California needs real math education, not gimmicks • Hacker News Board

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#221

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 9:56 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #214

lordnacho wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 200 countries to examine. Should be plenty of ways to get data to analyse. For some reason it seems to be minimal how much comparison we get. Whether comparisons we do get end up being a kind of contest, like PISA.

So we assign each difference to national differences. Or language. Or some other part of the environment. If you could get say 50 countries to do a double blind experiment with two different teaching methods, you might make use of the scale. But even then you can only conclude something if all results have (more or less) the same effect size, and what do you win? Little. You can't even generalize over countries, sinc…

It isn't physics, but the bar is also lower. I agree there are issues with doing the comparison.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#222

Post by bushbaba » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:00 AM UTC

Solvency wrote: post #119

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…

"It’s appalling how California cares more about homelessness, undocumented immigrants, and Medicare over education." Can you explain what those subjects have to do with education and how one affects the other?

Tldr k-12 education budget is smaller than what taxpayers are paying for homelessness, undocumented immigrants, and expanded Medi-Cal. Cutting costs in these areas could significantly bolster our K-12 budget.

Homelessness programs take up significant budget. 636 million per year SF spends on homelessness, SFUSD’s budget is 1.28 billion. Cutting the homeless budget would allow for increased education spend.

Undocumented immigrants make up ~10% the state population and are in the lowest tax paying bucket. On average just 1304$/undocumented immigrant of yearly tax revenue. So they are taking more social services than what they bring in. If California was more active in deporting them or enforcing tax collection practices, we’d have greater educational dollars per legal resident.

Medi-Cal has 1/3rd the states population enrolled. This is significantly higher than many other states. This program takes up significant tax dollars. These tax dollars could instead be spent on public education.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#223

Post by tgv » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:03 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #221

tgv wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we assign each difference to national differences. Or language. Or some other part of the environment. If you could get say 50 countries to do a double blind experiment with two different teaching methods, you might make use of the scale. But even then you can only conclude something if all results have (more or less) the same effect size, and what do you win? Little. You can't even generalize over countries, sinc…

It isn't physics, but the bar is also lower. I agree there are issues with doing the comparison.

I wouldn't say the bar isn't lower. There are so many more variables than in physics, and you have so much less control over them, yet we don't really want less reliable conclusions.

If you want a physics metaphor: it's like dark matter: no idea what it is, where to begin, contradicting theories all around. But this is right under your nose. You've taken part in it, and if you work at uni, you still do.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#224

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:18 AM UTC

stevekemp wrote: post #215

twothamendment wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son struggled to read when he was young. Over the summer we set a goal and attached a payout to it. Yes, I bribed my son to read. The problem is now I can't get him to stop. Money talks.

We've got a six year old, just about to start school in a few months, and we've done the same thing. We started giving him a quarter of a lego minecraft set every time he read two pages of text - either in English or Finnish - then we had to move to a bunch of bricks every time he read a full chapter. The surge in his effort, and abilities, was almost frighteningly quick. (Here in Finland kids can go to daycare from…

I don't think you can parent without some level of bribing but note that research has been done suggesting that extrinsic motivation can negatively impact intrinsic motivation.

One personal anecdote of mine is a school friend who announced that he was never going to read a book again after finishing school (with good grades). For him, reading books was not a thing he loved, just a means to an end.

https://www.weareteachers.com/understanding-intrinsic-vs-ext...

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#225

Post by tremon » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #152

SoftTalker wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course there are limits on what can be achieved. But we won't know until we try. It's hard to be worse than the current system of no incentive whatsoever.

It's hard to be worse than the current system

This is hardly ever true, for any kind of system.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#226

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #174

WalterBright wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Performance reviews aren't always based on "objective goals" and it'd be bad if they were, because almost anyone outside of sales could game them. Typically it's a kind of stack ranking based on how you performed relative to peers, where relative means in the vague opinion of your management tree.

Even sales manipulates them -- giving away way too much to lock in a longer deal this quarter because it makes this quarter's numbers look better had been a problem at places I've worked.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#227

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:24 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #180

astrange wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance reviews aren't always based on "objective goals" and it'd be bad if they were, because almost anyone outside of sales could game them. Typically it's a kind of stack ranking based on how you performed relative to peers, where relative means in the vague opinion of your management tree.

Public teacher unions are adamantly against subjective reviews, which is why I suggested an objective mechanism. > in the vague opinion of your management tree I know it's popular to believe that management has no idea who the real performers are. But every office I've worked in, everyone knew who the good performers were and who the deadwood was. Including the managers. It's also true that every person I've talked t…

Let's apply this to bankers, too. They must give a checking account to anybody who shows up, and their pay can be based on how much money is in those checking accounts at the end of the fiscal year.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#228

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:25 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #148

donw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! No…

Companies fix it or they go out of business. I've seen them tweaking it.

You really need to see more of the actual economy, because this is embarrassingly naive.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#229

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:28 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #154

donw wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Cash incentives aren't going to make a difference. If they don't make a difference, then there won't be any payouts to make. It's a can't-lose proposal.

I’m generally supportive of finding ways to better use the talent of teachers and if paying incentives is part of that, great.

But this claim is pretty absurd. Imagine that payoffs (in a poorly designed system) are based on a random number generator. That won’t have any lasting, society-wide effect (I suspect you agree), but would result in some payouts.

Incentive design is the difficult nut here, but if cracked, there’s a lot of value to the next generations.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#230

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 10:28 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #152

SoftTalker wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course there are limits on what can be achieved. But we won't know until we try. It's hard to be worse than the current system of no incentive whatsoever.

Where did you get the idea that US public schools are in some kind of crisis? They're doing pretty well, like they always have, but people are remarkably willing to simply accept claims (often by parties with financial interests in making them) that they aren't.