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US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

bbc.co.uk

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Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#81

Post by ahomescu1 »

[deleted] wrote: post #77
tokenadult wrote: post #60

I read all the comments kindly posted here before mine, and then I read the fine submitted article. Here I will link to the study "Not Just the Problems of Other People's Children: U.S. Student Performance in Global Perspective"[1] that underlies the news report submitted here. The full study report will of course give you details that a brief news report has no space to provide. It's good to read a news report from…

[deleted]

Computation is what computers do best. There's so much more to mathematics than computation. Computers aren't anywhere near humans at discovering properties and proving them (in other words, proving theorems).

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#82

Post by esbranson »

ahomescu1 wrote: post #81
[deleted] wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Computation is what computers do best. There's so much more to mathematics than computation. Computers aren't anywhere near humans at discovering properties and proving them (in other words, proving theorems).

I'm pretty sure a computer could be used to solve most International Mathematical Olympiad problems quicker and more reliably. Its not an argument that computers are better at creating the theory that is used to solve the problems.

In essence, I'm saying the International Mathematical Olympiad is not a competition about forming or proving theorems. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the competition essentially determining who makes a better computer? I'm arguing the utility of such skills is limited by the existence of computers.

Although I admit formulating and modeling problems would be a useful skill set not easily replicated by a computer, I'm not sure this is what most testing regimes actually test for.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#83

Post by voidlogic »

Education is not under Federal control, I live one of those "high performing" states. Painting this as a US issue is as silly as painting an issue solely controlled at the national level as an EU issue. I think the BBC's choice of portraying the US as a rusty bus is offensive as, again, this regional not a national issue.

I also think the areas named of poor performance often have poor performance across the board, that is not limited to the subject of mathematics specificity.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#84

Post by voidlogic »

qwerta wrote: post #52

I think US education system is basically broken. Instead of fixing problems you are arguing who is more privileged. Texas versus California illustrates it well.

According to this article it doesn't sound broken in the north. I'm opposed to nationwide changes as I am fearful it will just mess of the good things we have going on here.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#85

Post by gph »

hactually wrote: post #62
graeme wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a british thing.

It's not a British thing, it's a standard English thing. I understand it's a difficult language but sometimes we contract words rather than lopping parts off. It's interesting that you guys chose to keep Physics, did Physic sound too weird? :D

Physics isn't a contraction or abbreviation, it's the entire word.

Mathematics is the entire word which all English speakers agree on. The difference is that British-English decided to abbreviate the word to 'maths', while American-English decided to abbreviate it just as 'math'.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#86

Post by [deleted] »

josephschmoe wrote: post #4

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have both a school that performs on par with Sweden and another that performs on par with Turkey. What does this mean? Things are way worse for the poor here than this study even acknowledges. If you're poor in America, your best chance at a good education is by raf…

[deleted]

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#87

Post by maxerickson »

noobermin wrote: post #44
stillsut wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having gone to school in MA, I know educational spending ($/student) here is inversely correlated with performance. But I'm not really worried about national average, state average, even school average: there just needs to be the opportunity to succeed for individual students, wherever they're located.

I think it is very much worth caring where the average is. This average person will grow up to become a voter and taxpayer and we need intelligent citizens to vote in competent representatives. Philosopher kings never happened, otherwise, just making sure the smartest get smarter would be okay; we have a democracy and the only way to make it work is to have informed citizens.

Arbitrary education standards and comparisons to other countries aren't going to change the way people think.

(Implicit in the above is the opinion that for loads of national political issues, the biggest thing stopping "the masses" from being informed is that they simply don't care.)

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#88

Post by esbranson »

voidlogic wrote: post #83

Education is not under Federal control, I live one of those "high performing" states. Painting this as a US issue is as silly as painting an issue solely controlled at the national level as an EU issue. I think the BBC's choice of portraying the US as a rusty bus is offensive as, again, this regional not a national issue. I also think the areas named of poor performance often have poor performance across the board, t…

I disagree that the article painted the issue as a national issue. To the contrary, this is the rare occasion that I see a recognition on the part of Europeans that the US is composed of 50 states, and that making conclusions about the EU based only upon information from Romania, Croatia and Poland is probably ill-advised. It recognizes that states like California are big (being more populous than all of of Canada). And it recognizes what many Americans already know: the South is America's Eastern Europe.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#89

Post by baq »

cheshireoctopus wrote: post #50

What percentage of the current US workforce actually draws on advanced (even intermediate) mathematical skills on a day-to-day basis? I'd wager a guess that most developers on HN don't even touch the stuff.

don't confuse math skills with arithmetic skills. maths teaches you to think and reason about what you've got. arithmetic is just a way to apply your reasoning.

unless of course you're taught to follow steps without thinking and use a calculator all the time so your working memory isn't trained enough to reason about more complex problems.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#90

Post by vraid »

josephschmoe wrote: post #4

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have both a school that performs on par with Sweden and another that performs on par with Turkey. What does this mean? Things are way worse for the poor here than this study even acknowledges. If you're poor in America, your best chance at a good education is by raf…

Incidentally, both Sweden and Turkey are ranked below the US average. Swedish education is in a sorry state at the moment, dropping fast in the rankings and already well below the level of any other nordic country.
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