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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

#641

Post by stale2002 »

cauch wrote: post #624
stale2002 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are therefore asking to cancel "beginner's classes" No, people are not asking to do this, lol. The complaint is about the education report that opposed students being allowed to study algebra in advanced classes. Thats what this is about. > Simply, instead of algebra, do advanced data science Ok, so algebra classes are being cancelled. Yeah, thats the problem! > Which problem exactly? The problem of not being a…

> No, people are not asking to do this, lol. The complaint is about the education report that opposed students being allowed to study algebra in advanced classes. Obviously, nobody is just coming and saying "lol, I hate children, I want people to be dumb, I will stop them being educated". The reason this report proposes to replace algebra by data science is because this report argues that data science is making peopl…

> The reason this report proposes to replace algebra

Ok, so it is replacing stuff! Not sure why you had to go through so many posts to just admit that.

And people have a problem with what is being replaced.

If you wanted to say that support the replacement of algebra, you should have just said that from the beginning instead of doing this whole rigmarole.

But other people very much do not want this option taken away from them and step one to talking about this is at least admitting that, yes, algebra is being replaced.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#642

Post by autoexec »

nobody9999 wrote: post #605
bluGill wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it was too late for my mom. My mom would have been better off finding a different district that would let her in (this may not have been possible), instead of fighting a system that ultimately failed her.

>Sure, but it was too late for my mom. My mom would have been better off finding a different district that would let her in (this may not have been possible), instead of fighting a system that ultimately failed her. An interesting and important anecdote. But rather than focusing on your mom's inability to take shop class, perhaps you might reflect on the fact that your mom (and many other women/girls) fought for such…

It's interesting to think what might have happened if every girl who wanted to take that shop class just found another school that allowed for it instead of putting up a fight. I'd like to think that all schools would eventually abandon the arbitrary restrictions left over from outdated gender roles, but it's not impossible that without repeated pressure from a growing number of frustrated parents/children they'd continue to keep that shop class male-only hurting those girls who weren't able to switch schools

I get that it's hard to ask people to think of the wider implications when they've got their own life to consider though.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#643

Post by slt2021 »

tootie wrote: post #581
marcusverus wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What the hell does pushing back on single-family homes look like? Christian fundamentalism? Think about this from a perspective of getting positive outcomes from the actual world that exists. Divorce happens. Unplanned pregnancy happens. Family planning is being actively dismantled by the same people who are pushing for increased privatization of schooling and decreases in social safety nets. I don't think that's a c…

it all comes down to Mother's decision to sustain pregnancy in unstable relationship.

Currently America incentivizes single mother childhood because all social handouts are increased if 1) mother is poor/low income 2) has dependents 3) more dependents => more handouts

Things like Section 8, Medicaid, SNAP, EBT - were supposed to have social safety net - the lowest standard that any mother can rely on.

It ended up that many mothers cannot rely on anything else.

once you are in the hood and on government's program - there is no incentive to leave them. People can't even get a fulltime job, because that would mean disqualification from Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, EBT, etc

The vicious cycle of black poverty continues... This is what keeps black people locked in the hood:

1. Black women get locked by social welfare and kids out of wedlock

2. Black males get locked by adolescent crime (culture of "background checks" with lifetime record of crime), keep themselves in the jail system forever / outside legal employment system

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#644

Post by slt2021 »

kneebonian wrote: post #492
msravi wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My mothers been an educator for many many years now. She says the single biggest factor is parental involvement. But hey convincing both parents to be gone all day and slave away for the corporate masters was smashing the patriarchy and breaking the glass ceiling or something, and the fact that it doubled the labor pool causing supply to go up is entirely unrelated to the fact that wages started stagnating at the sam…

> parental involvement

How does that work for black mother of three kids on social programs, whose biological father is incarcerated/nowhere to be found around?

This is the typical story of low achievement/high crime kids in public school system.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#645

Post by dpbriggs »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #615
tootie wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gone around in a few circles thinking about this. My kids curriculum is really different from when I was a kid. They've almost completely dropped grammer, spelling and cursive writing. They're teaching a lot more problem solving techniques in math. Some of this surprised me, but some of it I realized was actually pretty great. I think there's some really necessary attempts to go back to first principles on educa…

>"But teacher, I'll always have a calculator". Damn right. A calculator and Wikipedia and chatgpt. Remembering the quadratic equation is literally useless knowledge to retain. Memorizing the exact formula of the Quadratic equation may not be necessary - knowing that the quadratic equation exists and what it is does is the useful part. Even more useful is to recognize a problem and realize the quadratic equation appli…

More useful yet is knowing how to derive the quadratic equation as was in my curriculum (small public highschool in Canada).

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#646

Post by lacrimacida »

mangodrunk wrote: post #634
eftychis wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that kind of thinking though we can reach logical results like: - writing prose and composition is unnecessary, as at best one will write on slack and social media; - doing pushups, calisthenics, or running is unnecessary: few jobs require that; - learning about how the government works, civics or sociology or psychology should be skipped: all these are taken care by the employer that is not going to let you go…

I don’t see how that is a logical conclusion. There’s such a thing as opportunity cost and interests. If someone wants to learn something, they should, but the problem is forcing those to learn something when they would rather learn something else. There are basic things that everyone should know, like reading. Instead of calculus, logic would be better, and especially probability and statistics.

I agree. Though I loved calculus (and took it in HS and college) my brother hated math in general and forcing him to take it or other advanved math class and get a bad grade is unfair.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#647

Post by dumpsterdiver »

t-writescode wrote: post #510
msravi wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it absolutely bizarre that you framed this situation as other people "demanding" that parents get married. Since when is opining that two parent households are beneficial for a child's development the equivalent of some dystopian society in which marriage is a forced affair?

It's hard to think of a less charitable interpretation. It makes me wonder, what is your point?

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#648

Post by hackerfooze »

rco8786 wrote: post #506
hackerfooze wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, that would be focusing on the advanced poor kids who need less help.

I'm OK with that and no it doesn't keep inequality moving.

Yes, done with school. Read a book, or go to work, or just hang out.

Read whatever you want, you're just concern trolling.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#649

Post by dealuromanet »

javajosh wrote: post #622
dealuromanet wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a good solution is universal basic income that increases in size as automation unlocks more for everyone. Then over time, everyone becomes increasingly empowered to self-actualize at their localized maximum learning velocity without needing to stunt someone brighter. Sam Altman has a correct understanding on how automation will reduce the marginal cost of doing business so much so that universal basic income…

It's a nice thought. However in practice it will require a great transfer of wealth from AI providers to the public. E.g. if MS office copilot eliminates 10M jobs, and they make some fraction of those wages in revenue, only tax laws on MS will extract that as UBI revenue. It may also be that we discover how many truly BS jobs there are such that it was all a house of cards to begin with. Not sure what we do then.

This does imply some innovation is needed in how taxation happens. That is also something Sam Altman agreed with in his piece. This is an easy and simple problem to solve and all the leadership at that level has agreed on the spirit of the query as far as I've seen in their commentaries. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it yet, it's really good:

https://moores.samaltman.com/

I think once tens of millions of jobs are going away and everyone needs to retrain into the types of work that are still available, we'll pretty seamlessly be able to transition into a UBI model where everyone affected becomes a college student or learns a trade or craft again, with UBI making it a graceful and exciting Great Reset without anyone falling by the wayside. Because at that point, the real economic efficiency gains still exist except at a marginal cost of effectively 0. This means that with automation you can just print what you need and everyone's standard of living skyrockets.

This is because commodities are plentiful on a big planet like this one and others.

I think the "BS jobs" concept is missing the mark a little. Those aren't BS jobs. They're just the jobs that have been most visibly automated the fastest. They may still retain, say, 25% of the useful and necessary functions that those roles require. But because of how culture and legislation lag behind technology in rate of adoption, people still feel the need to put up with appearances of working a specific amount of time or quota in order to placate someone who only counts the beans so to speak.

Tens of millions of people enjoying a Great Reset is a beautiful and achievable outcome if we do it properly.

When everyone is affected, we will just work on art, music, self-improvement, learning for joy, and spending time with loved ones. And making more loved ones. This will happen.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#650

Post by pie_flavor »

tomsmeding wrote: post #295

Disclaimer: European. Is it not strange how in an article arguing from otherwise a very egalitarian, leftist viewpoint, when it discusses how students perform given more or less difficult classes, it somehow thinks the most relevant statistic is the race of the students? (Approximately, even, because American race designation is kinda weird anyway.) Sure, socio-economic circumstances are correlated with race. (Unfort…

The most relevant statistic to Noah is the race of the students because the most relevant statistic to the implementors of the new math framework was the race of the students; when you see the word 'equity' being brought up in American politics, it always, always, always means addressing an observed disparity between black and white populations. Find any article about the math framework written by its proponents and you will see that race takes up the entire page. You are right that it is stupid; Noah is not saying 'I think this is important myself', he is saying 'the framework does the exact opposite of what its proponents want, down to the last detail'.
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