Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, New England, early 10s the algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2, precalc, calc was the exact pattern. Edit: despite the name, pre calc was basically entirely trigonometry.
Same in NY.
And in rural Ohio, in the '90s.
California needs real math education, not gimmicks
181–190 of 386 posts
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies fix it or they go out of business. I've seen them tweaking it.
That only applies to small companies. Schools are equivalent to large companies, and large companies can screw the proverbial six ways from Sunday for years before it hurts their bottom line, for any number of reasons. Many Americans seem to have this mental disease whereby they think every problem can be solved with more money. This problem can't be.
Large companies still have plenty of incentive pay.
Currently, teachers have zero incentive to get results. I bet you'll see results that follow incentives. Of course it won't be perfect - but I bet it'll be much better than the current disaster.
People like money. Especially the people who say they aren't motivated by money :-)
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#183California: one of the richest regions on Earth, with the highest taxes in the US, and math education worse than third-world countries.
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
An incentive for the teachers is better than no incentive. I recall a case at a company I worked for. They snagged a major contract with IBM, but it had a tight deadline. They hired a team of 6 or 7 greybeards to do the work. The fun thing was they each got a $10,000 bonus if delivered on time. They delivered it on time, got the $10 grand each (a lot of money in those days), IBM was happy, all good. So I asked them,…
Right but you give the incentive to the construction company, not to the food truck that feeds the workers. The teachers aren't the problem (to the extent there even is a problem, which is an embarrassingly unexamined question), the students are. So give them an incentive to stop being a problem.
Giving the teachers an incentive to find a way to incentivize the students is a perfectly reasonable approach.
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would it be ineffective? Suppose you're a teacher at a school where the kids are all below grade level. Sounds like a much larger opportunity to get those bonuses than a school where all kids are above average. > or maybe your should think a bit before blaming teachers Teachers are only human, and humans respond to positive incentives. The current system has no incentives.
You claimed that the fix to getting lucky with a batch of good students (or unlucky with bad) is random assignment. Now it seems that you're claiming that getting a bad batch is a good deal as it will be easier to get them to improve...
Both can be simultaneously true.
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why Algebra is required to understand basic stats I don't understand how you can say this. Literally every statistical concept is defined via formula, and to manipulate formulas correctly (or even really understand the concept) you need basic algebra. Going even further than that, if you have the most basic "business scenario word problem", like cells in excel that describe how many widgets are made per hour, how m…
I struggled a lot with Algebra, I forged my teacher's signature to not retake it for the third year in a row. I didn't really "get" it until I started programming and learning stats. That's when it all hit me, then I went back and had to relearn what the hell they were talking about during my middle school years. Also, once I got to Highschool math, Algebra 2 and PreCalc, it was very easy to simply memorize formulas…
As a counterpoint, a lot of business majors seemed to think that Econ 101, let alone calc-based 410, was the hardest thing in the world.
The class is all graphs but there usually no numbers—it’s all about the intersections and regions under different curves. Usually all drawn with straight lines to keep it simple in 101.
I think the people that found it hard did not have the fluency they needed in mathematics. If you can’t rearrange some simple linear equations, then things become very difficult.
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#187The actions that the California state education system towards Blacks and Brown kids are exactly what the most insidious racist person would do. If I hated Black and Brown kids, I would lower the education standards so low that these kids would graduate high school being unable to compete at the city, state or country level. And this is EXACTLY what is happening. Half of the Black kids in SF are graduating high schoo…
I have both of my kids enrolled in SFUSD and what you describe is exactly what's happening. Majority of “affluent” parents and immigrants are enrolling their children in Sylvan, Kumon, hiring Russian instructors, and so forth. Even school counselors will suggest this, as they also enroll their own children in such programs and subtly encourage you to do the same.
However, if a child belongs to a disadvantaged group, then they're out of luck. There's virtually no assistance available for them. While the district does offer free after-school and extra classes through SF State, these require a significant amount of paperwork which, as you probably know, necessitates full involvement from both parents. Essentially, the system is set up so that disadvantaged children don't receive the help they need.
It's a truly racist system. Yet, they can freely post on Twitter, touting how great and progressive they are.
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you offer any evidence or reasoning as to why I should believe this? It would seem to assert that somehow student success/failure currently sits entirely in the hands of teachers: they know what is needed and could do it if only they were marginally more motivated. I'm not a teacher myself but have been involved in the system my entire life and this doesn't ring true at all. Even if it were possible it would almo…
It works everywhere in the private sector. Having a base salary plus incentive pay for meeting objective goals is commonplace. Companies wouldn't do that if it didn't work. In my own company, Zortech, the staff was paid a base rate plus a cut of the gross sales for the month. > it would almost certainly result in teachers focusing all of their efforts on the best students and none of it on those who are struggling Ac…
but it doesn’t really work in the private sector. MBOs are common for US companies and to this day i’ve got teams across other departments that haven’t met MBO at 100% for years but the higher management seems it okay. the minimum work is still done but the full goals are never realized and these departments are just stuck in a rut. but, who cares? the minimum work is done, the progress numbers still go up, just we don’t have the ideal end result, just an acceptable one.
teachers already run the line of barely enough compensation to make it worthwhile except for those who are inclined towards teaching.
teachers are expected to do too much and there are too many goals imo for the position. whether we want it to be the case or not there is a huge social and mental health aspect to their jobs, and the standards look to be wildly inconsistent even within the same city as to what a successful education means.
like would you want to put a ton of effort in on a project knowing that the very next quarter you’re going to have to basically change the entire stack you’re working with and have a completely different set of regulations and project goals? and on top of it all, you need to get your team to even take the project seriously? and to make it even more fun a bunch of your teams’ families and friends are telling the world that the language you picked is awful and evil and are trying to regulate it out of use?
how much would you want for conditions like that every single project?
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#189I think we significantly overestimate how much school actually matters compared to family milieus. My wife and I highly value education, so regardless of when the school says children should learn algebra, I am already tutoring my 6 year old in basic algebra. If school did nothing other than be a daycare for my kids so we could work, they'd probably still be better educated than most kids going through public school…
Yes.
However, public schools should provide opportunities for children to break free from this destructive cycle.
And it is not about “family” values. What the single grandma can do? Or single mom having drug issues can do? And these two examples are 100% real world examples.
Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks
#190Well, "Yes Prime Minister" already figured it out. The whole education system is more for the welfare of bureaucracies and teachers/unions instead of students'. And that was some 40 years ago.
A bureaucracy tries to keep itself alive. That's part of its goal. But "Yes, Prime Minister" is a British series, so unions are small, and not well off; they've got some political influence, and form a jumping board for future politicians, but that too is the nature of "middle field", as it's known in Dutch: the sector between citizens and government. Teachers' welfare also can't be the point, since more and more people avoid becoming teacher altogether. It's too much work for a pretty modest income.
Education involves a lot of money. It's the interference of individuals that want some of that that deteriorates it.