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Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

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Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#251

Post by adrr »

ceejayoz wrote: post #11
StateflowsLabs wrote: post #2

"The surge in math deficiencies after dropping the SAT highlights a systemic issue: grade inflation. Without a standardized baseline like the SAT/ACT, a 4.0 GPA from a high school with relaxed standards looks identical to a 4.0 from a highly rigorous one. Paradoxically, removing test requirements harms underprivileged students the most. Preparing for the SAT requires a book and an internet connection. In contrast, bu…

> Preparing for the SAT requires a book and an internet connection. Sports frequently just requires a ball or a place to run. In both scenarios, you can still purchase better equipment/training. There are very expensive, effective SAT prep options out there for the wealthy.

Sports is the most expensive way to get into college. Tennis is close to $1 million to get your kid into an Ivy league through tennis. Malcom Gladwell wrote about sports and colleges in his book "revenge of the tipping point". Sports is used by the wealthy to get their less academically inclined children in to top schools and some school are expanding it.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#252

Post by retrac »

hedora wrote: post #53

This doesn't surprise me at all. From what I can tell, California's education system has moved from "equality" (which I would define as providing similar opportunities to all the kids) to focusing on "equity" (which I think they define as dictating the same outcome for all kids). To get an idea of how off the rails this has gotten, go read up on their statements trying to justify banning high school calculus. They ex…

It's so strange to see this happen in the USA when our education system up here in Canada has essentially the same set of cultural and social values and there's plenty to gripe about but we haven't had the 'levelling' thing. There have been attempts but it has strongly resisted by parents. [1]

I think there may be more realization up here that "gifted education" is a type of "special" education, in the same way remedial classes for delayed children are. Kids who need spec ed. and who don't get it can have very bad outcomes in life.

When the topic has come up I've often pointed out that if you are a parent: you really don't want those evil geniuses in your child's class, poking holes in everything the teacher says, taking up all the teacher's time talking about things over your kids' head, and probably initiating your kid into inappropriately adult concepts. Such children need specialists who know how to deal with that kind of abnormality.

[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3907781/restructuring-toronto-sch...

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#253

Post by footy »

f13f1f1f1 wrote: post #223
Catloafdev wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurdly problematic. Your solution is basically handicapping the schools with kids that perform worse and then potentially closing them? That doesn't solve the problem, this is just pro-Charter School propaganda that ignores the real-world effects of these positions. You've identified a real issue with the 'equality' vs 'equity' concept, that doesn't lead to 'Close public schools and switch everything to Cha…

[flagged]

> though there isn't really any serious dispute about it factually

citation sorely needed

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#254

Post by empath75 »

hedora wrote: post #53

This doesn't surprise me at all. From what I can tell, California's education system has moved from "equality" (which I would define as providing similar opportunities to all the kids) to focusing on "equity" (which I think they define as dictating the same outcome for all kids). To get an idea of how off the rails this has gotten, go read up on their statements trying to justify banning high school calculus. They ex…

> if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination benefiting you or something.

--

It's not really racial discrimination per se, but there's a strong parental-educational/economic/class element which is still tied to race in the US unfortunately.. It's not reason not to have high school calculus but it's still something to keep in account.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#255

Post by [deleted] »

Bratmon wrote: post #209
julianeon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This has the unintended consequence of encouraging schools to eject students who are struggling. For example, if the student has a learning disability, declare that it's too serious for them to handle, and then transfer th…

I think the answer to this is that schooling/care for people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to succeed in normal school should be a totally different budget with different success criteria than the budget for normal school. There are two different and contradictory goals here- the current dynamic where every gain for one is a loss for the other creates a ton of bad outcomes across the board.

[deleted]

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#256

Post by __rito__ »

DonutATX wrote: post #128
kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

I suggest you glance at the novel Ananthem by Neal Stephenson. The core plot device is about "universities" stripping all worldly items away from the students, so they are left with simple clothes and chalkboards. Fascinating topic, well executed by Neal. One of my favorite books.

This is nothing new. It is ancient.

Ancient Hindus divided life into four parts, the earliest was called "Brahmacharya" - core tenet of it was celibacy, but sons of kings and rich merchants lived ascetic lives in the teacher's house who was also an ascetic and a sage - no rich clothes, no luxury foods or comfort.

This was supposed to last till the age of 16, going as high as 21 for some.

The Buddhist monastery-universities of India also kept students under similar conditions - celibate, ascetic, and far from luxury.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#257

Post by matwood »

ryukoposting wrote: post #127
collabs wrote: post #49

something that came to my mind as I was reading the comments here -- the thing is that in the quest for professionalism, we have sidelined a lot of people who would be good at teaching in favor of people who are good at jumping hoops. there is a famous quote saying "when the measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure"

Goodhart's Law (that quote) is actually one of the motivations for moving away from ACT and SAT as college entry benchmarks. "Teaching to the test" is a rampant problem in the US. UC is seeing flaws in departing from those benchmarks, though. The thing is, % of students getting admitted to college is itself a measure for schools and school districts. If GPA is how you get kids into college, well... It's not a teacher…

For almost all math at the HS level, teaching to the test is exactly what you want.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#258

Post by HelloNurse »

Bratmon wrote: post #209
julianeon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This has the unintended consequence of encouraging schools to eject students who are struggling. For example, if the student has a learning disability, declare that it's too serious for them to handle, and then transfer th…

I think the answer to this is that schooling/care for people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to succeed in normal school should be a totally different budget with different success criteria than the budget for normal school. There are two different and contradictory goals here- the current dynamic where every gain for one is a loss for the other creates a ton of bad outcomes across the board.

[flagged]

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#259

Post by delusional »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #121
delusional wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the like teaching and believe in giving their students/customers the best possible education? I get not wanting to waste the time of the better students, but if too many student are behind, whose time are you really wasting?

But it goes both ways. If a student doesn't have the prerequisite knowledge for a class it is absolutely unfair and decidedly not the best possible education to slow the class down for students who are prepared. If a class requires X, and you don't have X, that's a you problem, not a university/teacher problem.

I don't think it's helpful to be that rigid about it. Both the teacher and the student has an interest in the student learning something. Sometimes we have to give each other a bit of leeway to get to the destination.

There's a whole "philosophy of education" discussion I'd like to avoid, but the goal of education isn't really to educate one person to their maximum potential, but rather to educate as many people as well as possible. The individual should sacrifice for the collective.

Trying to make it a straight forward linear dependency chain displays a sort of autistic adherence to rigid hierarchy that's really common in software people, but really uncommon everywhere else.

Re: Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM

#260

Post by gausswho »

hedora wrote: post #238
gausswho wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With sympathy to your appeal that 100% closures will force us to reckon with the problem, I suspect it'd only lead to missing the forest for the trees. This would come with substantial pains to the community. Potentially ones that knock-on to other pains. You're at the root of why this is a tricky problem to solve. In fact there is no solution, just a wide basket of expensive things we should aspire to do to improve…

What pain, exactly? - The local public school goes from 80 kids per grade to 40, and a new school opens across the street or just rents an existing building from the existing school district. - Funding stays flat, and academic performance goes up. - Administrators get to decide which teachers to lay off, and they will be de facto fired if they get rid of the high performers while keeping the low performers. - If the…

The pains I was thinking of largely occupy the transitionary period of a school closing before alternatives are open.

When does the deficient school close? After this new school is opened? If not, what happens to students and families that depend on an education in the interim?

Who pays for this new school? Must they immediately show improvement or do they get some years to show that their approach is working better?

Will the metrics even be accurate in the new school? Will there be a self-selecting bias in the newly formed student body?

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