> Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
What?! Who would seriously propose this?
> California
Oh.
Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
501–510 of 816 posts
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lengthen the school _year_ sure, but I'm skeptical that lengthening the school _day_ won't have, at best, mixed effects, especially given all the studies on sleep etc.
Start at 10am, go till 4pm?
Pretty sure that's a shorter day than when I was in school. Though, I wouldn't have complained about a 10am start time.
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#503You 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…
I like this effort to understand/summary of the other side in good faith (even though one can believe math education is important).
I think way of rationalizing it is that there are some parents that feel that orchestra, art exploration, debate, sports or at the collegiate level. After all, many students excel at these and could get into an Ivy league/Big 10 college based on their performance in these subjects. At one point a district may decide to offer collegiate level coursework to students.
Then funding dries up and cuts need to be made. Which courses should be kept and which should be cut and how should resources be allocated is a real question.
Perhaps competitive math courses or multivariate calculus should be considered an "after school extracurricular" similar to the many after school extracurricular sports programs and schools should just focus on providing basic "PE level equivalent" math.
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#504> 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...
It's not exactly like that. Average IQ is very different between races. That explains many discrepancies. And it also explains these policies that revolve around cutting down the tall poppies.
> Average IQ is very different between races
Wow, I thought we left this nonsense back in the 1960s. Study after study shows that every additional confounding factor you account for lessens this supposed difference. Nutrition, health, environment, socioeconomic status, cultural attitudes toward learning, implicit bias in the IQ tests themselves, blood lead levels, iodine levels; race is confounded with hundreds of variables. The more of those you hold constant, the less you see any difference in racial averages. I suspect people who still spout this nonsense know this, and/or don't care.
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> Citation needed. Why wouldn't they be, unless there's a disability? They come from a sub-culture (mostly based on social-economic status) that is aggressively anti-intellectualism. Being bullied, shunned, etc. for being able to do things like read, do “basic” math, and/or speak anything outside of the local vernacular (e.g., something like a more neutral sounding “TV English”) is a thing. This type of research is a…
So if a kid is being bullied for learning to read, the answer is to stop teaching them to read? Is that really your suggestion?
And by the way, the statement "Some kids are educatable. Some are not." also comes from a sub-culture that is aggressively anti-intellectual.
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#506Is there anyone out there who disagrees with this? I have not seen a single person (aside from the few people actually implementing these changes) that agrees with it.
I disagree. In general what you'll find is that most of these advanced classes are dominated by certain economic groups. Public funds are advancing people with more resources when all they actually need is to pass state college entrance exams. It's not that children from low income families can't do the math, it's that they're at a huge disadvantage when their parents are often working, can't hover over them to make…
So shouldn't the solution be to get kids from lower economic groups into those classes? Rather than stop teaching anyone?
The solution you're proposing takes away any chance of accessing these advanced classes for lower economic groups, and keeps the economic inequality moving.
What happens when the low income kids test out of the remedial class? Oh well, they're just done with school then?
> Every upper-class parent wants the best for their child
I'm not sure how to read into this. Why did you purposefully qualify this to only upper-class parents?
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
> with the goal of improving opportunity for all I'm chatting with some friends who are parents in the Bay Area. Their admittedly very Californian response is that at least this should reduce competition for college spots. (Their kids are obviously going to get tutoring.)
Not sure exactly what you're dancing around, but man, if some of those top schools in CA could reduce competition by, say, expanding admissions, that would be great.
[deleted]
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
No; the comment you replied to sounded like a suggestion, not a description of reality. In the US, it's common for schools to start at 8:00 or even 7:30. Recently there has been a push to start later to give kids more time to sleep. So pushing it back to say 8:30 or 9:00 (but not shortening the day, so basically everything just gets pushed back, and the kids stay up later, and need more time to sleep...).
My high school started somewhere around 7:22. I got up at 5:45 in high school. Just nuts. I get up for my joby job as an executive at 7:15.
In general in the US I think high schools start and finish earliest, then middle schools, then elementary schools.
The reason is purely practical- start times need to be staggered to allow schools to share buses, and having high school students get home first means they can look after their younger siblings until their parents get home from work.
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
> with the goal of improving opportunity for all I'm chatting with some friends who are parents in the Bay Area. Their admittedly very Californian response is that at least this should reduce competition for college spots. (Their kids are obviously going to get tutoring.)
Not sure exactly what you're dancing around, but man, if some of those top schools in CA could reduce competition by, say, expanding admissions, that would be great.
> Not sure exactly what you're dancing around
Poor Californians who can’t afford tutors will lack the skills to compete with other students. (If you’re graduating without calculus, you’ll have a tough time becoming an engineer or performing on a standardised test.) That reduces those with means’ competition, ceteris paribus.
Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
#510A common phrase of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is at work here. Those held to lower standards will fall to lower standards, deprived of the resources and support to achieve. The article attached provides a fantastic explanation. https://www.educationnext.org/teachers-should-replace-the-so...
From the article: > It does not matter if they grow up in foster care or a two-parent family. But it does! Very much. I just don't understand why the US tries everything other than fixing the most glaring cause. Lots of problems can be fixed by encouraging and aggrandizing stable two-parent families instead of getting schools and teachers to fill proxy parenting roles.
The children who *are* in a single-parent household do also need to be helped, and demanding that their parents "duh, get married, forehead" doesn't help the individuals that need that help. And there are a lot of single parents who will never want to have a significant other ever again for a multitude of entirely valid reasons.