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California needs real math education, not gimmicks

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Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#161

Post by bandrami »

WalterBright wrote: post #149
bandrami wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it weird the intensity with which people believe that teachers rather than students are the bottleneck here. If you want to add an incentive it makes much more sense to incent the students to do well.

An incentive for the teachers is better than no incentive. I recall a case at a company I worked for. They snagged a major contract with IBM, but it had a tight deadline. They hired a team of 6 or 7 greybeards to do the work. The fun thing was they each got a $10,000 bonus if delivered on time. They delivered it on time, got the $10 grand each (a lot of money in those days), IBM was happy, all good. So I asked them,…

Right but you give the incentive to the construction company, not to the food truck that feeds the workers. The teachers aren't the problem (to the extent there even is a problem, which is an embarrassingly unexamined question), the students are. So give them an incentive to stop being a problem.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#162

Post by davidgay »

WalterBright wrote: post #150
waterhouse wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to achieve that, for a teacher, would be to get all the good students into your class, and avoid having any bad students, or find reasons to kick them out. Do you have countermeasures for that?

Sure. Assign the students at random. Some years the teacher will get a better batch than other years, but it would all even out.

Don't forget to bus the kids randomly across town (county? state?), or else your suggestion is ineffective.

That has always been a very popular and well received idea (or maybe your should think a bit before blaming teachers).

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#163

Post by electriclove »

david38 wrote: post #40
bushbaba wrote: post #12

California k-12 public education has become a joke. Even the top rated schools are succeeding from students going to after school tutoring and not from the education in the public institution. It’s appalling how California cares more about homelessness, undocumented immigrants, and Medicare over education. Education is the single biggest factor to driving social mobility of the poor to middle class, and middle class…

This is false. My children went to top rated public school and my older daughter is about the graduate a year early from Berkeley in math.

Is their success due to their public school or due to their parent(s)?

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#164

Post by davidgay »

donw wrote: post #107
WalterBright wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The only thing that works is school choice.

Citation needed.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#165

Post by rockemsockem »

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…

That sequence was exactly what I had in northern Virginia in the early 2000s. If you think back, did your "math" teach approximately that same sequence?

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#166

Post by WalterBright »

defrost wrote: post #159
WalterBright wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFH is the fad. Work In Office and pay for performance has been around since the Dawn of Man.

It's only recently that more than 50% of humans even live in an urban area (the home base of offices). Most of human history has seen the bulk of humans living in rural areas within all manner of labor exchange schemes. "Modern Capitalism" was founded with "work from home" as a significant factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work Since the phrase 'piece work' first appears in writing around the year 1549, it…

I bet piece work was paid for the piece, i.e. results, not time in the seat.

I never wrote that all work was done in the office, sheesh. Besides, any organized labor project is going to need the labor on site. Piece work can only be done if no coordination or teamwork is needed.

> the master craftsmen of the guild system began to assign their apprentices work on pieces which could be performed at home

Sounds like speculation to me. Where are those apprentices going to get the tools? Is he just going to carry the anvil home with him? How about the forge? Even hand tools have historically been pretty costly items, up until just a few years ago.

> Did you not have any history classes in your early schooling?

Not much history is taught in public schools - not my fault. But I have a cite for you:

"Chapter 2 examines the material and religious foundations of capitalism that were laid down during the so-called Dark Ages."

  -- The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark, pg. xiv
Capitalism is a heluva lot older than 1549.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#167

Post by electriclove »

oceanghost wrote: post #137

I am just confronting this now. My daughter is 6, and I'm trying to teach her math and reading. She's excelling at reading. The thing about math is, I have to teach her math the way the standards specify. The problem is… The common core math is just strange. I find it confusing, and I did a full tour at an engineering college. Math is a “procedure”. That's why programs like MatLab/MathCad can solve equations-- they j…

Please look into Beast Academy (online without books) and work through it with your daughter. Read the comics to her and go through the exercises together as needed.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#168

Post by WalterBright »

davidgay wrote: post #162
WalterBright wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Assign the students at random. Some years the teacher will get a better batch than other years, but it would all even out.

Don't forget to bus the kids randomly across town (county? state?), or else your suggestion is ineffective. That has always been a very popular and well received idea (or maybe your should think a bit before blaming teachers).

Why would it be ineffective? Suppose you're a teacher at a school where the kids are all below grade level. Sounds like a much larger opportunity to get those bonuses than a school where all kids are above average.

> or maybe your should think a bit before blaming teachers

Teachers are only human, and humans respond to positive incentives. The current system has no incentives.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#169

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#170

Post by threatofrain »

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…

The CA and NY Common Core does follow that sequence even if the names don't match up exactly, and even if there's a sprinkling of geometry, statistics, or algebra mixed together in early math.
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