Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity • Hacker News Board

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#761

Post by aleph_minus_one » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

sfn42 wrote: post #751

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As soon as summer resets their brains, they suddenly have large gaps in knowledge that slow next year's learning. One loves to say that summer vacations are long so that pupils have time to fill the gaps for the next school year. If they don't use this time (or their parents don't urge them to), it is their problem.

Nobody's spending their vacation studying if they can avoid it.

> Nobody's spending their vacation studying if they can avoid it.

If you have huge gaps in the subject matter of some subjects, you hardly cannot avoid it (and your parents will likely take care that you cannot avoid it ;-) ).

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#762

Post by devonkim » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

bamfly wrote: post #337

devonkim wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing that throwing money at bad schools won't really help is the thing although it might seem like that's where my line of thinking may lead. Heck, usually more money at schools from what I've seen ranges from more administrators (lol if anyone thinks that helps) to equipment for students (as if an iPad will help a disengaged kid that much?). Add in the reality that lower socioeconomic status folks ten…

OK, yeah, I think we're basically in agreement. The core problem is that the effective route to massive improvements in equality of access to quality public education is basically "solve poverty, and concentrations of poverty", which isn't within the scope of schools' mission and is going to be far harder to sell, politically, take a long time, and be incredibly expensive. We tried "bussing", which directly confronte…

I’m a big proponent of leveraging Amdahl’s Law in social policies and that freedom of movement should be promoted culturally given the nature of markets to solve a lot of problems although we have serious gaming and regulatory capture issues in the US that make this pretty naïve. If command economies oftentimes fail to attain resilience and markets have horrific social side effects detrimental to civil society / collective problem solving, as a society we should probably accommodate people to relocate given it’s probably cheaper than encouraging specific groups to relocate geographically. There’s no clear social contract at a point given so many holes and inconsistencies over many decades of back and forth bad faith approaches along with institutionalists myopic to the individual scopes of their well intentioned policies.

Much like the original architecture and UX of welfare in the US had assumptions like a family with a cook at home I don’t think education as an institution is really meeting the needs of the public to be better informed and critical thinking citizens invested in communities and society as a whole.

There’s a big cultural issue currently where people are resistant to move for better opportunities when much of the US immigrant population has thrived over generations specifically by migrating to opportunity areas. Now, many that try to leave impoverished areas are shamed and become pariahs for leaving basically job deserts and the social costs are horrific as people find less and less connection to others.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#763

Post by distant_hat » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #251

I'm reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron We are not, should not, and cannot all be the same. I am bad at languages. Should I now demand that everybody please slow down so that I do not have to feel bad about myself? ... Nope.

I'm sure at some point people will be advocating that kids who do better at math be given shots of whisky until their performance is at par with other kids.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#764

Post by tootie » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #755

tootie wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're telling me there's zero evidence of my claim and yet you are going deeper down the hole of thoroughly disproven theories. Child poverty numbers in the US were the best ever recorded just prior to the pandemic and you can draw very direct lines from government anti-poverty programs as being a major contributing factor. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/09/record-drop-i...

All that chart shows is how they have successfully ganked more and more money from taxpayers. Where does it show outcomes have been improved or that the outcomes of kids from single mothers (those that have been "lifted out of poverty") are improving relative to traditional families? The outcomes I see VS 75 years ago is that incarceration rates are through the roof, premature death due to drug use is through the roo…

75 years ago? For reference, Ruby Bridges is 68 years old as of today and active on Instagram. If you think too many single moms are the biggest cultural shift of the last 75 years, then you are just drawing absolutely arbitrary connections.

Drug use, drug convictions, drug deaths are a big shift from then for sure. Some of that is deliberately abusive policy-making by legislators who had been constitutionally barred from segregating so they pivoted to incarceration. Some of it just that we're way, way better at making narcotics than we used to be. None of that seems to be caused by single parents so I really don't know what point you're making here.

You still haven't come close to explaining who has been promoting single parent households. And now I'm forced to ask what decline has the west seen? Almost everything you're complaining about is specifically about America. And there are few if any practical measures by which are declining. This very much reads like a lament for white privilege.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#765

Post by slt2021 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 9:41 PM UTC

petsfed wrote: post #759

slt2021 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your argument is only true for normal, trouble-free, law abiding, functional families. You are right, millenials take their time to have babies later, because they plan, because it is expensive to have kid etc etc. You are probably projecting yourself as a well-off individual to the society. this is not true for low SES stratum: the girls in poor hoods start hookups in middle/high-school. They get pregnant at high sc…

Speaking as the brother to a teen mother, I am saying you're wrong, and the data backs me up. Speaking as a person who was quite poor in his twenties and early thirties, I'm saying you're wrong, and the data backs me up. Teenage pregnancies are dropping, across the board. Children are waiting longer to start having sex, across the board. Young people are having fewer sexual partners ACROSS THE BOARD.

> as a brother to a teen mother, I am saying you're wrong,

> as a person who was quite poor

You literally proved my point, brother, maybe trend is going down slightly over time but there are still significant number of unplanned pregnancies mainly in hoods, mainly among Medicaid beneficiaries etc etc

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#766

Post by proxiful-wash » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

glonq wrote: post #499

proxiful-wash wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was you wonder if a foreign state adversary is influencing us to stupify our next generation. I'll keep my comments civil here but its pretty obvious who is behind this.

Well either the US is especially vulnerable to foreign sabotage or the US is especially vulnerable to self-sabotage . I'll let others debate over which is worse.

Demagoguery is always a constant fear for the free people.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#767

Post by tootie » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

slt2021 wrote: post #683

tootie wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like rational debate, but is really just pure conservative fantasy and at least a little racist. Every time you mention black people in the hood, I assume it means you have never been within 100 miles of an urban environment and have no idea what you're talking about. You act like poverty and broken families only exist with black people. Welfare Queens don't exist. Absolutely no human being in existence si…

You are exaggerating my point, but on the way you exaggerate yourself and make false arguments. If welfare queens dont exist - then how do you call beneficiaries of these programs like meeicaid? Poverty exists in white and asian families, but interesting fact - only in black hoods it leads to high crime, high fatality, high incarceration rates. How do you explain the fact that poor asian neighborhoods dont have crime…

> If welfare queens dont exist - then how do you call beneficiaries of these programs like meeicaid?

Uh, "beneficiaries"?

I literally gave you a wall of citations that they do help. A lot of taxpayers being against it is a political argument. Of course they will. They've been fed lies by politicians who have given them fallacious rationalizations for why they don't have have any responsibility to promoting an equitable society. It's called the "I got mine" theory of civics. If you just don't _want_ to do anything, then go ahead and say it. Just stop pretending that greedy self-interest is anything but that.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#768

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

slt2021 wrote: post #758

petsfed wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll clarify: Your claim is that "hook up culture" is causing all these kids to grow up single-parent households. This flies in the face of all kinds of studies that show that, starting with millenials, kids are waiting longer to have sex, and are having fewer partners than e.g. baby boomers. At the same time, young adults are waiting longer to get married than baby boomers, are getting married less often, and on…

your argument is only true for normal, trouble-free, law abiding, functional families. You are right, millenials take their time to have babies later, because they plan, because it is expensive to have kid etc etc. You are probably projecting yourself as a well-off individual to the society. this is not true for low SES stratum: the girls in poor hoods start hookups in middle/high-school. They get pregnant at high sc…

[deleted]

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#769

Post by nobody9999 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:09 PM UTC

okeuro49 wrote: post #757

nobody9999 wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I can recommend those for reading lists in the public schools near me. That doesn't answer the question I asked, nor does it show anything even close to encouraging a "victim/oppressor" environment. No one is trans because its' "cool" or because someone mentioned that trans people (less than 1% of the population) exist. Do you know anyone who is trans? It's certainly not some golden road to peer/social accept…

> Sealioning (also sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity ("I'm just trying to have a debate"), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

Call it whatever you like.

I'm not claiming that "I just want to have a debate," nor did I "pursue" you (I made exactly one request to detail evidence of your assertions) and none of what I asked about was "tangential" or "previously addressed." And I'm not "feigning" ignorance. I know quite a bit about trans folks and the issues and discrimination they face.

What's more, the tired tropes (which you trotted out rather than have a substantive discussion) are more akin to the "Gish Gallop"[0] than anything I might have written being "sea lioning."

I have no interest in debating anything with you. You're just flat wrong.

Regardless, you have your ideas/beliefs and as a decent human being, I don't despise you for those beliefs, nor do I advocate for you to be silenced (as you do about others).

Please do speak your mind. It's an important part of having a free and open society. And I will do the same.

Have a good day!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

Edit: Fixed typo.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#770

Post by petsfed » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:09 PM UTC

slt2021 wrote: post #765

petsfed wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as the brother to a teen mother, I am saying you're wrong, and the data backs me up. Speaking as a person who was quite poor in his twenties and early thirties, I'm saying you're wrong, and the data backs me up. Teenage pregnancies are dropping, across the board. Children are waiting longer to start having sex, across the board. Young people are having fewer sexual partners ACROSS THE BOARD.

> as a brother to a teen mother, I am saying you're wrong, > as a person who was quite poor You literally proved my point, brother, maybe trend is going down slightly over time but there are still significant number of unplanned pregnancies mainly in hoods, mainly among Medicaid beneficiaries etc etc

That may have been true when my sister gave birth in 1992, but the data is clear, the teenage birth rate has dropped by a factor of 4-6x in the last 35 years.

https://opa.hhs.gov/adolescent-health/reproductive-health-an...

My point is that things aren't now the way things were when I was experiencing it first hand.