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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

#561

Post by RecycledEle »

btilly wrote: post #519
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #343

Earlier 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.)

Don't worry. DEI programs have this covered as well. Stop using standardized tests to get in. And then just aim for the perfect "socially desirable" mix. Regardless of ability.

The amount of equity a society enforces should be inversely proportional to age. If a kindergartener is unable to succeed, we need to give them extra help. If a 45 year old is unable to succeed, they had their chances and it's their fault.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#562

Post by kingrazor »

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…

That's what my high school did. 4 block periods per day. We had "A" days and "B" days. A days were 1st, 3, 5th, and 7th period. B days were 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th period. I never had two math classes in the same semester though.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#563

Post by TheBigSalad »

electriclove wrote: post #195
TheBigSalad wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complete straw man argument. Nobody believes that it's better to dumb down education, but that's not what's happening here. Very specifically, they are replacing middle school algebra with a data sciences class. The idea is that the data science stuff would be more practical and get people interested in math more than algebra, which is a more abstract. It doesn't sound completely crazy to me.

Read the linked article from last week. Data science as implemented in this program is probably not what you think. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/california-needs-real-math-edu...

I read that. It was just as bad and didn't really explain it. My favorite part was when he told me how society teaches girls they're bad at math, linking an article that said nothing of the sort. Both of these articles read like Fox News pieces. Lot's of anger and non objective opinions. It's such a turn off. But there were some interesting bits too. I quite like the idea of making AP classes opt out instead of opt in. That could be done in conjunction with replacing algebra with data sciences. I don't really have an opinion on which is better for middle schoolers, but this article failed to make up my mind.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#565

Post by Nevermark »

RecycledEle wrote: post #561
btilly wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry. DEI programs have this covered as well. Stop using standardized tests to get in. And then just aim for the perfect "socially desirable" mix. Regardless of ability.

The amount of equity a society enforces should be inversely proportional to age. If a kindergartener is unable to succeed, we need to give them extra help. If a 45 year old is unable to succeed, they had their chances and it's their fault.

Even if an older person’s situation is largely not their fault, it is much more difficult to correct, and society’s benefit for its investment is much lower.

On ramps for everyone are important, but as you say, far far more important and effective in people’s early years.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#566

Post by [deleted] »

RecycledEle wrote: post #561
btilly wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry. DEI programs have this covered as well. Stop using standardized tests to get in. And then just aim for the perfect "socially desirable" mix. Regardless of ability.

The amount of equity a society enforces should be inversely proportional to age. If a kindergartener is unable to succeed, we need to give them extra help. If a 45 year old is unable to succeed, they had their chances and it's their fault.

[deleted]

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#567

Post by HDThoreaun »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #400
AlanYx wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is my best guess about the line of thinking that motivates these "no advanced math" policies. You've explained the thought process of the "reformers" fairly well, but there is another additional element that's important as well: a sizeable contingent of people believe that advanced math itself is intrinsically bad or negative. Usually this is either because math is fundamentally exclusionary in some core way, o…

At it's very foundation liberal ideology cracks pretty badly if "Everyone is born equally capable" is false.

The entire point of liberal ideology is to gather a variety of viewpoints because we accept that everyone is not born equal. That doesn't make some people better than others, they just bring different skills to the table.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#568

Post by nomat »

recursive wrote: post #532
ryandamm wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results cited in the article suggest that either the answer is yes, or in fact "marginal students" are perfectly capable students who were being passed over. The text of the article further suggests that many of the students who scored well on qualifying exams weren't taking the classes because they didn't have the parental involvement or default assumption that they would take it. (Note that the opt-out group wa…

Am I meant to believe that all students are equally capable? That's a tough sell.

students definitely are not all equally capable in one aspect for sure: their ability to hire or provide private tutoring outside of school hours. Cutting access to state-funded programs (such as algebra classes in middle school) just means the rich children get even more of a leg up on college admissions and life in general.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#569

Post by fooker »

tzs wrote: post #549
fooker wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 '8…

You need some time for the insights from new topics to become ingrained.

For computer science, imagine learning about logic gates and VLSI in the same year.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#570

Post by throwaway4220 »

achates wrote: post #377
pwthornton wrote: post #299

This is the way. Teach kids more, not less. Ask more of them, not less. If you need to lengthen the school day and school year to do so, do it. Do it now. "So what should we do instead? Dallas came up with an answer: Teach kids more math instead of teaching them less. In 2019, Dallas Independent School District implemented a new equity policy that encouraged many more people to take honors math classes: Many capable…

Does putting marginal students in advanced classes actually help them?

Yes because I refuse to believe “stand and deliver” could not happen in real life!

Seriously tho I think it will. I’m sure a foundation is important in many fields but one can get pretty far by jumping in. I remember my high school physics teacher take us on a wild ride of quantum mechanics for three weeks. If nothing it opened up a lot of future reading

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