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California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

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Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#171

Post by dilyevsky »

friedman23 wrote: post #100
robotburrito wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market. This involves a great deal of understanding on mathematics topics involving everything from stats, probability and economics. They manage to do this part time while governing, so I'd have to say they are pretty adept. I could be missing something though.

> I think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market Politicians are not using math to decide which stocks to pick, they are using insider information. edit: ok, it's clear that the parent comment was sarcasm now but you never know

No they dont - they already thoroughly investigated themselves

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#172

Post by ldiracdelta »

TedShiller wrote: post #136

If you are high income, then this won’t affect you at all. Your kids will be doing calculus and algebra early because they enjoy it and are probably good at it. It’ll just be outside of school.

Only if the parents are also highly conscientious and heavily invested in their children, which is not given. I've encountered a number of people in my career who are being under-utilized, because no one pushed them in their education. Not everyone has internal motivation or parental structure, unfortunately.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#173

Post by giantg2 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #14

Here's a revolutionary idea that pretty much all of the world adopts, if students are having trouble with a topic, get them to do more of it, instead of running away from it. I always find it hilarious that the pre college education in US is so messed up. Instead of doing Algebra 1, Algebra 2, calculus, geometry as one subject that you do in a year and then completely forgetting about it till the next time you have t…

"I always find it hilarious that the pre college education in US is so messed up. Instead of doing Algebra 1, Algebra 2, calculus, geometry as one subject that you do in a year and then completely forgetting about it till the next time you have to do it, how about you do a little bit of everything every year from grade 8-12. Problem solved."

In my experience, each year built off of the previous and implicitly provided a refresher.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#174

Post by [deleted] »

denkmoon wrote: post #103
bko wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This policy has nothing to do with the topic of algebra. This is code for advanced math, because algebra is typically considered advanced for < 9th grade children. Since the organizations feel ashamed that they're failing certain demographics as evidenced by being under-represented in the advanced classes, they're just scrapping the advanced classes for everyone. Truly disgraceful

How old is a 9th grade student in the US? My cohort started Algebra in year 7 in Australia, which is 12/13 years old. And similar to GP's proposal, we learn age appropriate topics every single year, every single week.

[deleted]

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#175

Post by carom »

robotburrito wrote: post #78
friedman23 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people that are good at math and love science / engineering decide to go into politics? I'm just talking without evidence but my guess is politics self selects for ambitious people that are completely inept when it comes to mathematics and critical thinking in general.

I think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market. This involves a great deal of understanding on mathematics topics involving everything from stats, probability and economics. They manage to do this part time while governing, so I'd have to say they are pretty adept. I could be missing something though.

I really hate sarcasm tags and I really appreciate this comment.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#176

Post by lordnacho »

friedman23 wrote: post #100
robotburrito wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market. This involves a great deal of understanding on mathematics topics involving everything from stats, probability and economics. They manage to do this part time while governing, so I'd have to say they are pretty adept. I could be missing something though.

> I think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market Politicians are not using math to decide which stocks to pick, they are using insider information. edit: ok, it's clear that the parent comment was sarcasm now but you never know

Are you not able to see the special font that sarcastic comments are rendered in?

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#177

Post by wheelinsupial »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #143
kingcharles wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British. For the lulz I decided to complete the US "GED": "The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills." (Wikipedia) I had not looked at what it encompassed before I signed up. I was given a huge book to study from. I glanced at it briefly each day for…

The GED isn't our A-levels. It's mostly for people who dropped out of high school for some reason and don't want to have "high school dropout" be their identity. SAT's are more akin to our college-bound testing.

I don’t even think we have A-level equivalents in Canada. We have the American AP courses, which carry 1st year university / college credit. We also have the IB diploma program available (seems to be of European origin), which can also grant 1st year credit. However these programs aren’t available at all schools.

A regular Canadian high school graduate is not eligible for admissions to many of the UK universities based on the little time I’ve spent looking at the admissions standards.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#178

Post by dragonwriter »

_-david-_ wrote: post #25

If racism is actually causing blacks and Hispanics to not make it into advanced classes then why are Asians making it in?

> If racism is actually causing blacks and Hispanics to not make it into advanced classes then why are Asians making it in?

Because immigration policy and conditions highly selects Asians for educational achievement.

Hispanic immigrants are basically selected inversely, whereas blacks are overwhelmingly not immigrants or early-generation Americans.

https://items.ssrc.org/from-our-programs/it-takes-more-than-...

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#179

Post by ryanobjc »

Most of the comments in here are way way off base.

First off, I believe in and trust the policy experts. If they are saying that algebra for everyone as a compulsory subject in grade 9 isn't helpful, it's quite possible they know what they are talking about.

A lot of the comments in here are varities of "if you don't try harder then you wont win" basically. The problem... is that really how teaching kids work? How do you know that is how it works? Your N=1 personal experience is not really the right evidence for running a state-wide policy. Additionally, some of you are probably 99th percentile intelligence, and really what worked for you won't work for, say, the other 99% of people.

Secondly, education is a complex issue. Schools are being expected to pick up the slack from every single societal problem, all the while Oh So Smart People endlessly shit on them. I'm not even joking about every single societal problem... here are some things schools are expected to pick up for: - Food poverty: Feeding kids at school because they didn't eat at home - Food quality: Feeding kids RIGHT with GOOD food - Parental availability: Hard to read to your kids when you are working tons of hours or extra jobs. Schools are expected to paper over this deficit. - Redlining/poverty: Schools are expected to raise kids up out of poverty, with practically no other help, and a lot of un-help (police at schools arent helping) - Gun violence: Kids are expected to do active shooter drills, nuff said. That's messed up.

One thing to remember about people who are from other places like India and such, if you are here and commenting here, perhaps your school isn't a representative sample of everyone where you were from. Here in the US, it's common for private school to kick out kids who don't academically perform, which means you have a self selection effect. So pointing out that "private schools do X why can't everyone do X" is useless, because the schools have, by definition, selected those students that can do X and everyone else was dropped on the floor.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#180

Post by psutor »

nemothekid wrote: post #161
542458 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grade nine is 14-15 years of age in the US. I agree with you WRT age appropriate-ness. Just because something can or has been introduced at a certain age does not mean that is optimal. I recall a study I saw recently that showed delaying introducing one subject - it may have been math - to very young students had negligible impacts on their scores (compared to students who were introduced earlier) a few years later.…

Wouldn't that make Grade 12 18 ~ 19 years of age? Has the school age been moved up a year? I vaguely remember the oldest kids in high school being 18.

Don't know if parent has been edited to correct something, but:

9: 14-15

10: 15-16

11: 16-17

12: 17-18

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