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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

#341

Post by geomark »

heavyset_go wrote: post #263
geomark wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say a strong counter to your argument is that Covid highlighted the need for much better STEM education, because of how painfully obvious it was that so many do not understand "the science". That's in quotes because that's the phrase that was bandied about so often.

> I would say a strong counter to your argument is that Covid highlighted the need for much better STEM education, because of how painfully obvious it was that so many do not understand "the science". I'd argue that information literacy is more important. I know plenty of STEM-credentialed people who might have insight into their narrow STEM field, but are effectively data illiterate when it comes to evaluating data…

Definitely agree that it's a data literacy problem. But I consider that part of STEM education. For example, people should be able to look at plots of daily infections early in the pandemic and consider that they likely are growing at an exponential rate and the implications for that, rather than dismissing the dangers because the daily case numbers are still small. And understand how false positive and false negative rates of tests implicate policy decisions.

But you are ultimately correct in that most people don't really care to understand it.

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

#342

Post by ceejayoz »

bko wrote: post #266
542458 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gifted programs do very little or nothing as far as most studies can tell. Any gains in scores are very small, and they don’t appear to make any meaningful difference in student engagement or motivation. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/01623737211008919 https://www.nber.org/papers/w17089 These programs are relatively expensive, and there’s a strong argument the gifted programs should be overhauled, or that t…

> Gifted programs do very little or nothing as far as most studies can tell. Any gains in scores are very small, and they don’t appear to make any meaningful difference in student engagement or motivation. I really don't need a study telling me my child won't benefit from a gifted program. It's a parent's right to decide for themselves. I personally know many people that have benefitted and it made their childhood be…

> I personally know many people that have benefitted and it made their childhood bearable.

Barring a time machine or the discovery of a way to skip across a multiverse, this is an assertion without much of a control group.

That’s why we need studies.

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

#343

Post by Glyptodon »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #232
friedman23 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people that are good at math and love science / engineering decide to go into politics? I'm just talking without evidence but my guess is politics self selects for ambitious people that are completely inept when it comes to mathematics and critical thinking in general.

https://hundred.org/en/innovations/student-government-lotter... 99pi did a story on this some time ago. Having an election means that kids who are shy or not popular miss out. But who would otherwise have valuable skills and want to contribute. So randomly selecting kids but giving them an out if they don’t like the job ended up working really well. Can this be applied to government???

Sortition is classic and worth trying in modern times.

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

#344

Post by goalieca »

jjoonathan wrote: post #296
Jach wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

True that. I finally learned some basic algebra in grad school. I also learned just how far from advanced I really was.

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

#345

Post by threatofrain »

spacecaps wrote: post #227
threatofrain wrote: post #121

The program is called Equitable Math and it frames current mathematics pedagogy as a mechanism by which White Supremacy is sustained.¹ Note that in a very long multi-part document on White Supremacy, there is absolutely zero mention of Asians, despite that they are somewhere between 15.5% to 17% of the state population.² Program goals includes the de-emphasis of Algebra for middle school and Calculus for high school.…

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…

The Common Core for math, which is adopted in the majority of US states, emphasizes deep understanding of underlying concepts over rote memorization. The reason why we aren't arguing for the Common Core to adopt "better teaching" is because that would leave out the most important mechanism — that every child under Equitable Math must be at the same level.

Without the requirement that all children must be at the same level, some children would still race ahead, and in terms of appearances, that would severely risk the reputation of Equitable Math as the way to fall behind. The battleground is not on whether the Common Core should be deeper, or even whether the Common Core ought be reformed at all, but rather that all children should be at the same level.

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

#346

Post by lern_too_spel »

nefitty wrote: post #159
WillPostForFood wrote: post #5

It’s the official shift from “we can lift everyone up” to “we need to hold everyone down”. It wasn’t that long ago the California was touting the success of Algebra for everyone in 8th grade.

Looking out from this moment in history, if I wanted to prepare someone for the future, STEM wouldn't be the main focus. I know it's anathema to say. In a world where computers fold proteins and predict programmer's intentions, the value of technical knowledge is showing decay. In the world we're hurtling toward, we don't need people who can recite the Pythagorean theorem. We need people who can cooperate with other…

We never needed people who can recite the Pythagorean theorem. We need people who can prove it. When you have a population who doesn't understand how the world works and is taught to simply believe facts given from on high, it is relatively easy to change who those facts come from, and in an age of easy publication via social media, this has been weaponized.

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

#347

Post by dragonwriter »

threatofrain wrote: post #317
giantg2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question in my mind is, how useful is calculus in most people's lives?

Not very useful, since most people don't work in technical professions. But if you want to pursue further technical studies, then that's a different ballgame. To me, the question isn't whether Calculus will be useful to somebody who intends to study nursing, but rather whether the doorways to other venues will be made that much narrower, or closed altogether. Under Equitable Math, all children must be at the same lev…

> Under Equitable Math, all children must be at the same level,

That's not true; the proposed Framework model shifts from a focus on breadth differentiation to a focus on depth differentiation.

You could just as well argue that the existing approach tries to force all students to be “at the same level”, since it neglects the differentiation opportunity that the proposed framework focuses on. That would, also, be wrong, but no more wrong than your characterization.

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

#348

Post by mlyle »

chrisseaton wrote: post #288
sokoloff wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both my parents were public school math teachers. There are gradations of teaching qualifications* in some districts and, even where there aren’t, the math department head usually knows which teachers are incapable of teaching beyond Algebra II or incapable of teaching specifically Calculus. Presumably, if a teacher has ever been assigned to teach a Calculus class, they are a Calculus teacher. * Concrete example: our…

I don't really get how you can be a mathematics teacher and not know enough to be able to teach calculus? Like surely you've done calculus yourself?

I think a few years ago I could have written a comment like this, but now I've been a teacher for a couple of years now.

It is hard to teach something. Being able to do it is isn't anywhere near the level of expertise needed to:

* Do it up on a board at a moderately quick but consistent cadence, with engagement and narrating the whole part through.

* Not be taken off track by inevitable distractions.

* Understand the stack of necessary knowledge in the ways needed to figure out what a student is missing.

* Completely reinvent your lesson plan when you find the students unexpectedly lost, providing whatever the missing bit of knowledge is to get your class back on track.

* Handle unexpected diversions and requests for deeper knowledge on the fly.

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

#349

Post by thaumasiotes »

com2kid wrote: post #255
readams wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gifted programs aren't the same thing as tracking kids into more advanced math classes. A gifted program is where you take some kids aside and teach them some random extra stuff, at the end of the day they're still in the regular classes with the other kids also and don't really have a chance to go any faster.

> A gifted program is where you take some kids aside and teach them some random extra stuff, at the end of the day they're still in the regular classes with the other kids also and don't really have a chance to go any faster. Those are modern cut rate gifted programs. The 90s had gifted programs where students who tested well got placed into a separate cohort for core classes (English, History, Math) in Middle and Hi…

I was in a program in the 90s which consisted solely of sending the smarter kids out of the classroom periodically to work on logic puzzles with each other.

The only educational purpose served was getting them out of the classroom so that more attention could be given to the dumber kids.

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