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US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

bbc.co.uk

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Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#41

Post by nickff »

mikegioia wrote: post #24
aurelian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this be explained in part by people who are good at math tending to make more money than people who are bad at math? http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2...

It has nothing to do with that. Wealth in this country is in no way correlated to math ability.

Do you have any direct evidence of this?

I ask because it is well known that math ability is correlated with educational achievement, and level of education is known to be correlated with income. Putting these two together, I would suppose that math ability is correlated with income.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#42

Post by nickff »

pessimizer wrote: post #40
zaphar wrote: post #38

Only slightly related to the article actually but when did the pluralized term math s become a thing. I feel like it had to be recent but I've been noticing it everywhere lately.

Commonwealth people generally say maths. http://www.word-detective.com/2011/05/math-vs-maths/

Not in Canada.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#43

Post by skywhopper »

There are some major issues with this article, the more I look at it. The general tone is quite prejudiced--using Turkey, Chile, and Mexico as obviously terrible comparisons we should be ashamed of. The article also fails to mention that the two countries the US is ranked between are Sweden and Spain.

There's also no indication of the variation between #1 and #34 on the country rankings. Are the kids in Mexico 50% dumber than South Koreans? Or 5%?

Finally, is it a shock that there's variation in test results between US states? To whom?

There's plenty that can be critiqued about American education, but this article shows a lot of good ways not to do it.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#44

Post by noobermin »

stillsut wrote: post #26
josephschmoe wrote: post #4

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have both a school that performs on par with Sweden and another that performs on par with Turkey. What does this mean? Things are way worse for the poor here than this study even acknowledges. If you're poor in America, your best chance at a good education is by raf…

Having gone to school in MA, I know educational spending ($/student) here is inversely correlated with performance. But I'm not really worried about national average, state average, even school average: there just needs to be the opportunity to succeed for individual students, wherever they're located.

I think it is very much worth caring where the average is. This average person will grow up to become a voter and taxpayer and we need intelligent citizens to vote in competent representatives. Philosopher kings never happened, otherwise, just making sure the smartest get smarter would be okay; we have a democracy and the only way to make it work is to have informed citizens.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#45

Post by anigbrowl »

kevinpet wrote: post #20
yonran wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I just looked it up[1]. The common core math standard looks very readable and reasonable, and it’s not even very big (93 pages). Is there anything in particular that you found confusing, inappropriate, or overly prescriptive? For example, in Grade 7, there are about 50 requirements, one of which is “Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems. Examples: simple interest, tax, mar…

Common core invents new arithmetic techniques that no one knows. It's the worst idiocy of reinventing the world.

Citation needed.

As far as I can see common core defines standards of ability, rather than teaching methods. There are a bunch of awful, dreadful textbooks that claim 'common core compatibility' but which ignorant people conflate with being part of a common core syllabus, as if they are approved/endorsed by the same people who drafted the Common Core standards, whereas in reality textbook approval seems to be a an extremely politicized and corrupt process carried out by the individual states. I wish there were a single federalized syllabus, because it's not like Math works one way in Connecticut or Rhode Island and another in Texas or Arkansas.

Your argument is like saying Windows is terrible because you can find some poorly-programmed Windows software. Flaws in an individual textbook or exam paper are not the same thing as flaws in the standard they claim to adhere to. Perhaps you would like to use the link to the common core standard in the grandparent post to point out examples of what you are talking about.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#46

Post by [deleted] »

wil421 wrote: post #37
Jtsummers wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not one program for all. It wasn't "one program for all" in any of the public schools I attended in the US. Admittedly, we send everyone to high school (well, offer it, some students fail out early, some are failed by their teachers, others by their family). But once in high school, all 4 states (VA, NC, GA, NV) I'm familiar with (admittedly dated, 90s) had different tracks and graduation requirements. At least two…

I dont think common core was around in the 90s. Besides the tracks still share common math requirements. I believe at my school the only difference was you didnt have to take Math your senior year for vocational. (Of course honors/AP would be taking advanced courses). I was trying to say common core was "one program for all".

[deleted]

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#47

Post by zaphar »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #16
josephschmoe wrote: post #4

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have both a school that performs on par with Sweden and another that performs on par with Turkey. What does this mean? Things are way worse for the poor here than this study even acknowledges. If you're poor in America, your best chance at a good education is by raf…

I totally agree and am depressed that places like inner cities have such a hard time getting more charter schools and competition that would give these kids and their families a shot at a decent education. Is it politics? Teachers unions? Getting good admin people? What's holding back these places from getting ahead? As a comparison, my sister lives on the outskirts of a large metro area and their school has been tea…

All of the above.

Politics is involved through school boards where an understanding of education is not really considered a job requirement. And at state and national levels it's difficult to fix problems that are uniquely local.

Teachers Unions can create the wrong incentives in a district.

Good Admin people are hard to find and bad ones make the working environment unplatable for good teachers.

Add in money as well for some districts.

Re: US 'in denial' over poor maths standards

#48

Post by pessimizer »

nickff wrote: post #42
pessimizer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commonwealth people generally say maths. http://www.word-detective.com/2011/05/math-vs-maths/

Not in Canada.

Looks like it's more accurate to say that the English-speaking world generally says maths, excepting North Americans.
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