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

#331

Post by jobs_throwaway » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #173

kzz102 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenured professors do often fail large swathes of the class, and it's not hard to stand their ground because academic freedom is still very important in universities. This is not generally true for non-tenured and adjunct professors, but for a different reason -- their job review rely on a large part on student feedback forms, and failing students are not happy students. The idea that if only all professors stood the…

The universities can just fail them out and admit people who barely missed the admission bar in their place. Many of them will make it. What's wrong with making universities easier to get into, but harder to stay in?

A lot of hurt feelings. Which to be clear is productive. We treat university students with kid gloves far too much

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

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Post by tracker1 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

M3L0NM4N wrote: post #131

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…

The number 1 predictor of educational outcome is IQ by a long shot, which is hardly affected by any of the factors you listed. Yes, high IQ kids usually have high IQ parents who are likely to prevent those things, partly because they are likely high income, but none of those are as important as how smart the child is.

Most people are pretty average and plenty of average people make it through a typical Bachelors program just fine.

While there may be some concepts that some will struggle with or unable to handle, the VAST majority of school comes down to the effort an individual puts in. You won't pass with zero effort. Some may be able to skate by with less effort because they can reason better, but in the end it will always come down to effort put in.

If you are not high IQ, that means you need to put more effort if you want to get "straight A's"... it is emphatically not an excuse to give up, not try or lower standards. I say this as someone somewhat high IQ who was a bit lazy and easily distracted in school. There were lots of kids that weren't as smart that got high grades and did well.. because they put in the work. I'm also a bit older than a lot of people here (early 50's).

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

#333

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:25 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.

Doesn't this whole story suggest that the aversion to "preparing kids for tests" was wrong? The UC system changed its admissions policies to help kids who weren't prepared for tests, and now they have a bunch of students who don't seem to have been taught anything despite their high grades.

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

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Post by smileson2 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

Bratmon wrote: post #209

julianeon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This has the unintended consequence of encouraging schools to eject students who are struggling. For example, if the student has a learning disability, declare that it's too serious for them to handle, and then transfer th…

I think the answer to this is that schooling/care for people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to succeed in normal school should be a totally different budget with different success criteria than the budget for normal school. There are two different and contradictory goals here- the current dynamic where every gain for one is a loss for the other creates a ton of bad outcomes across the board.

In my experience ( to be fair which was a while ago ) things like that just end up making things worse trapping people and leading to a lot of lashing out

Honestly education really feels overthought and micromanaged already the whole setup is unhealthy

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

#335

Post by thewebguyd » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:25 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.

I said "society" not "schools." No, schools do not exist to fix every social problem.

But my point was that wealth = a child more likely to reach their potential. That's a real gap, and a real social problem that needs addressed, by the powers (government) capable of addressing it.

However, schools do have a duty to provide a safe and conducive environment for education. Many don't offer that. Many have meals that are inadequate, many have a bullying problem that schools refuse to address, many care more about their sports stars than they do providing equal opportunity for education, etc.

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

#336

Post by john_strinlai » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

1970-01-01 wrote: post #325

john_strinlai wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're talking about this claim you made: "You cannot reject more than one or two students in a year" which you appear to be basing on a high school article your ai supplied you, which is irrelevant to how many students a post-secondary institution can fail per semester. overlapping math levels is unrelated.

Do you disagree with this? https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-c...

it does not claim that professors are only allowed to fail 1 to 2 students in a year.

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

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Post by ninalanyon » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #287

watwut wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual alternative is to provide resources to schools that are in bad areas. And to provide resources for people in those areas themselves.

The results from Abbott Districts in New Jersey would suggest that increased funding and resources does little if anything to improve results. Abbott Districts in New Jersey have been getting funding at roughly the same level or higher as the wealthiest districts in the state since 1990, and they have nothing to show for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district The difference in math proficiency for Abbott s…

Resources != funding

Resources means teachers qualified, able, and willing to teach in those areas. That probably means paying them more than a similarly qualified teacher in an area that is currently doing better and hence more attractive. But it also means finding head teachers (principals in the US?) who can inspire the whole school, staff, pupils, and parents. Such people are not thick on the ground. And then you have to have stability.

Mere money will not do it, everyone has to work for it.

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

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Post by 650 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

make3 wrote: post #183

WarmWash wrote: post #159

Why do we have such an easy time accepting peoples intrinsic athletic ability and such a difficult time accepting people's intrinsic mental ability? To me this is a 1:1 comparison, but people lose their mind when I make the comparison. College isn't for everyone just like amateur league sport isn't for everyone. I feel like I am going to a minor league baseball game and seeing a shortstop on the field with the motor…

No one is saying there isn't, but it's objectively a stupid massive oversimplification of how complex things like a human brain and human learning really are. For one, people used to be a lot better, do unless you think people are actively dumber, you argument doesn't hold. School capabilities also correlates massively with things like access to resources and wealth of parents, and inversely with mental health. We al…

What do you mean people used to do a lot better? As far as I know https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect was a thing until recently.

The human body is quite complex as well.

Graduating a for profit private college that is aiming to maximize profit, by churning out specific degrees does not mean you are educated. Having a college degree is not synonymous anymore with well educated.

The measure (college degree) became a target, and thus it stopped functioning as intended.

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

#339

Post by mlsu » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

swiftcoder wrote: post #170

mlsu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely actively bad to involve a device in the vast majority of education. And, it’s a purely selfish thing by tech companies to insert themselves into education. A student should not see a computer until college or vocational school unless they are taking e.g a high school programming or electronics class.

> A student should not see a computer until college or vocational school unless they are taking e.g a high school programming or electronics class. Are you really trying to put the genie back in the bottle to the extent of making high schoolers write all their coursework by hand? Or maybe we should bring back the typewriter for distraction-free essay writing...

Yes, I really am. For the purpose of learning, internalizing and organizing information, hand writing is superior to typing in every case. It's physiological.

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

#340

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

gausswho wrote: post #260

hedora wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What pain, exactly? - The local public school goes from 80 kids per grade to 40, and a new school opens across the street or just rents an existing building from the existing school district. - Funding stays flat, and academic performance goes up. - Administrators get to decide which teachers to lay off, and they will be de facto fired if they get rid of the high performers while keeping the low performers. - If the…

The pains I was thinking of largely occupy the transitionary period of a school closing before alternatives are open. When does the deficient school close? After this new school is opened? If not, what happens to students and families that depend on an education in the interim? Who pays for this new school? Must they immediately show improvement or do they get some years to show that their approach is working better?…

I don't think these details are particularly hard to work out:

- You can shrink the deficient school to zero by reducing teacher count starting in the lower grades and moving up, and by allowing parents to opt for transfers in higher grades.

- The building still exists, so you could reuse it. Or, investors could build a new school. Obviously, there's some lag in the measurement, since it requires a few years of student data. I'd say look at the first and second derivative of the test scores. Note that the claw-back model deeply screws over investors that fund substandard schools. This is likely to create stranded real-estate for the next round of investors to buy at a discount.

- The metrics are produced downstream, so there shouldn't be measurement bias. There probably will be self-selection bias. There are existing funding mechanisms to deal with challenging student bodies. If those are working, then the per-student funding of the old school with skyrocket. If the old school still fails, then that produces a high-revenue group of students for some other new school to take on. If those funding mechanisms are not working, then it creates an externally detectable signal to the outside world that the problem is one level up (no schools in certain areas), making it easy for voters / courts to intervene (currently, those funding mechanisms are failing, and no one is held accountable).