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

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

#271

Post by jsLavaGoat » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #263

hedora wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California used to have the best schools in the country, and roughly a third of our urban population is Silicon Valley. It's home to the largest economy in the US by a large margin, and is one of the richest states. Yet, somehow, for math: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=... the only states/territories doing worse at math are DC, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Alabama. I'm not sure what Alab…

Because most of California isn't Silicon Valley. The good parts of the Bay Area (which also align to where the majority of the tech industry is) have public schools that haven't changed their curricula despite common core. On the other hand, the rest of California has had significant financial and budget crises and never recovered from the 2008-13 California budget crisis.

>public schools that haven't changed their curricula despite common core.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Anyway, most of this has to do with the math framework, not the standards.

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

#272

Post by jjmarr » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

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 attended a specialized math and science program (MaCS) in the TDSB. It was gutted by removing selective admissions in favour of a lottery, precisely because of the report you've cited.

The "levelling" is real in Canada and good private schools often manage to skip multiple grade levels.

Funnily enough, I've seen the opposite in the USA. My highly driven American friends somehow manage to get entire associate's degrees before finishing high school, which is unthinkable in Canada.

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

#273

Post by mos_basik » Thu, May 28, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

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.

God, what a great book, imo. My favorite Stephenson novel.

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

#274

Post by watwut » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #122

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…

They got rid of paper because teachers are lazy and do not want to spend time grading things by hand. I’ve spoken to the head of curriculum at a school asking why when given the choice of paper or digital format of a math exam, they picked the digital. I specifically mentioned it’d be inferior as students would not be able to draw atop geometry problems or cross out numbers when simplifying expressions. The response…

> I specifically mentioned it’d be inferior as students would not be able to draw atop geometry problems or cross out numbers when simplifying expressions.

All digital tests I have seen allowed paper and pen. You would draw and calculate on paper and submit the result.

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

#275

Post by j_w » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #267

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…

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.

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

#276

Post by mtrifonov » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

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 wouldn't even say it's the devices, exactly. The way I see it, this is all downstream of kids spending more time online than in real life (because all THEIR friends are online, rather than in real life). Device time-out doesn't exactly remediate that structural issue. And the whole testing debate kind of sails right past it.

My take is that the test won't make kids better at math. At best, it'll drift towards investment in reward-hacking the exam (like it always was).

I think it was idiotic to make it optional to begin with. The stats they're talking about, though, can't be a primarily admissions-signal problem. Whatever they're using these days in lieu of exams are imperfect proxies for math skill, sure, but it's not like they're admitting kids off their CoD K:D. Kids taking APs and stacking extracurriculars are generally motivated. So, if even the motivated ones show up unable to do middle school math, the cause is more systemic than "we stopped testing."

My vote: TikTok brain rot. I build LLM products and I see how the parasocial pull shows up even when the products have nothing to do with companionship. I watched one user obsessively spin up 44 separate chats around a K-Pop vampire character over a week. The product is NOT designed for that. The pull toward frictionless digital reward is just that strong, and that's what kids' attention is up against now. Math is the most effortful, least immediately rewarding thing they do. Doesn't stand a chance against an infinite feed, and I guess infinite vampires either.

Which is why the ask from the faculty is kind of arrogant. The article, at least, doesn't even float a hypothesis for WHY math skills collapsed, simply assuming standardized testing fixes it. I wholly believe in standardized testing — but it measures the problem, it doesn't fix it.

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

#277

Post by alephnerd » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

jsLavaGoat wrote: post #271

alephnerd wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most of California isn't Silicon Valley. The good parts of the Bay Area (which also align to where the majority of the tech industry is) have public schools that haven't changed their curricula despite common core. On the other hand, the rest of California has had significant financial and budget crises and never recovered from the 2008-13 California budget crisis.

>public schools that haven't changed their curricula despite common core. You have no idea what you're talking about. Anyway, most of this has to do with the math framework, not the standards.

My mom's a teacher at one of these schools, we still have friends sending their kids to them, and I'm still in contact with my HS teachers at that school.

In wealthier areas of the Bay like Saratoga, Cupertino, Campbell, Fremont, Palo Alto, Tri-Valley, Lamorindia, etc the school districts are only paying lip service to common core and still teaching as they were during my time.

Most students take multiple AP classes (and the HSes usually offer 15-20 APs) as well as attend the local CC, UC Berkeley, or Stanford to take additional classes.

The schools that are militantly common core and trying to remove classes are also (frankly) in crap school districts like SFUSD or OUSD where school board elections are dominated by local activists who oftentimes don't even have kids but are using the board as a stepping stone into local politics, and due to their reputations and low pay are unable to hire teachers for more advanced classes anyhow.

There's a reason the kind of house that would go for $1.5M in Sunset would go for $2.5M in the Peninsula or Tri-Valley.

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

#278

Post by smcg » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

lokar wrote: post #31

dmoy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the real underlying problem then

They should not admit students who have little chance of success

It's difficult to assess which students have a chance of success without standardized testing.

"In 2024, over 25% of the students in Math 2 had a math grade average of 4.0".

Math 2 is the remedial elementary and middle school math course at UC SD. Lack of standardized testing plus grade inflation contributes to this outcome.

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

#279

Post by pelagicAustral » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #226

ryandrake wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measuring (and funding) schools based on student outcome is fraught because a student's performance / preparedness for the "next level" is not entirely a function of the school. There are other significant parameters, including parental upbringing, home life stability, neighborhood safety, friends, hunger/nutrition, various trauma and abuse, the list goes on. I'm sure it's been studied, but I'd bet "school quality" i…

It’s also fraught because schools will spend increasingly large fractions of the time preparing kids for tests instead of teaching them anything.

Wasn't this the plot of the Wire season 3 or something?

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

#280

Post by 59percentmore » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #240

thewebguyd wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heritability of IQ actually changes based on wealth, so its the other way around. A child from a wealthy family will reach their potential, where one from a poorer family will not. ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14629696/ ) A child may have the genetic potential but never reach their potential because of outside factors. One's environment shapes one's brain development. That's why equity is just as important a…

That mistakes the point of education. Schools do not exist to fix every social problem, and demanding they treat fixing every social problem as their number one priority is how we got into this mess of "teach nothing but make sure everyone passes" in the first place.

>Schools do not exist to fix every social problem

By law, they monopolize up to half of a child's waking life for more than half of the year. This time commitment requires that parents put at least one meal, a substantial portion of the child's physical development, and almost all of their intellectual development (and, by extension, a substantial portion of their behavioral development) in the hands of the school.

If educational institutions are not taking seriously their potential influence on the social outcomes of their students, they're completely misunderstanding the practical mantle they've taken on. And so have you.