An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by deanCommie » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:21 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #433

fn-mote wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this kind of shallow dismissal of a tenured Stanford professor's work based on their thesis unproductive. Engaging with their current, relevant work would be more appropriate. This is exactly what the GP is saying - many of us don't like the conclusions, but just blowing off a whole body of work in a sentence is pretty arrogant.

There’s tenured Stanford professors in many subjects, such as theology. I’m sure their work is impressive within the context of the field. But that doesn’t mean it’s rigorous or has real world application. PhD publications are supposed to be a serious contributions to the field. This particular work won a major award. Stop it with the accusations of “arrogance” and naked credentialism. Any of the millions of people w…

Arrogance is skimming a PhD thesis in a field wildly different from your own and deciding you are more competent in your ability to evaluate its "rigor" than the dozens or people in that field who evaluated it that had a different conclusion.

It's not an original arrogance - it's pretty common amongst the STEM educated to basically consider all humanities, philosophy, social sciences to be not "serious" fields.

Just because it's common, doesn't make it not arrogant.

Individual humans are not free body diagrams. And societies even more so.

The study of people and groups of people and the way to understand them, engage them, and influence them (which is what "education" is) is not going to be familiar to an aerospace engineer. That doesn't mean it isn't built on the work and research of thousands of people over centuries.

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

#552

Post by zaroth » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:21 AM UTC

pyuser583 wrote: post #512

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…

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. O…

It can also be straight up dangerous to try to express a countervailing opinion.

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

#553

Post by dymk » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:27 AM UTC

0000011111 wrote: post #357

dymk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the optics that will ensue - Our public schools seem intent on making sure that to ensure everybody is as achieved as everyone else, but rather than improving education for the bottom percentile, they'll simply remove the advanced stuff for the top percentile.

Fortuity there are free options for good online instruction available to everyone in the world with youtube access. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/ap-calculus-ab When we focus narrowly on what brick and mortar Public HS should and should not be teaching in regards to math curium we sideline all the pathways for learning available outside of this bureaucratic model. Folks in most places in the United States a least…

I don't think it's reasonable to expect some kid to sit through their algebra class, and then go home and take a self-directed calculus class at home. Certainly only the kids who are hyper-math-ers are going to do that in the first place, and we miss out on the kids who would have taken calc had it simply been offered.

Highschoolers fork over swaths of their day to the public education system already. Let's try to not waste any more of their time.

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

#554

Post by caddemon » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:28 AM UTC

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…

Most colleges I'm aware of these days have a completely softball core math/science requirement. "Rocks for jocks" and that kind of thing. Whether it's a waste of time or not, I don't think it really impedes the serious math learners.

I think you are right that we need more flexibility on the high school level though, at least for juniors/seniors that have safely passed the earlier requirements. I like that we have a chance to dabble in various subjects in college here before committing to something, but it would be a lot more efficient if some of that could be done in late high school.

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

#555

Post by caddemon » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:32 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #324

Dig1t wrote: post #316

It's kind of funny how both sides of the political aisle have extremists who find ways to argue that being dummer is better. They mirror each other in so many ways and sometimes the two extremes kind of wrap back around to the other side and have the same goals.

No, the two sides of this debate aren't mirroring their arguments. One side (Equitable Math) is engaged in a discussion of white supremacy in Californian math pedagogy. The other side (Moses Charikar, Scott Aaronson, et al) is arguing against a weakening of math standards.

I don't think he's talking about this debate, just that the Equitable Math extremists have some common ground with e.g. southern conservatives in how they view educational achievements.

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

#556

Post by caddemon » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:40 AM UTC

dymk wrote: post #553

0000011111 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortuity there are free options for good online instruction available to everyone in the world with youtube access. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/ap-calculus-ab When we focus narrowly on what brick and mortar Public HS should and should not be teaching in regards to math curium we sideline all the pathways for learning available outside of this bureaucratic model. Folks in most places in the United States a least…

I don't think it's reasonable to expect some kid to sit through their algebra class, and then go home and take a self-directed calculus class at home. Certainly only the kids who are hyper-math-ers are going to do that in the first place, and we miss out on the kids who would have taken calc had it simply been offered. Highschoolers fork over swaths of their day to the public education system already. Let's try to no…

Yeah this is a huge part of it. It's one thing to say "we don't have the resources for high achievers", but it's a million times worse to force them through a shit curriculum because we don't want to acknowledge our school system is largely glorified baby sitting.

Especially for kids from poorer backgrounds it is not easy to just sit on Khan Academy after school. If they can't teach leveled classes they should let kids test out of certain classes, and spend time in a semi-supervised study hall with those free resources instead.

But it's not about resources here, or at least that isn't the main argument they're giving. The mere existence of students that can test out of math is apparently detrimental to others. This seems like over the top sheltering to me.

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

#557

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:43 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #542

WalterBright wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the course description, although that wasn't necessary. The title gave the game away. It's like "Flight School for Artists". There's no such thing.

And yet people don’t feel the same way about “Calculus for Engineers” despite it also being a ridiculously dumbed down course full of rote memorization of formulas, “procedures,” and “strategies” with the bare minimum of hand-wavy theory. Compared to the courses for maths students it’s just as much pretending to learn calculus. dae STEM has got to be one of the most exhausting memes on the internet. Hell, I’m 3/4 of…

The theorems they prove in mathematician's calculus are useless for engineers, and they take time away from learning useful tricks for doing integrals, which if not that critical for a world with numerical methods, are crucial for solving problems on future tests.

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

#558

Post by zaroth » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:46 AM UTC

ummonk wrote: post #527

CryptoPunk wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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?

First of all, are we talking about “systematic” or “systemic” or “structural” racism. These terms are not interchangeable. Put that aside for a second…

I assume your example is talking about Prop 58. [1] Is Prop 58 racist? Of course not, the CA Constitution prohibits racist and sexist laws and the courts are very good at enforcing that prohibition.

Prop 58 means a lower property tax bill can be inherited by the children with the property. By your reasoning, isn’t allowing property inheritance at all racist?

To me this is a meaningless injection of “equity” into a discussion on equality. Racism is not a word that means “inequity” - as in - everyone not consuming, producing, contributing, and owning the exact same quanta. That of course is a bizarre fiction.

We are talking about a tax policy which generationally preserves a tax break. It had a meaningful basis in law and policy which does not discriminate based on race, but it certainly provides a significant tax benefit to generational land owners.

Now again, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the Federal estate tax lifetime exclusion amount, which provides orders of magnitudes greater tax benefits to preserving generational wealth, so Prop 58 is just a bit player in this scheme.

If the argument is that a tax policy which is advantageous to anyone with generational wealth is “systemically racist” then I think the argument has gone off the rails.

There are important justifiable public policy goals to ensuring a certainly level of generational wealth. There is no and never will be an important justifiable public policy goal of being “racist”.

If someone wants to argue for wealth confiscation, redistribution, and equity (e.g. some form of communism) then by all means give it a shot. But I don’t abide calling people racists if they disagree with that as a policy goal. If the argument is “merely” that there should be no tax benefit which preserves generational wealth, you actually immediately end up in exactly the same place.

The answer is of course more likely along the lines of “we do both”. We have policies that provide for protecting and maintaining a certainly level of generational wealth. And we also have policies which provide a massive welfare system for people without any generational wealth.

[1] - https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3706

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

#559

Post by steve76 » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:54 AM UTC

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#560

Post by msla » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 4:01 AM UTC

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…

Being able to integrate and differentiate is less important than understanding that P(B|A) does not, in general, equal P(A|B), and you can learn that latter fact without learning how a probability distribution is defined. Wikipedia has a proof of Bayes' Theorem without calculus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

Yes, it is ultimately founded on calculus. But we don't teach numbers to kindergarteners starting from Peano's axioms, and we don't need to gate the essentials of conditional probability behind calculus. In fact, doing so is positively harmful to society at large.