California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

I have a nagging suspicion that the only way to reach broad agreement on whether the plan will work (or not) is... by trying it. Perhaps it can be tried on a small number of schools at first, and then gradually expanded to more schools if the results are promising, or nix the whole plan and revert to the old ways otherwise. I would propose starting with the schools that enroll children closely related to the authors of the plan.

It is not abnormal for Californian high schools, including in some of the prestigious areas mentioned in other posts, to have math classroom sizes of 40 children, with classroom size penalties ending in middle school. When classroom sizes get that big, the problem becomes one of classroom management (are children even listening now?) and targeting average performance.

And then there is the matter of teacher pay. To have the credibility to convince the math faculty that you are ready to teach Calculus, you likely have a Masters in education and a Bachelors in math. Such a technical person may just have well earned a CS degree instead.

Lastly, the students. The schools which are severely underperforming are those schools where absenteeism may be enormous... in all classes. This is not a matter of math teachers not being engaging or ambitious enough. One might merely volunteer at some schools in East Palo Alto to see some of this. These are problems which extend well beyond the school.

I would also ask, if learning were just a matter of quality instruction, then what's wrong with Khan Academy? Khan Academy is a world class resource and it is delivering pedagogical wins. But something is missing.

But maybe what should be changed is the expectation. If the vast bulk of 8th graders aren't ready to handle algebra, don't create an expectation that "the smart kids" are taking algebra in 8th grade, because parents are going to be pushing their kids to be one of the smart kids (as measured by when they take algebra), and you're going to get a bunch of kids who aren't ready.

But this brings up a problem. Who decides if a kid is ready? The parents? The teachers? The school bureaucracy? On what basis do they decide?

Teachers seems like the best bet (they observe kids in the classroom all day), but they also have biases, blind spots, laziness, and so on. I don't know that it's possible to build a system where it happens "as it should" all the time.

My overall recommendations are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29326295

I'd recommend that we try in elementary to make the current math curriculum reach a broader set of students through games, puzzles, and in-classroom competition that doesn't absolutely favor the strongest students. Maybe Tom is farthest in math and wins a lot, and maybe Amy has a natural talent for computation that makes her strong, but there's also some randomness and the ability for gambits in the game to let others have a chance of winning. The result is that everyone tries hard. Sorting students by level prematurely has been shown to be bad, so I think having levels before late upper elementary or early middle school is bad.

I think the link's recommendation of not sorting students based on level in middle school is bad-- my 7th grader is doing precalc now. But he was on the normal math path through elementary with some enrichment and diversions.

Gifted kids are hard to deal with in math in elementary, because they may have a good intuitive understanding of math, but they generally are not so developmentally ahead in focus, accuracy, etc. So while you may have some 9 year olds that can understand work intended for 14 year old students, they generally cannot do difficult problems with any degree of accuracy. They make too many mistakes, swapping coefficients and signs.

> The below is un-acceptable.

> "A key sticking point in the approval process has been the framework’s recommendation that teachers refrain from labeling students as “naturally talented” in math."

Gotta disagree with you on this one point. Labelling someone as having a natural talent helps no one. Label them as ahead, or having worked hard.

"Natural talent" may be the truth, but as a label is toxic for everyone. It's toxic for everyone else, because it's not something they can hope to have: why try? And it's toxic for the labelled-- anything that is hard can be threatening that this label of natural talent could be stripped away if they try and don't do well-- so why try.

Studies show that praising kids for "talent" or "intelligence" is actually demotivating.

Let's not rush to apply labels, but instead try to create environments where everyone can be motivated to try hard, excel, and grow. In middle school and up this can be through tracks. In late elementary this can be through differentiated instruction. And throughout elementary, we need to just focus on keeping it engaging and interesting and speaking to curiosity of everyone in the room, instead of drilling the poor kid who's struggling on arithmetic facts incessantly.

Another issue is that the labels are not overwhelmingly predictive. The students who are considered weakest in elementary school can improve a lot. And many of those who continue struggling may do so because they've internalized a message of being weak at math-- or internalized short term coping strategies imposed by teachers (e.g. given up on understanding and instead are trying to learn the correct sequence of juggling symbols by rote to pass this next class).

In this example you're the creationist denying the ever growing evidence. You'd be the one out there calling Darwin a scam artist.

There's one of two things going on here:

1. You're ignorant of what's actually going on. 2. You're malicious

You can be forgiven for #1 but you really need to take your blinders off and maybe consider some different news sources.