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Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

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Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#181

Post by at_a_remove »

dealuromanet wrote: post #143

If someone is blocking a child from learning more and moving faster than others because of “equity”…then some school districts need to start firing some bureaucrats. Take away teaching licenses if someone is unwilling to uphold an oath to do their best with each student even if it means some students are smarter and faster than others. You cannot escape reality. You will not stunt the brightest in the name of this fa…

I was told that it was written as a satire of what conservatives believed, mocking what they would believe about affirmative action. If this is true, it's even more bitterly ironic.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#182

Post by EgregiousCube »

bamfly wrote: post #81
altcognito wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, I'm OK paying taxes to get to live in a society with universally-available (mostly) fee-free primary and secondary education that aspires to some set of standards. I'm not OK paying taxes to help Bobby Baptist send his kids to Jesus Is Lord Day School. Or kick in to rich parents' budget for Phillips Exeter. If we must have vouchers, let people keep their own tax money that would have gone to schools and use tha…

It sounds like you're in a good spot where the taxes extracted from you go to support a value system that you are in favor of. Given that taxes aren't a choice, and given that value systems vary between people, can you envision a case where somebody with a different value system would be unhappy about where their taxes go?

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#183

Post by misja111 »

In case anybody has doubts about the accuracy of the author, I looked up some sources about this 'equity' policy in CA. It is real .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curric...

It reminds me of one practice in communist China under Mao; university students were forced to spend some time now and then working on the land, to let them feel that they were not any better than the farmers who lived there. But actually this is even worse.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#184

Post by markus_zhang »

declan_roberts wrote: post #131

This is one of the many reasons we decided to homeschool, despite having a pretty good experience with public education. It's like a super power to be able to tailor education for your own children. You know their strengths and weaknesses better than anybody.

Just curious, how can we homeschool if we are not teachers ourselves. I understand the Math that's for sure, but I don't have the confidence to serve as a good Math teacher. How do you proceed if you are in the same shoes?

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#185

Post by jdminhbg »

mcny wrote: post #77
jdminhbg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm for vouchers because I don't think I should have to pay with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading as public education.

> I'm for vouchers because I don't think I should have to pay with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading as public education. are you missing a NOT in there? as in `I'm NOT for vouchers because I don't think I should have to pay with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading as public education. `? because as it stands, your comment makes as much sense as saying > if you are not paying for the p…

> are you missing a NOT in there?

No, I'm not. A vision of equity advanced by kneecapping math education in public schools is no less faith-based than creationism taught in private schools. If anything, I'd guess creationism is less damaging to students.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#186

Post by [deleted] »

busterarm wrote: post #99
bamfly wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm OK paying taxes to get to live in a society with universally-available (mostly) fee-free primary and secondary education that aspires to some set of standards. I'm not OK paying taxes to help Bobby Baptist send his kids to Jesus Is Lord Day School. Or kick in to rich parents' budget for Phillips Exeter. If we must have vouchers, let people keep their own tax money that would have gone to schools and use tha…

But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day School is assimilating those kids into their society at large and Jesus Is Lord Day School still needs to meet the curriculum and testing standards that any other school in the state has to. And more often than not those private schools are _exceeding_ the standard of the public education system. I spent years in both public and private schools. The worst part of pu…

[deleted]

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#187

Post by HlessClaudesman »

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…

Escape hatch to where?

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#188

Post by nsxwolf »

KerrAvon wrote: post #176
nsxwolf wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm almost 50. I've watched this scam play out my entire life. We've gotta fix the public schools, they said, when I was in public school. They said it year after year, generation after generation. It's never happening.

We absolutely should allow vouchers to go to religious private schools and secular private schools alike. It's time to bleed the public schools dry and use their lots to build more housing.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#189

Post by candiodari »

squokko wrote: post #41
timerol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this joke is made, but better, in TFA. With an accompanying (non-original) graphic.

It's not a joke and there's nothing funny about it.

Exactly, this is the only way to make everyone equal. Equally bad.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#190

Post by tmpz22 »

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…

This is a really important discussion and as a non-parent who hasn't been through the process i'll reserve judgement. But I wonder:

Are there circumstances where the availability of vouchers results in a parent making a worse educational selection for their student? Would this leave educational marketing to lean towards populist institutions (like Kanye West's "schools" or Megachurch-derived schools)?

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