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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

#541

Post by TheCoelacanth »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #412
snowwrestler wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have the historical or cultural context to be commenting on race relations and policy in the U.S. Sorry; it’s not personal. Few Europeans do unless they have lived here for a long time (and even then I see many struggle with the topics).

Conversely, many European countries have a history that includes slavery and an arguably better track record of successful abolition and reconciliation. Maybe there's something the US can learn.

European countries' history with slavery largely consists of having it in far off colonies and then cutting those colonies loose. The US doesn't have the luxury of making a clean break.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#542

Post by gerad »

jdale27 wrote: post #451
cobbaut wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European here, I went to school from 8:20 till 16:05. You guys really have school starting at 10:00? Who takes care of the kids after parents go to work and before school starts?

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...).

Yeah school starts between 7 and 9am, but we still have the problem on the other side in the US, schools end between 1:30 and 4pm (at least here in CA). Figuring out after care is an exercise left to the reader.

It’s completely ridiculous, especially considering how sane many (most?) countries in the rest of the world have it.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#543

Post by yardie »

pwthornton wrote: post #310
currymj wrote: post #274

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…

There is a way to have time to cover Calculus in high school while still taking it slower: Block scheduling. My high school shifted to it. It's like a college day where you have four longer classes instead of eight shorter ones. Courses are semester-long, not year-long. This means you can take two math classes in one year (algebra in the fall and geometry in the spring). This also enabled my high school to offer AP C…

My HS one of the first to have block scheduling. I would say the only negative about it was the AP/IB exams were held in early May. The high school year ended early June. So, there was a mad scramble to cram for the AP classes you took in the fall and a scramble to cover topics in 4 months instead of 5 (80% of a normal semester) for the spring semester.

If I could do it again I probably would have focused on getting the required classes out the way in the fall and focus on the AP in the spring to prepare for the exam in May.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#544

Post by s1artibartfast »

Nasrudith wrote: post #539
s1artibartfast wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im having trouble reconciling these numbers with with total spending in California. Does it include local and federal funding? The California department of education puts[1] per pupil k-12 spending at 23K, almost double that listed in the census. >The total overall funding (federal, state, and local) for all K–12 education programs is $124.3 billion, with per-pupil spending of $21,596 in 2021–22. For 2020–21, per-pup…

Perhaps it is a cost disease issue with high cost of living driving up expense of mostly labor expensed fields with little automation fields like education?

I think there are lots of possible reasons for different outcomes. I was mostly curious about which funding numbers are accurate.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#545

Post by dccoolgai »

"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.

"Huh" said George.

"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.

"Yup, " said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts .

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#546

Post by dgb23 »

feoren wrote: post #491
DSMan195276 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've gotten a whole lot of replies that seem to miss your point, but I'd say that I've experienced that exact thing - to get to Calc in your senior year you needed to have gotten on a very specific track of math courses back in middle school, and likely your parents needed to know about it to make sure you got in. Otherwise, what appeared to be a very inconsequential choice at middle school actually decided your en…

> it's a pretty common joke how virtually inapplicable calc is to us If you think calculus is not important to software development than you are not bothering to look. Just a few examples: - Calculus was the first math class I took that gave a clear definition of what a "function" really is. Do you use functions? - Analyzing the properties of functions to see what operations made sense to do or not (e.g. continuous v…

I definitely benefit from knowing calculus. But I always disliked it, it was taught in such a mechanical fashion.

I only really started to get math when I learned about linear algebra, combinatorics, proofs, A&D, algebraic structures, mathematical logic etc. And quite frankly those topics helped me much, much more than calculus.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#547

Post by marcusverus »

msravi wrote: post #389
wnc3141 wrote: post #46

A 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.

In my opinion, much of this comes down to blind empathy. Folks are more worried about hurting people’s feelings than about their life outcomes. They would rather “lean in” and embrace the huge rise in single parent households than push back, even with the knowledge that these social changes have resulted in millions of children living in poverty who otherwise would not have! It’s absolutely bananas.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#548

Post by petsfed »

msravi wrote: post #389
wnc3141 wrote: post #46

A 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.

It turns out that a lot of what makes a relationship work is also what causes the children of 2-parent families to do better. Namely, if you remove the stress of scrambling just to make ends meet, and remove food and housing and healthcare and employment insecurity, then people have more time to spend on their families. And provided the parents aren't terrible people, that leads to better outcomes, more stable marriages, etc etc.

Its very easy to say "if we could just keep more parents together..." as if the availability of divorce after giving birth was the problem. Solve the major reasons why relationships fail after giving birth, and you'll likely create the situation where kids have more engaged parents too.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#549

Post by tzs »

fooker wrote: post #331
currymj wrote: post #274

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…

Students from the rest of the world learn calculus when they 15-18. It’s interesting to see how quickly America is being dumbed down by stupid policies. College level science and engineering education doesn’t make sense without a understanding of at least basic calculus.

> College level science and engineering education doesn’t make sense without a understanding of at least basic calculus.

That doesn't actually mean that you need to cover calculus in high school. The calculus needed for the first year of college science and engineering can be easily taught early in the first year in the classes that need it.

That's how it worked at Caltech when I was a student (late '70s and early '80s). Around 75% of an incoming class had no calculus. It only took a lecture or two in Phys 1 to cover all the calculus that would be needed for the rest of first year science and engineering.

That calculus taught in Phys 1 wasn't rigorous and proof based, but high school calculus usually isn't either. By second year everyone had a year of Ma 1, which was rigorous and proof based calculus.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#550

Post by s1artibartfast »

cmh89 wrote: post #517
s1artibartfast wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is currently obsessed with race, and this influences all discussions. I agree that this topic could be more accurately and inclusively framed as how to improve outcomes for low income students, or children with absentee/incarcerated parents, or children of addicts. Unfortunately, some people care much more about racial outcomes than they do about any of those I mentioned. The point of the racial framing IS to…

>The USA is currently obsessed with race, and this influences all discussions. The United States has always been obsessed with race. The south had completely different schools based on a child's skin color. What makes you think this is new?

I totally agree that racial issues have always been a topic in American politics. from the colonial period, to secession from Brittan, to the failed secession of the south, to the civil rights movements, to now.

That said, the relative importance of the issue and satisfaction obviously shifts over time. Gallop polling shows that that by many metrics, perceptions of racial Injustice are at a multi-decade high. It is interesting that far fewer people feel that black people are treated fairly than in the late 90's. It would be interesting to see data going back even further.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/352544/larger-majority-says-rac...

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