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

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

#651

Post by lo_zamoyski »

habinero wrote: post #476
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all for helping the worse off. However, one of the most repulsive ideas is that you can cripple everyone else, because some people have less. This is slave morality and the logic of ressentiment and envy. It is also profoundly immoral. Never mind that this approach condemns everyone to a state of perpetual mediocrity, and the poor will always be with us. Mind you, how much you value education is to a large degre…

> I am all for helping the worse off. However, one of the most repulsive ideas is that you can cripple everyone else, because some people have less. Bruh. It's easy to prattle on about "objective improvement" and "slave morality" and pretend everything's a zero sum game where funding is fixed and we can do nothing to change the system. Neither is true. This is just an excuse to absolve yourself of doing any of the ha…

Perhaps you should learn to read, because your response (even putting aside the juvenile bits woven into it) doesn't actually respond to it, and certainly not with any real substance.

> pretend everything's a zero sum game

This claim is truly amazing. My post is exactly a rejection of the notion of a zero sum game. How can you reconcile the assertion that you can both enable excellence and assist the poor? Perhaps your aren't familiar with what a zero sum game is.

You don't achieve true solidarity by crippling those better off. In fact, that is what produces zero sum game thinking, because people get defensive, and rightly so.

> absolve yourself of doing any of the hard work to improve things.

What does that even mean? A parent's responsibility is first and foremost to their own children. If you don't accept that, then we have nothing further here to discuss. Children are not the sacrificial lambs of your pet political project.

(I am a bit curious about your accomplishments here, since you so self-righteously demand "hard work" from others. Did you force your own children to attend a garbage school when you could have given them a better option? I suppose that's at least consistent, but it is still unjust and a failure of parenting.)

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

#652

Post by duxup »

hedora wrote: post #53

This doesn't surprise me at all. From what I can tell, California's education system has moved from "equality" (which I would define as providing similar opportunities to all the kids) to focusing on "equity" (which I think they define as dictating the same outcome for all kids). To get an idea of how off the rails this has gotten, go read up on their statements trying to justify banning high school calculus. They ex…

That’s an interesting contrast to what I perceive as an issue where I am.

Where are my kids go to school there’s plenty of classes for gifted kids (as in kids who excel in a traditional school environment). And there’s plenty of help for kids with challenges.

But it feels like there’s really nothing to try to move the needle for anyone else, anyone not super motivated or with specific challenges.

If you doing “ok” nobody cares.

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

#653

Post by ethbr1 »

bsder wrote: post #559
ethbr1 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple things can be true, because the goal is to optimize in aggregate. - Some teachers are bad (and some students will have them) - Overriding teachers with policies intended to control the bad ones impairs and burns out the others Consequently, the reasonable path is somewhere in the middle. Create feedback systems designed to identify and weed out the worse teachers* and avoid overloading everyone else with out…

> it consistently amazes me that few systems, teaching included, regularly poll their end users (students or employees) That completely ignores the social and political aspects. You need to understand that the people who have the authority to do so do not want to document bad teachers, ever . Documenting bad teachers makes political waves and principals and superintendents never want to make waves because that impede…

Entitled to your opinion, but this feels like an overly-complicated socio-political rationale for something that's equally explained by leadership laziness.

It's not rocket science to set up a continuous leader feedback mechanism.

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

#654

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

wink wrote: post #648
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making high schoolers write all their coursework by hand You make this sound like it is some long-gone practice. I was writing maths by hand as recently as 2020 in university , for my CS-associated maths courses (linear algebra, calculus, physics for computer graphics, etc). In pre-university essentially all coursework was done by hand, and the national exams are all still handwritten.

Writing it down by hand and then doing OCR on a high quality photo is a completely different ball game than writing it down and... not having it in digital form though. I'm not disagreeing at all here, I tried live latexing my math courses and it was hard. I wish I had had access to a cellphone + good digitization back then. (just scanning it in was kinda pointless and I graduated about the time Android came out)

> I tried live latexing my math courses

This was by far the biggest time sink in my maths courses, and frankly, a giant waste of time. Sure, the end result looked beautiful but I think I understood less of it than if I'd just written it all down on A4 ruled paper in gel pen.

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

#655

Post by Jensson »

happytoexplain wrote: post #563
delecti wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectation: removing standardized tests will give more opportunity to students who historically tend to do worse on those tests, like poor kids. Reality: removing standardized tests means that universities have to put more weight on the rest of the college application, such as extracurricular activities which are often expensive and thus disadvantage poor kids. Calling it a "paradox" is maybe a little hyperbolic, bu…

But this is relative, right? We're talking about SATs vs just relying on grades. Do poor kids do worse on SATs relative to how they do in their class grades, as compared to other kids? I kind of just figured poor kids do worse overall .

Its easier to get good grades in poor schools since regardless how you grade your teachers grade you against your peers, and poor schools have worse peers. So given same knowledge poor students have better grades, so their grades will be relatively better than their SATs.

At least in public schools were you don't have an incentive to give everyone an A, maybe private schools are different.

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

#656

Post by Jensson »

jrflo wrote: post #266

It's weird to me that standardized tests were demonized as anti-equity rather than GPA. You can always get extra help with homework, projects, etc. if you have a better funded support system. Single subject/unit tests in high school are also much more narrow in scope and easier to prepare for. A standardized test on the other hand is so wide in breadth that raw abilities will shine more.

Its because the people pushing for these changes are privileged and stupid, so they want the most gameable version to still be there ie GPA and extracurriculars and not the SAT.

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

#657

Post by niwtsol »

sometimelurker wrote: post #620
trunnell wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've heard: - It can make kids "overconfident when they see material they think they already know, so they end up not engaging." - Some programs, particularly RSM, are criticized for valuing speed over depth. Current culture for K-8 math teachers is the opposite, they value depth over speed. Left unsaid: - It can make the teacher's job harder when the class has a wide span of abilities. - Current teaching culture is…

> valuing speed over depth have you shown them the lengths of the homeworks RSM gives? vastly more depth than any hw a public school would give imo.

I believe there are some public schools that have stopped giving homework for k-5 completely which is just shocking to me.

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

#658

Post by niwtsol »

trunnell wrote: post #566
niwtsol wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on the reasoning they "strongly discourage math outside of school"? I'm genuinely curious how that would be a stance they take.

We've heard: - It can make kids "overconfident when they see material they think they already know, so they end up not engaging." - Some programs, particularly RSM, are criticized for valuing speed over depth. Current culture for K-8 math teachers is the opposite, they value depth over speed. Left unsaid: - It can make the teacher's job harder when the class has a wide span of abilities. - Current teaching culture is…

Got it, thanks for the response - I think my honest reaction is shocked by reading this. I was always good at math and it was such a source of pride and sense of accomplishment. In english I struggled, vowel sounds, grammar, it just didn't come naturally to me. I'm a little disheartened by this slide (for lack of a better word) of public school education, especially STEM.

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

#659

Post by tnecniv »

borski wrote: post #448
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give teachers authority again. It shouldn't be their problem if a student wants to fail the class.

The problem is that just like students, teachers are not all created equal. My 3rd grade teacher wanted to fail me for “discipline” problems. In reality, she simply didn’t like me; I had no discipline complaints in other years. I had undiagnosed ADHD and was gifted. She did not know how to deal with that, and actively disliked me. Activist teachers are also a thing.

That happened to me in high school. I was in "advanced" freshman bio. Teacher gave me a B. When my parents inquired during a parent-teacher conference, she said I looked like I wasn't paying attention.

Fast forward ten years and the therapist I was seeing for seemingly unrelated reasons diagnoses me with ADHD...

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

#660

Post by maxglute »

dyauspitr wrote: post #581
maxglute wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PRC has affirmative action points on gaokao for "underperforming" minorities, well it's been phased out to economically disadvantaged minorities last few years to mitigate privilege stacking. So system not incompatible with affirmative action, but even then tier2 PRC schools the affirmative action floor is still like 95th percentile tier1 closer to 99.9 percentile, i.e. not something that can be gamed like in US by 7…

How is underperforming/disadvantaged minorities not diversity? Also, I don’t think there’s a problem with using athletics as a criteria for admission. Other than that, I completely agree with you.

>underperforming/disadvantaged minorities

Underperforming with a standardized test floor, i.e. for tier1 PRC universities this is lowering bar for minority to 99th percentile instead of 99.9 percentile. They filter before tertiary with programs that find all the high performing minorities in poor/disadvantaged regions and throwing them into subsidized boarding schools in wealthy provinces with better academic pipelines, i.e. ensuring they still enter university fully prepared instead of lowering floor to 80th percentile SAT math scores that on paper is good enough but in reality is borderline remedial stupid for university math. Hence PRC STEM has negligible drop rate vs west.

As for athletics, I think it's sensible for US who tightly coupled university economics with (some) sports that it makes sense for some athletes, but that's an... unusual arrangement.

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