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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

#271

Post by lizardking »

zer8k wrote: post #197
bigbacaloa wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private schools are mostly quite bad and worse than typical public schools. A few outliers distort the general picture.

Anecdotally, but the private schools in my large city are miles ahead of the public schools. The difference is so dramatic. I graduated from the same public school system. The children that went to private schools ended up in a far better place. Do you have any evidence private schooling is bad? This is the first time I've heard it's worse than public school.

The public schools in my city weren't even accredited when I graduated, as the students were not able to achieve the graduation rates and test scores required. This was despite the influx of billions of dollars to modernize the facilities, equipment, and lesson plans. Beyond that they were dangerous from middle school through the end of high school. Private school was really the only option for anybody who had the funds to escape the public school system.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#272

Post by eitally »

misja111 wrote: post #183

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 the…

fwiw, these are guidelines, not rules, and districts can themselves choose their curricula. I'm in the bay area, and even though SFUSD has removed algebra from middle school math and tried to remove calculus from high school, my kids' district still has an advanced math track that teaches algebra in 7th or 8th grade, allowing public school kids to reach Calc BC their senior year, and/or have an elective slot for other AP math options (Stats, etc).

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#273

Post by JohnMakin »

underlipton wrote: post #220
JohnMakin wrote: post #44

I don’t know why this author needs to use this issue as a political cudgel against “progressivism” - I don’t see anything particularly progressive about this policy vs the Dallas one he also mentions - the goals are exactly the same, to bring more equity to disadvantaged and minority students. Here is what Jo Boaler has to say on the issue: https://patch.com/california/across-ca/lets-move-past-acrimo... she claims th…

It's a common manifestation of the dissonance in American politics. TFA is advocating for a fundamentally progressive stance, but he's arguing against ostensible Boston lefties. What's unspoken is that the people making these decisions for public schools in Cambridge are elites who send their own kids to private schools, often prep; this is just another way to bleed a public institution so that they're not on the hoo…

I took AP calc in highschool and much later in life got placed in trig for college. I was greatly annoyed that the subsequent precalculus class was the exact same stuff I learned in trig, to the point where I asked the professor if I would learn anything new, and they said no.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#274

Post by currymj »

You can imagine the following perspective:

- Most people don't need to learn calculus at all, and it's fine if the few weird students who do start when they get to college (maybe the advanced students can learn single-variable calculus in high school).

- For pure signaling reasons, taking calculus in high school has become very important for college admissions.

- In order to take calculus in high school, you need to at least take algebra I (and hopefully geometry) in middle school. Wealthier parents understand they are playing the college admissions game early on, so they make sure in elementary school that their kids will be able to get on the algebra track in middle school.

- Getting on the algebra track is thus the first really consequential part of the college admissions game, it happens much earlier than the rest, and takes real scheming by parents to make sure their young kids are prepared. [actually true]

- If you could just make this impossible, it will even the playing field in a huge way and knock down one of the biggest hurdles in college admissions for people from lower-SES backgrounds. [also probably true]

- The only downside is that students will no longer have time to cover calculus in high school, which doesn't matter anyway because it's only a small number of unusual people who need to learn calculus (very advanced math!), and they can just learn it in college.

This is my best guess about the line of thinking that motivates these "no advanced math" policies. It has elements of truth to it which are worth paying attention to. The problem is just that actually, it's really useful and important to learn calculus in high school, and more people need this opportunity.

edit: I thought it was clear that I think a lot more high school students should be learning calculus as early as possible, and that "no advanced math" is a terrible policy, but I guess not...

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#275

Post by gnicholas »

gotoeleven wrote: post #32
gnicholas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get remote tutors to teach your kid skills, yes. However, if your goal is to have your kid advance to higher math classes, it isn't enough to just know the skills. Schools erect extreme barriers to advancement (Palo Alto USD has been successfully sued on this point [1]), so what students really need is to enroll in outside courses that are certified replacements in order to get credit. Finding out about which…

The article you linked is incredibly confusing. I assume the issue is, which is typical of any advanced courses in school districts where helicopter tiger moms live, that little billy didn't qualify for the advanced math course because he's not smart enough but mom knows he's actually a genius. The pressure to let in little billy builds and builds until the districts relent and fill the classes with buffoons and the…

The lawsuit was filed because (1) the district refused to allow students accelerated placement based on their prior outside coursework, and (2) used acceleration exams with a pass threshold that was comically too high (requiring students to know much more than was actually taught in the classes they sought to pass out of). These tests ended up having a wildly disparate impact on girls, who passed at a much lower rate than boys.

The district lost on (1) but not on (2) because it is illegal in CA to refuse placement for a student who has completed a course that would qualify for UC/CSU credit — which is what PAUSD was doing.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#276

Post by themitigating »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #258

This is why my kids are in private school now. The public school system here in NJ has been dumbing down its curriculum for years. And while I thought “social promotion” was only a thing in horrible inner city schools, we have it here out in the suburbs, too. The first six months was very rough as they caught up from being so far behind, but they are being well positioned to the rest of their school careers compared…

How do you know they are dumbing down the curriculum and how are you comparing your children's progress?

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#277

Post by alexb_ »

mr-wendel wrote: post #105
tapatio wrote: post #8

Just get rid of GPAs and grading altogether. If a kid wants to learn algebra, support them. Why does everything have to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator?

Additional food for thought from a educator's perspective: "I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a cop" https://www.experimental-history.com/p/i-wanted-to-be-a-teac...

>So if people need some extrinsic motivation to engage in my class, one of two things might be happening. Maybe they’re just not interested in what I have to offer. That’s fine! They should take a different class. More likely, though, the problem is me: I'm somehow subverting people’s natural curiosity. Maybe I’m doing that by inflicting evaluation on my students—rules! points! policies!—instead of just showing them what they came to see.

This paragraph shows the difference between college and other education. This applies to college because everyone there paid to learn. This does not apply to public schools, ESPECIALLY if it's in an area where the culture is bad for education. There are a ton of kids who absolutely do not care at all about anything you have to say if there are no consequences for being apathetic.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#278

Post by imagineerschool »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #136

Has anyone tried giving kids a vote in school-board elections? Teachers' unions are increasingly compromised. Electeds use kids as pawns to appeal to radicals to promote random social causes. And parents seem to focus on grades going up at the expense of an actual education. Maybe they'll just vote themselves candy. But in my experience, kids understand--at least as well as the median adult voter--what they need to s…

Granting student children rights would be a disaster for career administrators and bureaucrats, undermining the entire institution and all of its conceits.

If you want to see how well it works, look at the Sudbury Valley School model. (It works extremely well.)

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#279

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #108
jedberg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if you require all schools getting vouchers to accept all students. Otherwise you end up with all the special needs kids in the public schools that are required to take them and all the high performers in private schools. And even then you still have the problem of transportation. Only the more well off families have the time and means to get their kids to somewhere that isn't their closest home schoo…

> you're still going to get inequalities of outcomes There is inequality in aptitude with respect to education. Forcing equality of outcomes is a design for crushing cruelty. Some people having good schooling is better than nobody in the name of equity. Pursuit of this policy is undermining public support for state-run schools.

[deleted]

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#280

Post by zapataband1 »

downWidOutaFite wrote: post #191

This stuff seems so cartoonishly bad that I feel like I'm missing something. But I've been unable to find the progressive arguments. We need popular progressive bloggers to explain the other side.

I don't really think it is progressive, just dumb. The Dallas project the author defends as a better alternative is also in mostly democrat voting city
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