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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

#671

Post by zahlman »

zahlman wrote: post #512
jazzpush2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the opposite experience, as it were, teaching in the UC system. The politics were mostly fine, but the students, especially those post-COVID, were the problem. Most of the students were always great. But it seemed like every quarter, there would be 5-10 problematic students whose, for lack of better term, entitlement, resulted in far more hours of work than worthwhile. And don't get me started on the false disa…

> The politics were mostly fine, but the students, especially those post-COVID, were the problem. I'm not sure this distinction can be made, really. > And don't get me started on the false disability claims (see [0] for a taste). If you even verbalize questioning one, you're eligible for discrimination. Case in point. It's exactly because of the politics both that the students feel empowered to make those claims, and…

For those who downvoted without comment: how did I say anything disagreeable, untrue, or otherwise meriting a downvote?

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

#672

Post by zahlman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #30
JCTheDenthog wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity. From the wiki article you linked: >Equity is equality of outcome for all subgroups in society. Equity proponents believe that some are at a larger disadvantage than others and aims to compensate for this to ensure that everyone can attain the same lifestyle.

Note: everyone can , not everyone will . That's opportunity, not a guarantee. Yes?

Saying "everyone can" is not incompatible with intending to force the issue.

The claim "Equity is equality of outcome for all subgroups in society." demonstrates a clear intent to force the issue. "Equality of outcome" could not possibly be more clear or explicit of a phrase.

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

#673

Post by zahlman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #180
JCTheDenthog wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Those are certainly shitty ways to ensure equity. Why are they what you jump to? Because they're effectively what proponents of equity have implemented in practice: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/white-students-un... >What if we did a better job helping parents with childcare and healthcare? I mean we've already spent trillions on such efforts over the last half century, and the effects have been pretty…

> Because they're effectively what proponents of equity have implemented in practice… So you agree with the goal of equity, but not the approaches taken so far ?

Clearly none of this has anything to do with GP's own position. The argument is that the equity proponents are explicitly targeting "equality of outcome", explicitly taking measures that aim to establish this, explicitly using metrics based on this, and being intellectually dishonest about it.

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

#674

Post by zahlman »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #236
JCTheDenthog wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person I was replying to quoted the article saying "conditions should not interfere", my point was that they do interfere, and will continue to interfere, in spite of all the efforts and hands on the scale and discrimination that equity proponents try to implement. Equity fundamentally arises from a more or less "blank-slatist" view of humans, which is why it leads to such insane outcomes when it comes into conta…

> The person I was replying to quoted the article saying "conditions should not interfere", my point was that they do interfere, and will continue to interfere, in spite of all the efforts and hands on the scale and discrimination that equity proponents try to implement. So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals. > Equity fundamentally arises from a more or less "blank-slatist" view of humans Digg…

> So? Name a social intervention that did achieve all its goals.

This is a complete non-sequitur.

> Digging up a straw man from the 17th century is not particularly persuasive.

It makes no sense whatsoever to refer to a strawman. Locke's conception (presumably this is what you mean if you say "from the 17th century") is obviously not what's being argued against here, since in fact the opposition to these "equity" policies generally comes from classical liberals. Rather, this is about ascribing the much more recent view of thinkers such as Michael Howe to the "equity" proponents, and rejecting it in favour of what actual scientific research demonstrates (qv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa#Psychology_and_neu...).

That is to say: the claim presented is that equal opportunity will lead to equal outcome due to an inherently equal starting point, and that is simply false. Genetic propensities to all sorts of things are readily proven (and so is the heritability of those propensities); but even identical twins could end up with unequal outcomes through differences in individual psychology (motivations, interests, etc.) or even just sheer luck.

It is absolutely not a strawman that "equity proponents" assert this obviously false claim. We know this because of quotes like the one starting off the discussion. Again:

> Equity recognizes this uneven playing field and aims to take extra measures by giving those in need more than those who are not. Equity aims to achieve equal outcomes for groups, also called substantive equality. Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.

If you aim to achieve equal outcomes, and you understand that equal opportunities do not and cannot produce equal outcomes, then you cannot logically claim to endorse equal opportunities. The pursuit of your goals, and your measurement of success, will necessarily entail abandonment of equal opportunity.

The claim behind

> Equity aims to ensure that everyone's lifestyle is equal, even if that requires unequal distribution of access and goods.

is "Unequal distribution of access and goods is justified by a result of equal lifestyles".

The reason there is an argument is because of the assertion:

> > the public believe that we should push for equal outcomes ("equity") over equal opportunity (usually referred to as simply "equality")

> This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity.

In other words: "Actually, people talking about equity believe that we should push for equal opportunity over equal outcomes".

The only logical way to not recognize the immediate and obvious contradiction is to suppose that these are not actually separate goals. But the equity proponents also have no excuse for such an obviously false supposition.

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

#675

Post by zahlman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #14
JCTheDenthog wrote: post #7

>Critics call the SAT inequitable and say high school grades are a good predictor of college success. I mean, it seems pretty clear from the last 6 years of experience by professors and others that grades (or at least grades in isolation) aren't a good predictor at all for this. The problem is removing the use of standardized tests here was done for ideological reasons. You can already tell by the use of the word "in…

> the public believe that we should push for equal outcomes ("equity") over equal opportunity (usually referred to as simply "equality") This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_equity Providing a hearing aid to someone hard of hearing so they can learn is equity. Their outcomes aren't guaranteed; an obstacle to achieving them is…

> This is the direct inverse of what's actually asserted by people talking about equity.

It very obviously is not. The equity proponents are extremely vocal about expecting equal outcomes; their metrics are stated entirely in terms of equality of outcome; they can constantly be observed decrying people as bigoted specifically for arguing for equality of opportunity instead. You were shown clear evidence of this downthread, and you pivoted and failed to engage squarely with a very simple argument.

I want to make sure this is perfectly clear.

When you say "getting a score of x on the SAT qualifies you for university", you are doing equality of opportunity. When you say "getting a score of f(x) on the SAT qualifies you for university, where f is chosen such that the racial makeup of university entrants matches the racial makeup of {applicants, the local general population, ...}", you are doing equality of outcome.

...And probably also violating the law, although of course it's up to the courts whether this constitutes a "racial quota", Princeton (per the opinion piece, and also Yale and Duke) substantively did the latter, which is how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v... happened. As it happens, Students for Fair Admissions won their case.

(The policies in question were also likely detrimental, overall, to white students, but it was politically impossible for a white student group to bring such a case. You can see that even in the linked opinion piece, the discrimination against Asians is described as pro-white even though white students still had to do much better than black students to be given the same level of consideration.)

> Providing a hearing aid to someone hard of hearing so they can learn is equity.

This is disproven by both rhetoric and observable policy. It's all based on equality-of-outcome metrics; every disparity of outcome is directly cited to justify the claim that the work is not done. Either equality of opportunity is conflated with equality of outcome; or it is not actually the goal and any claims of such are dishonest.

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

#676

Post by zahlman »

ryukoposting wrote: post #127
collabs wrote: post #49

something that came to my mind as I was reading the comments here -- the thing is that in the quest for professionalism, we have sidelined a lot of people who would be good at teaching in favor of people who are good at jumping hoops. there is a famous quote saying "when the measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure"

Goodhart's Law (that quote) is actually one of the motivations for moving away from ACT and SAT as college entry benchmarks. "Teaching to the test" is a rampant problem in the US. UC is seeing flaws in departing from those benchmarks, though. The thing is, % of students getting admitted to college is itself a measure for schools and school districts. If GPA is how you get kids into college, well... It's not a teacher…

> ...actually one of the motivations for moving away from ACT and SAT as college entry benchmarks. "Teaching to the test" is a rampant problem in the US.... If there's one good thing that can be said about ACT and SAT, they're relatively difficult for schools to game.

You understand that you're contradicting yourself here, yes? The entire point is to have a difficult-to-game test. Teaching people to do well on the SAT looks an awful lot like actually getting them to understand the things that the SAT is intended to ensure they understand (plus a little bit of generic test-taking skill that would apply equally well to any test in the same format). And if you don't have that, you only have things that are worse.

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

#677

Post by recursive »

no-name-here wrote: post #629
throw9494krrj wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, moral is to make student loans subject to regular bankrupcy. Student should be also able to get refound, if university misrepresents or lies about their job prospects! Universities are business as any other!

> No, moral is to make student loans subject to regular bankrupcy. Aren't the issues that there is no collateral/nothing to repossess? What kind of issuer would give a 5 or 6 figure loan with no collateral and nothing to repossess?

If no one would issue a loan, that might suggest that these loans should not exist.

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

#678

Post by yodsanklai »

moi2388 wrote: post #486
kleiba2 wrote: post #28

I used to teach high school math. There was a big push for doing everything digitally. And admittedly, for some topics the use of technology in the classroom or at home can really be a benefit, for instance visualizations or interactive exercises. But having a digital device in class was the number one cause of distraction every time. For a lot of things, good old blackboards are just fine as are pen + paper exercise…

Sorry, but I’m calling absolute bullshit. Blackboards are fine for teaching maths according to mathematicians. For students, just look at stuff like 3blue1brown and summer of math and how many people finally get it because of animations and playing with the maths instead of some old dude drawing a formula on a blackboard. This is like the pi vs tau debate. I seriously do not understand why maths teachers are so unabl…

> how many people finally get it because of animations and playing with the maths instead of some old dude drawing a formula on a blackboard

Visualisation helps of course, but if you want to be good at maths, you need to put the work and try to solve tons of problems. Most of what 3blue1brown shows in his fancy videos are things you can drawn on your own on a paper, and if you've never done it yourself, chances are you don't understand.

The problem with digital tools is that it's easy to get distracted. If you watch 5 minutes of 3blue1brown and then 20 random videos, it's not going to help.

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

#679

Post by jazzpush2 »

zahlman wrote: post #512
jazzpush2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the opposite experience, as it were, teaching in the UC system. The politics were mostly fine, but the students, especially those post-COVID, were the problem. Most of the students were always great. But it seemed like every quarter, there would be 5-10 problematic students whose, for lack of better term, entitlement, resulted in far more hours of work than worthwhile. And don't get me started on the false disa…

> The politics were mostly fine, but the students, especially those post-COVID, were the problem. I'm not sure this distinction can be made, really. > And don't get me started on the false disability claims (see [0] for a taste). If you even verbalize questioning one, you're eligible for discrimination. Case in point. It's exactly because of the politics both that the students feel empowered to make those claims, and…

Of course teaching pre/post-COVID is very different. Studies abound reveal this, as do plentiful anecdotes from both teachers and staff.

> I'm not sure this distinction can be made, really.

Which distinction can't be made?

> It's exactly because of the politics...

Which politics, concretely?

I'm not actually sure what you're saying at all. I don't think you've articuled a point here. I actually came away confused at multiple levels.

Did you read the linked article? Do you have a response to that?

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

#680

Post by drivebyhooting »

naet wrote: post #540
trunnell wrote: post #435

I'm in the SF bay area w/ middle school and high school age kids. Between San Jose and San Francisco, 15%-30% of kids are in private school (it's 30% in SF where the public schools are extra dysfunctional). That's far above the California statewide average of 8% in private school. Among our peers, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of kids are doing advanced math outside of school, typically either Russian School of Math…

I'm in Oakland with a three year old and I'm looking to either move to a better school district or pay for an expensive private school. I used to be a substitute teacher for the Oakland unified school district and I straight up refuse to send my son there. I have seen firsthand that these kids are not being taught well and the shortcomings compound year over year until you end with high school level students that are…

Private schools are not all created equal. And the admissions gauntlet can be a special kind of hell.
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