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'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

joannejacobs.com

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Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#451

Post by horns4lyfe »

bigbacaloa wrote: post #308
jschveibinz wrote: post #2

Argh this grinds my gears. It’s the education SYSTEM that is wrong. We are working with a 150 year old way of educating kids that does not apply to our culture today. Kids aren’t going to work on the farm or in a factory. They need the math!!! For courses like algebra, etc. kids need support at home from parents. When that support isn’t available (for whatever reason), don’t water down the content for goodness sake.…

Kids don't need "support at home from parents". Very few parents are competent to teach kids math properly (even those who think they are). Kids do better learning from someone else, better still if the someone else is a professional. Tutoring rarely helps anyone learn as it almost always consists in heavily guided spoon-feeding. Also there are very few good tutors as those who are adequately trained in math to tutor…

If the problem was kids showing up, trying hard, and not getting it then sure. But the problem is kids not showing up and putting no effort in when they do, and that’s on parents.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#452

Post by danenania »

TchoBeer wrote: post #226
danenania wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the breakdown of that 7/10 rating, test scores are 9 and “college readiness” an 8, while “equity”, whatever that means, is 4, which is what pulls the overall rating to a 7. This rating is not really a measure of the quality of the school.

A school filled with wealthy families will always have solid readiness and test scores, just because the families can afford whatever help is needed. A quality school wouldn't just let underprivileged children slip through.

I agree with you that this is important on a societal level, but making such a vague, contentious, and poorly defined input, which individual schools have a questionable ability to influence, 33% of a school's overall rating is nonsensical.

Imagine a school with a 10 for equity, but a 6 for test scores and 5 for college readiness. It will get the same 7 rating as Berkeley High. Which would you rather send your kids to?

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#453

Post by dh2022 »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #344
ertian wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcasm?

No, not at all, take 10% of the military budget, up the tax right for the high earners and make a better world. Imagine a place where no one had to be scared of living on the street, could get decent food, has access to free education and health care. What a wonderful world. It's totally within our capabilities and no one need suffer. Now I'm not saying it will be a great life but a basic life, it's been proved over…

" Imagine a place where no one had to be scared of living on the street, could get decent food, has access to free education and health care. What a wonderful world. "

This wonderful world already exists in the US. Poor people have access to Medicaid / Emergency Rooms. The debate about food insecurity is whether or not poor people can afford fresh vegetables (because living on rice, cheap meats and canned peas/beans is not nutritious enough). About living in the street - if you are living on the street when you can get a job as a limo driver for $30 / hour just by walking in then maybe is your fault???

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#455

Post by pandaman »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #448
pandaman wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how does this answer my question. "Paying properly" a teacher will make one's parents millionaire professors or as interested and capable in their children education how? Or do you simply deny that parents educate their children? Do you believe that as long as they have the same teachers at school, who are 'paid properly', say, a farmer's son and a son of a musician will have the same knowledge and skil…

My parents only told me to do homework. I don't think only millionaire professors can do this.

Are you saying that your parents are millionaire college professors and they have not told you anything other than to do your homework? That sucks, I imagine most parents are more involved with their children. My parents are just research scientist but I had no problem learning from them, they answered all kinds of questions for me.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#456

Post by dh2022 »

lostmsu wrote: post #180
g9yuayon wrote: post #24

> "Families with resources turn to fee-required online algebra 1 courses in eighth grade, outside the public school system, or enroll their kids in private schools," Isn't this obvious result? The Russian School of Mathematics could manage to teach 10-year old kids basic algebra. And there's AOPS, there's Think Academy, and slew of local tutoring schools who can teach kids relatively advanced maths. Let alone many pr…

For someone unfamiliar, what is Russian School of Math? A private school? An extra curricular activity?

Is a wonderful program teaching math. I cannot recommend it enough. I recommend it to all my friends. It starts from basics - in kindergarten they do problems like "there are 4 birds on a branch. 2 fly away. How many are left on the branch?". And then it builds and keeps building. My son is taking it. My son was solving linear equations when he was 11 years old. I think this is the best education he is getting - and the one that will stay with him the most.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#457

Post by kelseyfrog »

bendbro wrote: post #445
kelseyfrog wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My intentions aren't epistemologically accessible to you. What parents commenters are doing is laundering agency through a testing regime. It's part of the process of the absolution of responsibility of consequence. As an aside, it's clear that parent commenters aren't mature enough to be approached socratically. I regret their schools taught them to read and write. They clearly don't want to learn.

[flagged]

> I regret that your school didn't bully you enough to realize you shouldn't be an ideologically grotesque nerd.

You can bully me here. Let's see what you got.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#458

Post by macspoofing »

LeanderK wrote: post #442
macspoofing wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More support from the state of course … Success in schools should not be so dependent on the parents That’s the current theory and it fails. The reality is that public eduction is education at (massive) scale. There is no amount of available resources to create, say, a personalized learning environment with dedicated teachers for individual students - when you’re dealing with millions, or tens of millions of studen…

> That’s the current theory and it fails I do not see such evidence, maybe it fails in san francisco but that can have thousands of reasons. Everything I've read here points me to the fact that the public education is not good/comprehensive enough and too inflexible. I am honestly a bit shocked what i've read here, this is definitely not my experience with public education, like not at all. San francisco is rich, peo…

> Everything I've read here points me to the fact that the public education is not good/comprehensive enough and too inflexible.

Well … yeah. It’s education at scale. Anything at scale will be inflexible by definition.

> San francisco is rich, people make a lot of money there.

And there’s a lot of funding. The median per student funding in the SF school board is something on the order of 2 or 3 times the median US funding (a quick Google shows ~$22k vs $7k) and when compared to global averages, it’s through the roof. It’s not the level of funding. It’s not even the administration and curriculum either (remember, our bar is very low - we just want kids that can read when they graduate).

The way I figure, optimizing public education is a last-mile problem. There is value in taking kids from a B to an A, or providing a more enriching educational experience. So don’t think I’m arguing against more funding and better management. But this isn’t going to solve the core issue - parental neglect (and it is neglect if a kid graduates high school illiterate). At scale, the state cannot make up for that kind of neglect. In fact, that’s a big reason why you see the divide growing - everything that is tried, just ends up marginally improving or marginally deteriorating educational experience of kids who are already doing reasonably well.

> But while impossible to eliminate, you can try to minimise it and you should.

And my argument is, we’ve largely hit the limit on this kind of optimization. Spending more, and/or changing the curriculum with the same cohort of teachers, isn’t going to give you anything better than trivial (at best) improvements.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#459

Post by __lbracket__ »

Glawen wrote: post #245
__lbracket__ wrote: post #202

Why must "college level" be uniform in all subjects for all students? Vast majority of math (algebra, calculus etc) are of little use in most careers (even quantitative ones). So why must the society strive for equal outcome in a subject that is of questionable use? Why not prepare kids instead for something thats actually useful for a job?

Like a coding bootcamp?

I don't know enough to suggest what form it should take. But taking a broader view of 'job', I'd say expose them to possible career paths. Then, make clear the mapping between the broad job areas and the needed skills. This may at least provide motivation and context for the regular subjects. The down side is that folks don't know what they like until college and often much after that. So I also feel some reservation about this approach. All in all, my feeble understanding of this subject does not really allow me to take an informed position.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#460

Post by revelio »

jpgvm wrote: post #447
revelio wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mean per capita. Countries with very cheap or free university allow very few people to go on such terms, relative to the size of the population.

Yes but they also generally don't offer bullshit degrees that people obtain and then end up working at McDonalds. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium all come to mind as countries with free or near-free education that while they don't graduate the same % of their population through tertiary eduction it's not for lack of available opportunity but rather many people choose not to pursue tertiary eduction. This is actually a…

Sure. I'm not saying their approach is bad or wrong, I'm supportive of it. I'm just observing that it results in far fewer people getting degrees. Agreed that this may be for the best.
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