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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

#291

Post by tppiotrowski »

holonomically wrote: post #97
TimTheTinker wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're thinking that teaching people stuff is promoting a diversity of outcomes , which is anathema at the moment. Diversity is supposed to only extend as far as categories one mustn't use to discriminate (age, race, sex, religion, etc.). If it occurs in other areas (achievement level, ability in particular subjects) ... oooh that's bad. Must make it stop.

I don't understand what this means. Where I went to school there were no gifted programs but we all were doing algebra and word problems much earlier than in the US. If people want consistent outcomes then teach everyone the same thing and hold everyone up to the same standards by investing more resources in students that are underachieving. That to me seems like a much better way of equalizing outcomes.

My interpretation:

When most kids can’t do algebra, the teacher invests most of their time into helping those students catch up. Because most of the teachers time is now going to students who don’t understand algebra, algebra gets dropped all together. Minority high achievers who were capable of understanding algebra now feel that they are held back by low achievers.

High achievers should probably check out Khan Academy or similar…

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

#292

Post by ironman1478 »

wyager wrote: post #273
ironman1478 wrote: post #249

These efforts feel misguided. Black and Latino people aren't bad at math because of the language used in math education (most of the language seems neutral from what I remembered), it's because they are largely poor, due to structural racism or they are first generation immigrants who didn't come to work in tech or something. They're just poor and unfortunately it's hard to really do anything when you're poor in Amer…

The PC model that unequal outcomes would disappear if you simply addressed poverty, fought putative structural discrimination via affirmative action, etc. has been repeatedly applied and disproven at massive scale dozens of times since the 60s. It's a nice story but it doesn't seem to reflect reality at all. I don't think the model of "it's because the way math is phrased is racist" is a better model - in fact, it's…

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that fighting poverty would solve all issues by itself. However, its unclear to me how reducing poverty wouldn't help? I know its not related to the specific topic, but for example many people of color drop out of college because they cannot afford to stay in or feel obligated to help their families in time of need.

https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2014/06/child... It seems like alleviating poverty will help? It also just feels... obvious?

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

#293

Post by dkhenry »

ryan93 wrote: post #244
dkhenry wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing distributed along the bell curve is adults who are willing to help the kids. Yes for some kids it will come pretty easy, even at very young ages, but even very young children can learn these concepts if you would just spend some time teaching it to them. When you have a system set up to force one adult to teach 30+ children you will never be able to spend the time required to ensure everyone gets the c…

Incredibly uncommon for 30 kids a class in elementary school. Also many students can barely handle arithmetic without massive handholding. Algebra in elementary school is out of the question

You are correct that 30 is on the high side, but I have seen classrooms in Philadelphia with 30 students to a single teacher ( 3rd grade, during the 2005 school year so it may have changed since then). However even at lower ratio's the point remains, you need to hand hold the kids, and we don't give our teachers the time or flexibility to do that.

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

#294

Post by Daneel_ »

9th grade? This seems ludicrously late to me. I had algebra introduced in third grade (8-9 years old) and had a far easier time throughout school as a result. I've since gone on to have an interest in mathematics in my adult life. What reason could there possibly be for delaying its introduction until so late in one's school life?

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

#295

Post by mturmon »

primitivesuave wrote: post #257
spacecaps wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone interested, I think it's probably worth actually digging into Equitable Math's "Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction" [0]. I just skimmed some of it based on your link, and the majority of it just reads like "stop teaching math poorly." I was looking for some real burn-down-the-establishment stuff, but it's honestly pretty prosaic. For example: > "There is a greater focus on getting the "right" an…

Page 7 is where they completely lose me. "Students are required to “show their work” in standardized, prescribed ways" is a manifestation of white supremacy? If you click on that item, it takes you to a page where they suggest non-standard classroom activities like "Have students create TikTok videos, silent films, or cartoons about mathematical concepts or procedures." I'm pretty open minded about education pedagogy…

But it turns out that if you believe math is everywhere, then creating videos or cartoons to illustrate math concepts is actually kind of reasonable.

For instance, my kid drew a rather detailed human face in the desmos (http://desmos.com) graphing program using line segments, quadratics, cosines, and sines.

Doing this teaches you about what the graphs of these functions look like, and how to translate/scale/rotate the axes to get the curve you want.

It's basically like parametric typography, or SVG.

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

#296

Post by jjoonathan »

Jach wrote: post #279
Eelongate wrote: post #165

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 I sincerely hope you're not serious about this. I took algebra in 7th grade and I was considered a remedial student with habitually poor grades. If you're telling me I was actually 2 years advanced by present standards, then the situation in California must be deteriorating s…

For another data point, I took it in 7th grade too, that was only--oh god 2003 was nearly 20 years ago. Anyway, it was considered one year early for my public school district in Utah. Me and a few others in my 6th grade class who had good math grades were offered the chance to sign up for it early if we were able to pass a test administered by the junior high. I don't remember what the test had on it, I do remember a…

Ditto, 7th grade in Colorado. Yeah, they called it advanced, but they called everything advanced. You know the drill: grade school math is always "advanced," grad school math is always "introductory."

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

#297

Post by [deleted] »

csa wrote: post #247
dkhenry wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing distributed along the bell curve is adults who are willing to help the kids. Yes for some kids it will come pretty easy, even at very young ages, but even very young children can learn these concepts if you would just spend some time teaching it to them. When you have a system set up to force one adult to teach 30+ children you will never be able to spend the time required to ensure everyone gets the c…

> but even very young children can learn these concepts if you would just spend some time teaching it to them. Many decades of cognitive science disagree with you. See Piaget for one of the earlier researchers on this topic. Even though his original ideas have been refuted or refined, the basic premises of his ideas are still prominent among the large group of modern researchers that some people dub neo-Piagetians.

[deleted]

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

#298

Post by sg47 »

rllearneratwork wrote: post #66
justinzollars wrote: post #47

This state has lost its mind. When I have kids, they are going to private schools or if I can't afford that home school. Seems like the aim of California schools is to create politically radical students, who can't do math. Perfect for our times!

we have two kids: 4 and 7 and live in the Bay Area. And at this point every other parents we know of with kids of similar age are either private school, homeschool or are moving/have moved to Texas/Florida.

Texas/Florida, the bastions of intelligence

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

#299

Post by vinay427 »

wheelinsupial wrote: post #177
ldiracdelta wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bas…

This sounds identical to the system in the US: a mix of AP and more recently IB. It is interesting to me that the IB program has somewhat high status even in countries with (optional) academic tracks that are often more rigorous than the AP or A Level systems. It actually seems to be an effective equalizer for many students hoping to study in different countries.

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

#300

Post by holonomically »

thereisnospork wrote: post #289
holonomically wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the fallacy in teaching everyone the same things? That seems like a good way to equalize life outcomes and give everyone the required skills for succeeding in contemporary society.

In order to teach everyone the same thing you can only teach as much as the stupidest and least motivated person can grasp.

I don't see how that follows.
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