California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by hindsightbias » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #307

darth_avocado wrote: post #14

Here's a revolutionary idea that pretty much all of the world adopts, if students are having trouble with a topic, get them to do more of it, instead of running away from it. I always find it hilarious that the pre college education in US is so messed up. Instead of doing Algebra 1, Algebra 2, calculus, geometry as one subject that you do in a year and then completely forgetting about it till the next time you have t…

what about this info ? Literacy Rate of India 2021 - To know development in a society, Literacy is another proper indicator of economic development. For purpose of census, a person in age limit of seven and above, who can both write and read with understanding in any of the language is considered as a literate in India. ... Although India has raised its current literacy rate of 74.04% (2021) from 12% at the time of I…

More Indians speak English than Americans. So rates don’t really matter.

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

#382

Post by poulsbohemian » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #76

at this rate, all California schools will just give a "P" grade for "participation". Just teach algebra in 8th grade but give everyone a "P", then nobody struggles!

There's more truth to this than you realize. My two middle schoolers now get a number grade for science, representing whether you are on, below, or above grade level. So as a parent if I see they have a 2.5 do I get worked up or not? They've made the grade meaningless and incomprehensible.

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

#383

Post by holonomically » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

thereisnospork wrote: post #374

holonomically wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thanks. That clears it up. You're right. We must teach no one anything otherwise there would be some people that wouldn't be able to understand. That was exactly what I was thinking and your example helped me understand. What you were saying was clearly tautological and I just didn't have the logical training to understand it.

I suppose this is what I get for trying to interact with someone in good faith on the internet.

Your interpretation of what I was saying was clearly adversarial and uncharitable so I just got tired of it. It's entirely possible to have high standards for everyone (including the "stupid") without reducing the quality of the curriculum. But you're not interested in having that discussion because you're grinding some other axe about what you perceive to be the ideological takeover of the educational system.

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

#384

Post by Mountain_Skies » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #335

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…

> then the situation in California must be deteriorating severely. Hmm… Worlds 5th largest GDP, internationally desirable cities, some of the highest housing prices that’s always being bought over asking price, often in cash - internationally acclaimed state wide university system, one of the cultural & academic centers of the nation… I know it’s like, my opinion, but I think the situation in California is fine. I’d…

Argentina used to be one of the richest countries in the world. Things looked fine there too, until they longer were.

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

#385

Post by CheezeIt » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

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?

Most high school math teachers don’t know calculus, it’s as simple as that. Even at good public schools, there is often just one in the math department that can teach it, but maybe also some science teachers could, too. In my school, some of these were great, highly engaging teachers for more basic math classes when teaching average and below average students.

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

#386

Post by zarzavat » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

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.…

It's all rather ironic because the only places in the world that seem to have this antipathy to mathematics are predominately "white" and anglophone. The rest of the world just gets on with it. There's nothing "whiter" than running scared away from mathematics.

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

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Post by 542458 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:25 AM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #248

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…

As someone who went through a gifted program, I seriously question the validity of any such study. So much more was expected of us, that of course we came out learning more. 8th grade was a 20 page research project. 6th grade math was algebra, in 7th grade we learned logarithms and binary math. When I went back to mainstream academics in high school, the difference was stark. In one of my city's top schools, students…

Look at the first of the linked studies - it’s quite large (national across the USA and uses both between school and between student analyses), so I’m not sure what would make it completely invalid. As you asked, it does also look at student absence rates and engagement, and saw no significant differences - so “boredom prevention” doesn’t seem to typically be a working feature either.

I would suggest that your experiences may not have been the norm. Anecdotally - I was also in a gifted program, and it was essentially a waste of the school’s money. We had an designated educator for the gifted program, and we mostly did things that were interesting… but didn’t really advance our education a lot. Even when we did cover advanced material, it didn’t really make a difference because we would have learned it in a year or two anyways. That assigned educator would have made a bigger difference helping struggling students rather than us.

It sounds like your program was maybe better targeted than ours, or you were a better fit for the model than me and my cohort. But on average, the data seems to suggest that most students are not significantly changed by gifted programs.

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

#388

Post by Nadya » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

rxhernandez wrote: post #311

ramesh31 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math in US high schools ends at what most countries would consider a middle school level. Algebra 2 is generally the only requirement. The vast majority of students graduate without ever even knowing what calculus is.

That means nothing. I have met plenty of people that did calculus in high school and got pushed back into remedial classes in college. Exposure to a concept does not mean proficiency in it.

I'd have taken exposure over nothing. I had to teach myself - as an adult - calculus, linear algebra, probability (outside of the ever-so-brief introduction in school) and trigonometry. I personally don't think I did a very good job as my own teacher either. 3Blue1Brown was a lifesaver and every now and again I try to brush up on the topics - not for my benefit at all but for my child's benefit in the future.

I think schooling absolutely failed me in almost every regard once I made it past the 4th grade. Half of what I learned isn't even true anymore or were partial truths/mostly lies to make it easier for a 5th/6th grader to grok and they'll be told "the truth" at some point later in high school or college only to never be told the truth or not have the opportunity to attend college where you finally would have been told the truth.

Exposure to something is the first step in learning about something.

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

#389

Post by mlyle » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #372

mlyle wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't realise teachers went under some kind of assessment to teach particular parts of their subjects. This is hugely variable within the US. > In the UK a mathematics teacher is just a mathematics teacher. They all have to teach calculus because that's part of the curriculum. If you couldn't teach calculus then you couldn't be a mathematics teacher. I think there's a lot of math teachers who would be a bit iffy…

Sounds like the difference is in the UK a teacher teachers a cohort of students through all subjects, not a subject for all cohorts of students. We have one maths teacher who teaches you everything. Maybe they're terrible at half of it? I don't know.

> Sounds like the difference is in the UK a teacher teachers a cohort of students through all subjects, not a subject for all cohorts of students. We have one maths teacher who teaches you everything.

Really? That's very interesting.

I had a different math teacher every year / level. I'm at a smaller independent school, where you may have the same math teacher a couple times but people definitely specialize-- we have the teacher who teaches mostly 6th grade math and pre-algebra, and a teacher who mostly teaches algebra I and geometry, and so on.

On the one hand, you lose continuity. But you also get a fresh start each year, with a new teacher who probably teaches the things you had trouble with in a different way...

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

#390

Post by ironman1478 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:28 AM UTC

carabiner wrote: post #186

fsn4dN69ey wrote: post #28

My parents introduced it to me at home around 4th-5th grade? So I was ~9-10yo? Not sure why delaying it will help, if anything the earlier the better. Everything I hear about "equity in education" seems to be making it worse, but more equally I guess. Like another poster already mentioned, reminds me of the Harrison Bergeron story by Vonnegut - seems like we are rapidly approaching that point. http://www.tnellen.com/…

Not all students are like you. I went to a low-ranked university my first year before transferring out. I met freshmen who really struggled with basic concepts, like what a vector is. I'm not sure they would ever get it even with all the tutoring in the world.

They would in my opinion. I was a tutor in high school and college for algebra. I worked with people some people who struggled. They all eventually got it if they wanted to get it, which they generally did to not get held back :p. You just have to work with them and truly understand what they are not understanding. The big issue is concepts are not learnable in isolation. You said vectors are basic, but are they? They were initially just abstractions to model sets of physics problems. Without the context, its pretty difficult to understand them IMO, especially things like dot products. "oh, i multiply two vectors and I get a number? what? Oh and that number can be described as the multiplication of magnitudes of the vectors multiplied by the cosine of their angle? Oh how do I get the magnitude? What's cosine again? etc." It goes forever and generally you'll find that people will struggle with basic things because they never had an opportunity to sit down and genuinely internalize those ideas.

Everything builds on other concepts and people's misunderstandings generally came from not truly understanding the basics. Its hard to personalize education at scale though.