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

latimes.com

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

#411

Post by throwaway27448 »

tracker1 wrote: post #408
throwaway27448 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be fine with that. It would provide an incentive to care about the bottom 75th percentile along with the spoiled rich kids

The bottom 75th percentile don't advance humanity to nearly the same level. Do you think you'd have the internet or iPads if everyone was capped to the 75th percentile? No. Beyond this, the entire point of higher education is to push those who are able to higher levels, not to drag the 75% along for the ride.

> The bottom 75th percentile don't advance humanity to nearly the same level.

Who do you think produces all the value in the world? It's not the people organizing the labor, it's the goddamn laborers.

> Do you think you'd have the internet or iPads if everyone was capped to the 75th percentile? No.

What do you think we would be eating if we left the world up to the rich nerds? We would have starved many millennia ago.

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

#412

Post by freediddy »

Catloafdev wrote: post #219
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…

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…

You don't live in the Bay Area.

Schools around the Bay Area are closing, especially in rich areas like Saratoga and Cupertino. That's because parents who can afford it are moving their children to private schools because of exactly what the OP was saying.

Schools are incentivized to focus on struggling kids because test scores are how teachers and schools are evaluated. The kids at the high end of the class are literally ignored. I know this because in my old neighborhood many parents were complaining about this. And then on top of it, the superintendent was begging parents for donations because they didn't have enough money.

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

#413

Post by lo_zamoyski »

j_w wrote: post #275
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your issue with redirecting funding from sucky schools towards ones that deliver results, while allowing school choice for students at the same time? I may be naive but that sounds fairly good

Because the "sucky" schools are statistically where poor people go to school, which statistically is where minorities go to school. School choice is bad because the only people who benefit from school choice are already wealthy - they can afford to transport their child to the school of their choice.

I am all for helping the worse off. However, one of the most repulsive ideas is that you can cripple everyone else, because some people have less.

This is slave morality and the logic of ressentiment and envy. It is also profoundly immoral.

Never mind that this approach condemns everyone to a state of perpetual mediocrity, and the poor will always be with us. Mind you, how much you value education is to a large degree a product of the family environment and how supportive it is.

How about we allow excellence to flourish as it does, support it any way we can, and also look for ways to lift those who are worse off out of their condition? The focus should be on making things better, not bizarre idealistic notions like "equality" or "equity", whatever they even mean in real, concrete terms. If we dispense with envy, we focus on objective improvement instead of status-obsessed insecurities.

Of course, I think the most pressing problem in education today is that most "educators" have no damn clue what it even means to be educated anymore. They think they know, but they absolutely do not. It isn't "getting a job", as important as jobs are, or some odd aim of the ideology du jour. Public education in an ideologically-charged society of our stripe is practically condemned to superficiality and poor quality, because all good education begins with an accurate anthropology. We can't even agree on that, so naturally, this produces a lowest common denominator effect. In such a situation especially, permitting a diversity of educational styles and programs is necessary.

And btw, if someone is wealthy enough, they'll move to another school district and make school choice a reality anyway within your regime. People do it all the time. Or would you like a return to latifundia to enforce your vision?

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

#414

Post by throwaway27448 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #410
throwaway27448 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if we tried to educate all our kids instead of just the rich ones they wouldn't be illiterate

Some kids are just stupid, and it doesn't matter if they're rich or poor, there's nothing you can do about it. No need to keep everyone at the stupidest kids level.

Half of them are in AP classes. let's not pretend our methods of sorting kids into castes makes any sense. Let's be honest: this is about money and attention, and you want to grind the poor kids into dust

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

#415

Post by borski »

retrac wrote: post #252
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 remed…

> 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.

YES. I could not agree more.

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

#416

Post by tracker1 »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #400
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's horrible. Smarter kids could get a better education, but they can't, because the teachers have to deal with illiterate kids that don't want to learn in the first place.

Maybe if we tried to educate all our kids instead of just the rich ones they wouldn't be illiterate

We do... The VAST majority of kids go through public education... It's mostly a matter of effort, and that comes down to mostly parent pressure on having their kids do the work.

Maybe if we actually held kids that can't do the work back, they wouldn't be illiterate. Let social pressure do the work it's meant to. For that matter, let parents do the work they're supposed to.

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

#417

Post by sosodev »

rayiner wrote: post #292

MIT dropped the SAT requirement only to bring it back a few years ago: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-reinstating-our... . Dropping standardized test requirements is disconcerting. Of all of the institutions that should be making decisions neutrally based on the evidence, it’s universities. The fact that even institutions like MIT changed their admissions policies according to ideas that aren’t backed b…

Isn’t this contradictory to your point? They dropped it, collected data, and then reverted when the evidence suggested they made the wrong choice.

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

#419

Post by cm2012 »

smcg wrote: post #282
RealityVoid wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My grades were OK (except in bio, where I refused to acknowledge young Earth creationism) but not amazing. This is... Wild.

It's very common in US private schools.

No it is not lol. Incredibly rare

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

#420

Post by Balgair »

For the non Californians here, there is very important context on admissions that may not be widely known.

Under the 1960 California Master Plan, the top 12.5% of California high school graduates have automatic entry into the UC system.

That is no longer quite the case though. Nowadays, under the Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) system, the top 9% of high school graduates are guaranteed a spot in the UC system, regardless of rejection to school. That said, you will commonly hear about the Master Plan in conversations here without the nuance.

In practice, this is typically UC-Merced or UC-Riverside as the UCs of last resort.

That said, about 32% of all UC entrants are in the ELC system. So, I'd assume that around 32% of incoming UCSD (the UC in question in the article) entrants are ELC.

The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) found that ~80% of ELC entrants came from below average schools.

So, assuming nothing special here, 0.8*0.32 = ~0.25, or ~25% of incoming UCSD students came from an 'bad' high school.

> Statewide, 37.3% of students meet math learning standards in the grades that are tested.

Look, there are a lot of complicated stats and math that I just do not have the coffee for here. But a 'failing' 25% of incoming entrants is in the right ball park.

The University of Texas system has a similar matriculation standard too.

TLDR: Failing high schools are the root cause here. UC professors should get out of the ivory tower more. None of this is surprising.

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