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California needs real math education, not gimmicks

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Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#101

Post by SoftTalker »

WalterBright wrote: post #82
another_story wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an increased distance between those doing the actual work and those making decisions about how it should be done. Bureaucratic depth keeps any real change from taking place, instead leaving those on the ground level to try and work within a set growing rules. Any attempt to affect change has to be filtered through so many levels and takes so long. As a longtime teacher, I don't think there are any soluti…

The one solution that will work (and is vehemently resisted) is to pay teachers a base salary plus a bonus for each student that meets grade level expectations at the end of the year.

I think that could work but you would need to give teachers more control over the discipline and syllabus in their classrooms.

If you can't maintain order and can't adapt your teaching to meet the needs of your students, there's limits to what can be achieved.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#102

Post by donw »

WalterBright wrote: post #94
ordersofmag wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer any evidence or reasoning as to why I should believe this? It would seem to assert that somehow student success/failure currently sits entirely in the hands of teachers: they know what is needed and could do it if only they were marginally more motivated. I'm not a teacher myself but have been involved in the system my entire life and this doesn't ring true at all. Even if it were possible it would almo…

It works everywhere in the private sector. Having a base salary plus incentive pay for meeting objective goals is commonplace. Companies wouldn't do that if it didn't work. In my own company, Zortech, the staff was paid a base rate plus a cut of the gross sales for the month. > it would almost certainly result in teachers focusing all of their efforts on the best students and none of it on those who are struggling Ac…

It... really doesn't.

Sales is a great example.

In companies where bonuses are based on, say, revenue booked per quarter, salesmen play all kinds of games to jack that number up as far as it can go, regardless of the collateral damage. Piss off the engineers by promising the impossible? Who cares, I closed that McScully deal. Sold a customer a product that won't actually solve their problem? Cha-ching, bonus time!

Now, when you figure out how to tie sales bonuses to positive outcomes... that's a different story. Then the incentives match the actual goals.

But that's really hard to do. Outcomes can take years to measure, if they are measurable at all.

Hence why you end up with all kinds of really screwed-up corporate behavior. It's not because people or corporations are evil -- they just take the shortest path to the win, even if that's not really the road you wanted them on.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#103

Post by Jap2-0 »

ochoseis wrote: post #53
superchroma wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers make very little money. Society has deemed them worth almost nothing despite the fact that they're pivotal in shaping minds; the future of america, and that they do very hard, frustrating work taking care of our spawn in a country where parents treat school like daycare instead of a place to learn. They wouldn't need a union to collectively bargain if they were taken care of properly. On the flipside, I ackn…

Teachers appear to earn an average of $79k in California[0], and are eligible for a pension[1] that probably boosts their earnings to the equivalent of a six-figure job. Also, they get summers and holidays off. Not silicon valley engineer money, but not bad. [0]: https://www.niche.com/blog/teacher-salaries-in-america/ [1]: https://www.calstrs.com/retirement-benefits

> Also, they get summers and holidays off.

Please don't perpetuate this. Any half decent teacher is going to spend summer looking at curriculum, block/lesson planning, in meetings, organizing their classroom, doing continuing education and training, etc. Sure, it's not as much work and it's more flexible during the summer, but it's by no means time off. Also, they work a lot more than 40 hrs/week during the school year. Also, they have a lot less flexibility about when they get time off. Also (in secondary/postsecondary), they have exams immediately prior to Christmas. (And yes, I bet you get Christmas off too.) And so on.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#105

Post by SoftTalker »

anonporridge wrote: post #43
mimikatz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more I get the feeling California doesn't care about the homelessness, undocumented immigrants, and Medicare. There are just a ton of grifters who make a lot of noise on the topics, but don't push for policies that would actually improve things. Or push for them in a way that is just more red tape that hinders actual results. Education is in the same bucket. Lots of noise from lots of people with bad ideas o…

The homelessness industrial complex is quite profitable.

Exactly why none of these problems ever get fixed. There's too much money in the status quo; if they actually fixed the problems a lot of people would have to find some other way to earn an income.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#106

Post by ecshafer »

another_story wrote: post #77
goolulusaurs wrote: post #25

In my younger years, particularly during my schooling, I held a deep resentment towards the educational system. It felt overtly clear to me, as a student, that schools failed to effectively foster learning and growth. However, my perspective has evolved over time. I've come to understand that the issues I observed are not unique to the school system but rather characteristic of large institutions as a whole. The perv…

There's also an increased distance between those doing the actual work and those making decisions about how it should be done. Bureaucratic depth keeps any real change from taking place, instead leaving those on the ground level to try and work within a set growing rules. Any attempt to affect change has to be filtered through so many levels and takes so long. As a longtime teacher, I don't think there are any soluti…

My solution to the education attitude issue in the us, which is very real: pay the families that perform best in school districts. Take the top grades on each years final tests and give the family money. The entire society will change overnight, as people will suddenly be asking kids why they aren’t studying.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#107

Post by donw »

WalterBright wrote: post #100
donw wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that would make a difference. Incentives are whack across the board in education. At every level, hiring and purchasing are done on the basis of political loyalty, rather than competence or fitness-for-purpose. An entire cathedral has been built upon patronage, and that cathedral will fight quite literally to the death rather than reform itself. We're just now approaching the end-stage of what that look…

Hence the vehement opposition to the idea, sadly.

Cash incentives aren't going to make a difference.

The only thing that works is school choice. If parents can choose the schools, the schools have to deliver results.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#108

Post by ramraj07 »

outlace wrote: post #44

I think we significantly overestimate how much school actually matters compared to family milieus. My wife and I highly value education, so regardless of when the school says children should learn algebra, I am already tutoring my 6 year old in basic algebra. If school did nothing other than be a daycare for my kids so we could work, they'd probably still be better educated than most kids going through public school…

You are correct that in our world currently and maybe even in the past, the kids never truly learned math in school. I studied in the top university in my Indian province with 50 million people, and most of my undergrad colleagues truly didn’t understand what differentiation and integration actually meant.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The kids are supposed to learn things in school, we just need to pull our heads out of our assess and acknowledge that almost all current learning systems suck and try to reset from the ground up.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#109

Post by SoftTalker »

jeffbee wrote: post #24

I feel like the facts are a little thin. It is not really true that "For decades, American math curriculum has followed a standard sequence: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, algebra II, precalculus and trigonometry, and calculus." That may have been the local condition in some places. The high school in my city does not have and has never had any named math course except calculus and statistics. Everything else is just…

My math curriculum in the 1970s/80s followed exactly that progression.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#110

Post by hakfoo »

WalterBright wrote: post #94
ordersofmag wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer any evidence or reasoning as to why I should believe this? It would seem to assert that somehow student success/failure currently sits entirely in the hands of teachers: they know what is needed and could do it if only they were marginally more motivated. I'm not a teacher myself but have been involved in the system my entire life and this doesn't ring true at all. Even if it were possible it would almo…

It works everywhere in the private sector. Having a base salary plus incentive pay for meeting objective goals is commonplace. Companies wouldn't do that if it didn't work. In my own company, Zortech, the staff was paid a base rate plus a cut of the gross sales for the month. > it would almost certainly result in teachers focusing all of their efforts on the best students and none of it on those who are struggling Ac…

I suspect the problem is how you can reasonably write a general spec for that which doesn't systematically doom some teachers, especially during the bootstrap phase (arguably quite a few years).

In an ideal world, our perfectly spherical students would enter the classroom "at grade level" and ready to proceed to the next level.

But what happens if you inherit a class of students that's barely above "remedial"-- starting one or two grades back on day 1-- what's the right metric for success? Getting all the way up to "at grade level" is probably unrealistic, but should we expect them to make up 1.25 grades per year, or 1.75? Or are we in a "we started back, and are going to beat them by going slower" mentality, and even getting 0.75 grade per year would be a win?

Conversely, if you're at a magnet school, you may be taking in students already a few grades above the norm on day one of class. There are kids who can absolute bury the needle on a standardized test-- "12th grade equivalent" at 5th or 6th grade. You could simply babysit them all year and still clear the bar.

I also expect there's a huge amount of dealing with Karen parents too-- I suspect an firm hand in holding back underachieving students could result in parental backlash. Too many parents would rather see the kid tossed out the moment he turns 18, even if they haven't gotten them career or independent-life ready.

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