Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity • Hacker News Board

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#171

Post by madrox » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #133

brightball wrote: post #19

Stuff like this is why I will remain a proponent for true vouchers for the rest of my life. No parent should be stuck without options when educational governance goes sideways like this. Pull your kid. Find them a school that gives them the greatest opportunity to succeed and use the funds earmarked for their education to ensure they receive it. Currently, options are restricted to parents who can afford to move to a…

I understand why you would want the choice but I think history has already shown that vouchers don't work. You have to remember that the thing vouchers do is take money out of the school you are leaving. (A better approach would be for there to be a private school tax deduction alongside programs like 529). This leaves the students that are already behind fewer resources to catch up. We need school reform desperately…

So the answer is to take on a second job, spending several years fixing the system (and contending with people who don't agree with you) so that it will be fixed near the time my child has moved on? That isn't a real answer.

What will really happen is what happens today. Kids whose parents have options just get put in private schools and the problem gets ignored. The kids whose parents have no options get left behind.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#172

Post by orangepurple » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #26

brightball wrote: post #19

Stuff like this is why I will remain a proponent for true vouchers for the rest of my life. No parent should be stuck without options when educational governance goes sideways like this. Pull your kid. Find them a school that gives them the greatest opportunity to succeed and use the funds earmarked for their education to ensure they receive it. Currently, options are restricted to parents who can afford to move to a…

There's the theory that, by forcing the kids with the most engaged parents to go to schools with the kids of less engaged parents, the engaged parents will drive school districts to implement good educational policies. In reality, though, that doesn't seem to have worked. School board elections have very low turnout usually, and the people elected to them are disproportionately ideologues who treat engaged parents wi…

In this case it is abundantly clear that the school district gave up trying to fix underperformers and threw in the towel. Engaged parents are domestic terrorists: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/13/school-b...

The only option is do not help and do not engage. There is no point in expending effort trying to fix a system led by people that hate you.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#173

Post by TheBigSalad » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #75

Yeah, as best I can tell, this article is making stuff up. Referencing the article he cites and fails to link to, it's clear that no one is refusing to teach kids math. The headline and the rhetoric used in the article are misinformation at best if I assume the author is simply ignorant.

It's honestly nonsense. The way he frames the other side of this argument as "dumbing down" the education system in the name of racial equality. If this doesn't immediately set off your BS detector you need it tuned up.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#174

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #5

The Dallas experiment is interesting, and it’s not surprising at all that the students actually learned more than if they had been in less-advanced classes. The question I have is what the grades look like for the kids who were somewhat involuntarily included in the class. In junior high, grades don’t matter all that much, but come high school it could be worse to have lower grades in more challenging courses, depend…

[deleted]

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#175

Post by chongli » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #56

brightball wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a good case for vouchers. Instead, kids with engaged parents will flee to better schools. The other parents will either follow, growing the new school and model, or the other school will adapt in order to retain students. Engaged parents are your early adopters. Without vouchers, most people can’t even afford to enter the market.

One of the purposes of public education is also assimilating children into the shared values of society. In the US this has been forgotten despite guys like Jefferson talking about this exact thing. The free market can be good at optimizing for certain outcomes, but I don't think you're going to get a lot of buy in with the current political climate being what it is, and a lack of consensus around what kind of outcom…

assimilating children into the shared values of society

The US no longer has universal shared values, it has many different sets of values that are all competing for survival. Schools have become the front line in this battlefield.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#176

Post by KerrAvon » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #115

okeuro49 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and particularly this part > There's the theory that, by forcing the kids with the most engaged parents to go to schools with the kids of less engaged parents is really rough on the kids of engaged parents, forcing them to be responsible for "fixing" systems that they didn't create. In the UK, we used to have "grammar schools" that selected on ability based on a standardised test. They were responsible for m…

And if you could fix the system, it would have been fixed by now. If you have a kid today, you have 5-6 years to fix the system before it starts failing them. Your kid will be grown before any meaningful change is made, and any harms caused by the current system will be fully baked in. If you have money, you have an escape hatch right now. Vouchers make that escape hatch available to more people. Public education doe…

Actually, public education has to mean public schools. Vouchers are a band-aid invented by right-wing nutjobs to allow religious schools to be funded by public money; they do this by taking money away from secular public schools. If public schools are broken, we need to fix the public schools, not break them further.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#177

Post by stale2002 » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

cauch wrote: post #89

The author says > The idea that offering children fewer educational resources through the public school system will help the poor kids catch up with rich ones, or help the Black kids catch up with the White and Asian ones, is unsupported by any available evidence of which I am aware. I was wondering if some people are aware of studies supporting this strategy. I could try to dig them up, but I remember few studies de…

> the lectures are given at the NORMAL pace

Nobody has a problem with there being options for students to learn at their own pace.

The problem is not allowing people to take more advanced classes, if they so choose.

> nobody will pretend that this is "dumbying down" the students.

If you prevent students from taking more advanced classes, if those students choose it, then yes it would be dumbing down their education.

Just let them take the more advanced classes. Stop removing their options.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#178

Post by outworlder » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #83

mydriasis wrote: post #33

> Guess what? Children are educable. If you invest the resources of the state in poor kids and underrepresented minorities, they will learn. It is shocking to me that this has to be said. What in the world...

I mean... It's not entirely "true" Some kids are educatable. Some are not. (and this also depends on subject and other factors) That's true across all races, classes etc. I say this because I actually think the biggest issue in education is that we waste resources on kids who are not educable and hold back whole classes for the one kid who refuses. This, and 101 other issues stem from that policy. A big part of what…

> Some kids are educatable. Some are not.

Citation needed. Why wouldn't they be, unless there's a disability?

I have seen good teachers do wonders for 'problem' kids.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#179

Post by mfer » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #115

okeuro49 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and particularly this part > There's the theory that, by forcing the kids with the most engaged parents to go to schools with the kids of less engaged parents is really rough on the kids of engaged parents, forcing them to be responsible for "fixing" systems that they didn't create. In the UK, we used to have "grammar schools" that selected on ability based on a standardised test. They were responsible for m…

And if you could fix the system, it would have been fixed by now. If you have a kid today, you have 5-6 years to fix the system before it starts failing them. Your kid will be grown before any meaningful change is made, and any harms caused by the current system will be fully baked in. If you have money, you have an escape hatch right now. Vouchers make that escape hatch available to more people. Public education doe…

You need a decent school option within an acceptable travel distance. There are many who don't have a good choice like that.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#180

Post by pkulak » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #19

Stuff like this is why I will remain a proponent for true vouchers for the rest of my life. No parent should be stuck without options when educational governance goes sideways like this. Pull your kid. Find them a school that gives them the greatest opportunity to succeed and use the funds earmarked for their education to ensure they receive it. Currently, options are restricted to parents who can afford to move to a…

And now you've limited education to families that can drive their kids 20 miles one way, twice daily, during work hours. If American cities were known for amazing public transport, and changing schools only meant changing the subway stop, I'd agree with you.