Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level • Hacker News Board

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#191

Post by tyler_sf » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

jimt1234 wrote: post #171

jmathai wrote: post #17

As a California resident, I'm surprised there's no mention of % of ESL (english as a second language) students. There's a very large population of ESL students in California that drag down these statistics as the students catch up. If english isn't your primary language, learning math that is taught in english will also be more difficult.

This is BS. My good friend moved to California from Taiwan during high school. She struggled in all her classes (because she barely spoke english ("struggle" means she actually had to put in effort to get an "A")), but she excelled in math. She told me that she was an average student in Taiwan, but when she moved to the US, she suddenly became a math genius. She was in the highest level math class the school offered,…

Naxalt.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#192

Post by sfink » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

ackfoobar wrote: post #176

fatcat500 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macroscopic politics is a phenomenon in its own right. Something that should be studied like one would study chemistry or physics. No one person or party controls the course of events. I don't believe there is a grand conspiracy with shadowy bond-villainesque bad guys. It's simply that there is positive pressure in one direction (to have an easier-to-manage populace) and negative pressure in the other (to have a virt…

It is quite bond-villainesque if one tries to make the population easier to manage. I think it's simpler than that. It's memetics. Bad/wrong ideas infect brains, and propagate themselves by making believing those ideas fashionable. People then act according to the incentives. Some borrow the occult concept "egregore" describe the emergent behaviour.

I fail to see the difference between your arguments.

Making the population easier to manage doesn't need to be an explicit goal, it's an emergent outcome of many many different policies that target other things and are incentivized.

Making money from mass populations works better with more homogeneity of demand, and social media in particular provides a lot of effective levers to promote that homogeneity.

It is many people's jobs to influence memetics, and they're succeeding.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#193

Post by tstrimple » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

everforward wrote: post #91

WalterBright wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't. I've proposed before having a bonus to the teacher for every student that reaches grade level at the end of the year.

It's a workable idea, but needs more development. That system incentivizes working at schools where children are already likely to be at grade level, have supportive parents, etc. The best teachers will flock to schools that don't really need additional help. I'd propose to spin that and base it on deltas. Taking a student that was already achieving expectations and is still doing so earns $X. Taking a student that w…

> That system incentivizes working at schools where children are already likely to be at grade level, have supportive parents, etc. The best teachers will flock to schools that don't really need additional help.

I feel like that's a problem we already have today. Parents who are motivated to get their child a good education will move to places with good educational outcomes. These parents are already invested in how well their child is doing educationally, so they have better support structures at home which is likely the largest difference in educational attainment. So parents who care and can afford to move their students to schools where the majority of other parents are also invested in the education of their children so these schools will perform well regardless of actual teacher efficacy.

So good schools end up having a much higher percentage of good parents which is really what is making these good schools in the first place. If we really want to change education to improve outcomes we need to figure out either how to get parents to take some responsibility for their children or how to improve low outcome schools to the point where they are an adequate substitute for a poor parent.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#194

Post by triceratops » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

Scubabear68 wrote: post #101

cm2012 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and go to college. The principal at the time was kno…

I understand where this narrative comes from, but I think it is false. The reason I think that is Covid. With kids learning remote and going all digital, the facade was lifted from teaching. Parents can and did directly experience what our kids were going through. Our kids’ lowest standardized State scores were with teachers who were terrible. A science teacher who hated kids in general (really). A general teacher ne…

Maybe bad teachers can pull down performance way more than good teachers can raise it.

You'd need to compare the performances of kids with varying levels of help at home in classes with good teachers vs bad teachers.

My own experience in school was that I tuned out bad teachers completely. If the teacher was good, I engaged more with the material in class. But in all subjects I had my parents' considerable expertise to fill in any gaps. And I did well in every subject, regardless of teacher quality.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#195

Post by ackfoobar » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

sfink wrote: post #192

ackfoobar wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite bond-villainesque if one tries to make the population easier to manage. I think it's simpler than that. It's memetics. Bad/wrong ideas infect brains, and propagate themselves by making believing those ideas fashionable. People then act according to the incentives. Some borrow the occult concept "egregore" describe the emergent behaviour.

I fail to see the difference between your arguments. Making the population easier to manage doesn't need to be an explicit goal, it's an emergent outcome of many many different policies that target other things and are incentivized. Making money from mass populations works better with more homogeneity of demand, and social media in particular provides a lot of effective levers to promote that homogeneity. It is many…

Right. I meant I don't believe that is an explicit goal/conscious thought, for most of them. Sorry for not making myself clear.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#196

Post by sfink » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:54 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #85

WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools are heavily funded by property taxes. So schools in upper middle class and above areas are (usually) pretty great while schools and low income areas are (usually) pretty not great.

A blackboard and chalk do not need heavy funding. The classes I learned the most at in university consisted of a professor, a blackboard, and chalk.

And you're focusing on the funding requirements of the blackboard and chalk in that equation?

The funding (and quality!) of the professor seems more relevant, whether they're teaching on a blackboard, a fancy networked glowing screen, or just declaiming from atop a rock.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#197

Post by sfink » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

buescher wrote: post #55

WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools are heavily funded by property taxes. So schools in upper middle class and above areas are (usually) pretty great while schools and low income areas are (usually) pretty not great.

>Public schools are heavily funded by property taxes. Not in California.

My kids' California school relied heavily on "voluntary" donations, which depend heavily on the socioeconomics of the parent community.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#198

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

jmathai wrote: post #119

WalterBright wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If english isn't your primary language, learning math that is taught in english will also be more difficult. Having been in a German school for several months where I did not know German, the only subject I did well in was math. I'm not so sure your assertion is correct.

Surely you would have had an easier time if the teacher taught in German.

At the glacial pace classes move, there's plenty of time to learn einz, zwei, drei, vier, etc. Learning arithmetic doesn't require language fluency.

I've traveled in many countries where I didn't know a word of their language. It isn't hard to communicate with people for basic things. Besides, I often will spend a few minutes to learn the words for one...ten just so I can engage in commerce. It's not rocket science.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#199

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 8:01 PM UTC

Hermitian909 wrote: post #109

WalterBright wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't. I've proposed before having a bonus to the teacher for every student that reaches grade level at the end of the year.

The general idea you're getting at, incentivize teacher performance, rests on the underlying assumption that a "great teacher" can have an outsized impact on students outcomes in the one year they're teaching the student. Much of the US tried to find evidence of this in the 2000s and failed. Past the basic "does the teacher understand the material?" level, outcomes on a year-long basis are dominated by: - Home life (…

Monetary incentivization works quite well in the economy. The idea that it can't work with teachers is hard to believe.

I've paid for instruction for various things. You bet there's a big difference in ability to teach from person to person. The ones that are good get paid well because they are in demand. The ones who aren't good, well, they wind up trying another career.

Besides, if teachers don't matter, might as well hire a chimpanzee to run the class.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#200

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #189

peterfirefly wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classroom size does not actually matter much. Teachers unions love smaller classrooms, though... Your first item -- which is really many items -- does matter. Especially if we open about the fact that "socioeconomic background" is mainly a (poor) proxy for the students' IQ. We know this, because grades track the students' IQ better than their socioeconomic background or the IQ of their parents. "Does the teacher unde…

Classroom size matters a whole lot if you're expecting teachers to give special attention to struggling students to make up for parental deficiencies.

My proposal doesn't expect anything. It just gives a bonus if the kid reaches grade level. Leave it entirely up to the teacher as to how to achieve that, or not.

I bet the teachers will find a way. Greed is funny that way :-)