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An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

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Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#311

Post by magicalist »

fartcannon wrote: post #196
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really true, in practice? For example, given its importance in every day life, I think everyone should understand test sensitivity and specificity, and how these relate to but are quite different from predictive value positive and predictive value negative. All of those topics can be understood with basic algebra. Similarly, I recall my introduction to biostatistics class I took at an Ivy League institution,…

At some point, someone was saying precisely this about literacy. And it was as true then as your comment is now. You only need some range of function around the baseline education to operate in society. But if you want society to progress, then everyone needs to learn to read and write.

At some point someone was saying the same thing about Greek and cursive, too, though, so being merely more than the baseline isn't sufficient evidence that it should be included in everyone's education.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#312

Post by rayiner »

vkou wrote: post #211
khazhoux wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand if you're saying that every kid is equally good at math. Or, similarly, that every kid that the same capacity for it or ability to pickup math concepts. Because it seems to me that if you have experience with any sampling of children where N>1, you'll see that's simply not true.

> I don't understand if you're saying that every kid is equally good at math. I'm not, there are always extreme outliers and exceptions, but I do believe that the vast majority of children can meet the incredibly low bar for mathematics education that is considered normal in North American schools. I also believe that teaching them to be afraid of math, (and having their teachers be afraid of math) is a major contrib…

> (and having their teachers be afraid of math)

This is a big one. I was in sixth grade when my science teacher told me that the boiling point of water was 132F, because she thought you added 32 to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit.

This problem runs all the way down, from teachers colleges to the kinds of people who apply to be K-12 teachers. That fearing math is okay and normal is pervasive in the culture and it’s not clear to me you can even do anything about it other than implement gating math credentials for teachers that would exclude a huge fraction of teaching school graduates.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#313

Post by klodolph »

rayiner wrote: post #296
klodolph wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that those beliefs are a workable explanation here. These proposals come from committees and groups of people, and it's just not realistic to write off the entire group of people behind these proposals as having some uniform set of beliefs like that, especially when they give other rationales for the proposals! The current school system makes decisions in middle school (8th grade and earlier) which dete…

It sounds like you and OP differ only in that he thinks the people on the committee have these beliefs, while you’re implying that they’re afraid of “political pressure” from people who hold these beliefs. Which I suspect is correct.

I was thinking less that they are "afraid" of political pressure, and more that responding to political pressure is one of the things that these committees do, by design.

Political pressure is a manifestation of the population's problems / beliefs / perceptions. It's wrong to bow completely to political pressure, but it's also wrong to ignore it.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#314

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

zozbot234 wrote: post #133
cwkoss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is calculus an important highschool goal? I feel like I may have benefited more if that time was spent on statistical literacy than calculus. I encounter stats very often in my adult life, calculus style problems are rare and I don't remember the formulas offhand, so end up just looking up what I need.

Stats requires calculus; you can't even define a probability distribution without some pretty advanced notions of real analysis. Discrete math, linear algebra etc. are viable alternatives.

There’s a diminishing return here. Single variable differential and integral calc is a sweet spot. Without that, there’s a ton of memorizing seemingly unrelated facts, but with it, you can learn a few principles that lead to a huge amount of practical stuff.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#315

Post by namelessoracle »

kurthr wrote: post #27

From the original letter: While well-intentioned, we believe that many of the changes proposed by the CMF are deeply misguided and will disproportionately harm under-resourced students. Adopting them would result in a student population that is less prepared to succeed in STEM and other 4-year quantitative degrees in college. The CMF states that 'many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration beginning i…

Goodharts law is in effect. They have a target they are trying to hit and are aiming a different way towards it.

They are optimizing towards "High School Graduates" and "College Graduates". And if they need to destroy the value of being any kind of graduate to get there. So be it.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#316

Post by Dig1t »

It's kind of funny how both sides of the political aisle have extremists who find ways to argue that being dummer is better. They mirror each other in so many ways and sometimes the two extremes kind of wrap back around to the other side and have the same goals.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#317

Post by tonguez »

klodolph wrote: post #309
jollybean wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no two people in the world with the same beliefs - nobody is suggesting that. There is however a very broad movement of people who believe that unequal outcomes are a manifestation of racism and so they act accordingly in their roles in government etc.. Many of these people are in the civil service and so this will influence their view. It would be 'insane' to ignore this movement, it's one of the most powe…

You're saying it's one of the "most powerful social forces in the US right now"... is there any particular reasoning here? To be honest, it sounds like an extremist take on the nature vs nurture argument which has been playing out for millennia and I don't see a reason to believe that somehow the extreme version nurture side of the argument has become dominant here. If anything, it's easy to remember the pendulum swi…

“I don't see a reason to believe that somehow the extreme version nurture side of the argument has become dominant here”

watch “the news” or go on twitter

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#318

Post by npunt »

ecshafer wrote: post #227
npunt wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood the cult of calculus. I think it comes from mistaking the importance of its discovery for the importance of teaching it. It was a huge unlock for science, but is in no way a huge unlock for most people's lives. On the other hand, I feel psychology and stats are the biggest missing pieces in K12 education. We need to build greater awareness of human needs and fallibilities, and awareness of how t…

Calculus is critically essential for learning many later math fields, and many important topics. Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Aerospace, etc. There is a lot of very critical fields to modern society that requires knowledge of calculus. You can't build a modern bridge without calculus.

I don’t dismiss its value in the broader education system, nor for certain industries and jobs. But specifically in the context of K12 requirements & expectations in the process of applying for college, it’s hardly foundational knowledge for most of life’s paths.

Ergo, it’s best to a) not to have college expectations be built around most/everyone having it before college and punishing those who don’t, b) focus on teaching it where it’s needed (eg when in college for those majors), and of course c) if a kid knows their path involves it earlier, make it available to learn when they want to.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#319

Post by civilized »

zozbot234 wrote: post #104
civilized wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more earlier and earlier doesn't comport well with child development and can backfire by making students feel incompetent. We need better teachers, probably by paying more so more talented people join the profession.

Other countries do a lot of "pre-algebra" in the later grades of primary education, when the kids are quite ready for it; "drill and kill" rote methods are generally focused on in very early grades, since they help build familiarity with the sort of rigorous, algorithmic thinking that's required for good math proficiency. This is what Russian Math, French Math, Singapore Math, etc. are built on, and the approach has…

I wholeheartedly endorse Singapore Math, Russian Math, Canadian Math (this is a thing, check out John Mighton's fantastic JUMP program). ANYTHING but US math.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#320

Post by commandlinefan »

H8crilA wrote: post #159
kurthr wrote: post #27

From the original letter: While well-intentioned, we believe that many of the changes proposed by the CMF are deeply misguided and will disproportionately harm under-resourced students. Adopting them would result in a student population that is less prepared to succeed in STEM and other 4-year quantitative degrees in college. The CMF states that 'many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration beginning i…

What does "calculus" here mean? I'm not American, no idea what's included in that word and what's outside, in this context. Does it mean limits, derivatives, integration (Newton), maybe even some high level talk about ODEs for the "very best" schools? Anything more, anything less? Also, in case anyone is also wondering, 8th grade means 13-14 years old.

> limits, derivatives, integration (Newton), maybe even some high level talk about ODEs

My son is taking high school BC Calculus (one step above "AP" calculus) this year. It includes limits, derivatives, integration (including integration by parts and partial fraction decomposition), ordinary differential equations, infinite series and taylor/mcluarin series.

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