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'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

joannejacobs.com

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Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#231

Post by no1groyp »

pseudostem wrote: post #222
icelancer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich families are not the problem here. The public schools with the tyranny of low expectations are the issue.

I will have to disagree with both you and GP to a certain degree. A developed country is not where even the poor have cars, it's where even the rich use public transport - a quote attributed to many including LKY. Extrapolating this to the current argument (disclaimer: not read the article), if the same system is thrust onto the rich and poor alike, it should get better over a period of time, no? This is a complicate…

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Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#232

Post by ChainOfFools »

bendbro wrote: post #85
sp332 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that if it’s important to rich parents, they will grudgingly fund education for everyone. But as long as they have these outlets where they can just educate their own kids and leave everyone else behind, they will.

Some students need to be left behind

A callous way to put it, but it could also be stated that setting people up for modest success is a much kinder position than setting them up for exceptional failure.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#234

Post by jonhohle »

pseudostem wrote: post #222
icelancer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich families are not the problem here. The public schools with the tyranny of low expectations are the issue.

I will have to disagree with both you and GP to a certain degree. A developed country is not where even the poor have cars, it's where even the rich use public transport - a quote attributed to many including LKY. Extrapolating this to the current argument (disclaimer: not read the article), if the same system is thrust onto the rich and poor alike, it should get better over a period of time, no? This is a complicate…

That’s a very specific view of a mostly urban environment. Forcing an encumbered, Orwellian institution on a populace against their will does not seem very developed.

(I say that as a husband to a public school teacher, son of a public school teacher, and father of children attending public school.)

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#235

Post by TimTheTinker »

telotortium wrote: post #225
chii wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when resources are plentiful then those with the genes for height tower above those without. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Those who were short didn't fare worse in absolute terms. They only look worse off by comparison.

That's exactly analogous to SF not offering algebra (for the students without the means to take extracurricular classes, which are disproportionately Black and Hispanic) - none of them get algebra, so they're all worse off in math in the future. With algebra offered, Black and Hispanic students may be less successful on average at algebra than other groups, but at least Black and Hispanic students that can handle alg…

The gist of it is, there needs to be great opportunities offered without prejudice.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#236

Post by cleandreams »

One problem in San Francisco is that the private schools are truly expensive. One good high school, Urban, has a tuition of 55K year. That means it is hard to leave the public system even when it has these awful flaws.

San Francisco has never really gone whole hog in trying innovative programs with underachieving programs for minority youth. This trick of trying to drag down high performers to disguise the other failures is typical of the district.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#238

Post by brnaftr361 »

yellowcake0 wrote: post #216
brnaftr361 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define what you mean by abstract thinking skills? Everything else you've listed can be acquired as a dishwasher or a line cook. Anyways, the classes always seemed to me to tend more towards shut up and calculate than they did building a robust understanding and perhaps most important of it all: a mathematical intuition. I always found it profoundly stupid that there were never any essay questions in math, I e…

During graduate school I interacted with academics working in math education who felt similarly, that math should be taught through essay questions, e.g. "explain the concept of a limit", and the like. I've always felt it was a deeply misguided pedagogy and I hope it does not become popular. Solving well crafted exercises requires a deep understanding of the material, it's unnecessary to check understanding in some o…

Well for one it's prompting you to make a meaningful linguistic exercise of the matter, which is at once a creative task and secondly it enforces a more dynamic approach to whatever problem is presented.

I wonder if you could get a professor to do anything more than plug and chug, and that's a skill we've long ago delegated to glass. Not only do I want to explain these things in my mother tongue, I expect to know why some variable is in some such place, and how a cube of some other variable is related to the problem at hand. Calculation is banal.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#239

Post by jeffbee »

zone411 wrote: post #119
jeffbee wrote: post #36

It's interesting how path-dependency makes these things seem like controversial reforms, while nearby districts have always done it this way. In Berkeley, for example, there isn't any course called "Algebra I" or II. Through 8th grade there is just math, with no differentiation. Then for 9th grade you can test into an advanced track, and people take either Math 1/2/3 or Advanced Math 1/2/3. In senior year any of thes…

What's your source for "math outcomes are way better in every aspect"? Figuring this out is trickier than it seems. Not only do students vary in demographics, socio-economic factors, and English-learners, but there are also relatively way more children of professors at Berkeley schools than in SF.

The state test scores are broken down by all those factors (except for "child of professor" which I am not sure is really a difference, since there is a UC and a CSU and several other universities in SF) so you can make apples-to-apple comparisons for yourself.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#240

Post by jeffbee »

kfajdsl wrote: post #116
jeffbee wrote: post #36

It's interesting how path-dependency makes these things seem like controversial reforms, while nearby districts have always done it this way. In Berkeley, for example, there isn't any course called "Algebra I" or II. Through 8th grade there is just math, with no differentiation. Then for 9th grade you can test into an advanced track, and people take either Math 1/2/3 or Advanced Math 1/2/3. In senior year any of thes…

I took AP Calculus BC junior year and there were some sophomores in my class - is there no accelerated path?

I took Calc in my senior year but I took AP Chemistry as a sophomore. As far as my experience goes, you just ask.
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