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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

#521

Post by twofornone »

vkou wrote: post #407
TimPC wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the longest we can go without streaming and still meet reasonable targets? The people designing this curriculum seem to say they can't get rid of streaming without dramatically lowering the bar. This means an informed discussion needs to be had about the costs of lowering the bar against the costs of early streaming. I think people are rather strongly against lowering the bar to the point of effectively removi…

> The people designing this curriculum seem to say they can't get rid of streaming without dramatically lowering the bar. If over twelve years of math instruction you can't figure out how to teach the average child algebra, trigonometry, logarithms, and the very basics of calculus, I would advise the educators to look into why their peers in other countries are managing to accomplish these feats. But, of course, it's…

>If over twelve years of math instruction you can't figure out how to teach the average child algebra, trigonometry, logarithms, and the very basics of calculus, I would advise the educators to look into why their peers in other countries are managing to accomplish these feats

Their peers in other countries are working with culturally and genetically different populations. Intelligence is 70%+ heritable, you do the math, as taboo as it may be. Then add in the difference between a culture that prizes academic achievement versus one that is ambivalent or worse, prioritizes sports or music over education, and you have more than enough to explain the divergence between nations, as well as demographic groups in the US.

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

#522

Post by juve1996 »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #378
ryandrake wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - calculus if you want to do engineering > - discrete mathematics if you want to do CS I'd guess the vast majority of software development jobs are like "gluing one API layer to another" and "writing simple-to-complex CRUD apps". Neither calculus or discrete mathematics really helps if your goal is to simply make a computer read data from database X and display it in webform Y. I found all of the math required by m…

The majority of MDs are reading charts or diagnosing the flu or allergies or stitching up a wound, why should they understand biochemistry?

Exactly, why should they? Seems like a meaningless bar created for no practical reason, just like 90% of the other stuff everyone learns in school.

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

#523

Post by juve1996 »

pishpash wrote: post #463
ryandrake wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - calculus if you want to do engineering > - discrete mathematics if you want to do CS I'd guess the vast majority of software development jobs are like "gluing one API layer to another" and "writing simple-to-complex CRUD apps". Neither calculus or discrete mathematics really helps if your goal is to simply make a computer read data from database X and display it in webform Y. I found all of the math required by m…

We're talking about doing CS as a degree in college, not coding in a job. You don't even need to study CS to get a coding job. As an aside, those secretarial coding jobs will all go away within 50 years. They are only needed in the transition period where machines still depend on humans to talk to each other.

At that point education won't matter period.

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

#524

Post by dahfizz »

woojoo666 wrote: post #405
cortesoft wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn't cutting out high level math courses make even more kids underperform below what they are capable of? The cited issue was that higher level math courses were making other students feel like they weren't cut out for math. So it seems more like the issue is a mindset one. They shouldn't be looking at better performing kids and think "I can never do that". We should be instilling a better growth mindset to these…

It would be most equitable and inclusive for everyone to be equally destitute. Let's drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator...

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

#525

Post by ummonk »

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…

I certainly agree racism gets overemphasized as the sole cause of disparities compared to other factors like culture, economic status, and selective immigration (I don’t see how racism explains, for example, why the children of Nigerian immigrants outperform those of Mexican immigrants, or why Asians outperform whites).

But even conceding that racism is the dominant factor in performance differences, the framework proposed here is plain ridiculous. In essence, what they’re advocating is that because disadvantaged groups underperform in advanced math, advanced math should be scrapped altogether in public schools. The effect of this will be to handicap disadvantaged groups even further, as they’re less likely to attend private school or have access to private tutoring, and thus will be locked out of advanced math entirely while advantages groups continue to receive advanced math instruction in private schools.

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

#526

Post by crystoloxy »

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…

It’s honestly a fucking nightmare to live here, especially with kids. I’m a crazy “leftist” where I grew up but SF/CA is bonkers (e.g. re: [1] — are you fucking kidding me? Have you not met a single real fucking living human being? My family has a “curse” we ascribe to all the clumsy folks of our blood and I assure you there are more than can be reasonably blamed on chance).

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

#527

Post by ummonk »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #462
jollybean wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>and 'systematic racism exists' - which of course it does Systematic racism only exists today to positively discriminate against people belonging to so-called disadvantaged races, at the expense of those belonging to so-called privileged races. That's why White and Asian kids are discriminated against in college admissions.

Oh yeah? Then why am I stuck paying a higher property tax rate than my white neighbors who inherited their house from their parents that purchased during an era of segregation?

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

#528

Post by dahfizz »

cortesoft wrote: post #371
twofornone wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are right that this is a lot of nonsense. Specifically, 'you aren't good at math/math is hard' is the nonsense meme that gets hammered into student heads so frequently during school that most of them actually start to believe it. No, the nonsense is the idea that we are all cut out for math. That's the fundamental underpinning behind the "wokies" push for equity, a silent conflation of equality of opportunity wi…

Can't we agree that both extremes are wrong? While I agree that it is wrong to assume there is no such thing as innate human ability, and it is wrong to assume everyone can achieve equally, you seem to be arguing the opposite; that there is nothing that can be done to improve achievement for those who are struggling. This simply isn't true. There are things that can be done to improve the outcome for students, and we…

> There are things that can be done to improve the outcome for students, and we should continue to work to try to improve the success of all students.

How would you suggest we do this?

Without a dramatic reinvention of our education system, you have to fill a room with N students and 1 teacher. If you want that teacher to be maximally effective at "improving outcomes" - how do we do that?

The proposal here is to group the kids strictly by age. Every kid in grade X gets the same math class. This will inevitably lead to the math class being irrelevant to some portion of the class. Some kids will be so far behind the teacher may as well be speaking a foreign language, and some kids will be bored out of their mind because the material is moving too slow.

By being a little more intelligent in choosing our groups of N student, we can maximize the relevance of what the teacher is teaching and therefore better improve the success of all students.

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

#529

Post by WhyOhWhyQ »

junar wrote: post #499
WhyOhWhyQ wrote: post #453

I'd be interested in trying out the following idea: How about we don't mandate mathematics and science courses in high school, and especially in early college? The benefits of this are two-fold. The people who want to pursue other interests are freer to do so. And, more importantly to me as a mathematics graduate student, the people who are interested in math and science can go much much faster, and attain a higher l…

> As far as I can tell, most other countries with successful mathematics cultures operate more like this. Which country do you mean? As far as I'm aware, it's the opposite: countries like China and South Korea have math as a required subject on their college entrance exams for all students. The non-STEM students may have fewer requirements, but I'm fairly sure they've still learned more than the average American high…

I was really thinking about the lack of 1-2 years of general education classes before a major can be declared, at university, with that particular remark. I know this to be the case in several European countries, and India; in India you choose a specialization at the "11th-12th" grade level I believe. I did assume that to be the case in China, though it looks like Chinese universities may actually spend a lot of time on gen-ed classes. I'll have to ask my Chinese friends about their experience. I think you declare a major in the first year of university in South Korea, but I could be mistaken. If anybody wants to shed light on this by sharing when the major/specialization is declared in their country, please do.

I do know there are countries which allow specialization at the high school level (India, Italy, Romania I believe).

I found this interesting list, which is more complete than I can be on this. I don't think it proves that countries with great mathematical cultures always allow specialization in high school, but it does have some examples of this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secondary_education_sy...

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

#530

Post by juve1996 »

luca3v wrote: post #413
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…

I don't know if it's still there in the revision, but in chapter one of the earlier draft of the California framework it said, in a prominent place "we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents" Edit: in the new version it has been changed to "high-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated"

> "high-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated"

I mean, I would hope this is true.

I'm not "naturally" gifted at mathematics, but like reading, writing, and other things, I can learn them in school and got quite good at them.

Public education is like mass transit. Not everyone gets their own Lamborghini. Most have to take the bus. Its goal should be providing the best general education it can for all people and making as many people as possible productive.

If you looked at society 500 years ago you could assume that only certain people were smart enough to read and write.

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