, you're going to come to some very warped perceptions about what is important. I'm speaking as someone passionate about STEM education, who got a B.S. in mathematics. The whole situat…

> In the 1980s it was Japan.

We lost entire industries of good paying jobs in consumer electronics and appliances to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. It wasn’t the total eclipse people predicted—in part because our population control evangelists helped derail Japan’s development—but our shift to software and IP didn’t replace the kinds of jobs we lost.

Finance, insurance, social, and professional services will keep our GDP numbers afloat long past the point where the real economy has been surpassed. A better comparison is Britain. Once the real economy moves, most of the ancillary services do too. Banking and insurance keeps Britain going, but it’s actually kinda poor compared to America. (The US is to the UK as the UK is to Hungary or Poland.)

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