[HN Gopher] Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
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Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
Author : bankershill
Score : 573 points
Date : 2023-07-18 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noahpinion.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noahpinion.blog)
| smrtinsert wrote:
| [flagged]
| tomsmeding wrote:
| Disclaimer: European.
|
| Is it not strange how in an article arguing from otherwise a very
| egalitarian, leftist viewpoint, when it discusses how students
| perform given more or less difficult classes, it somehow thinks
| the most relevant statistic is the _race_ of the students?
| (Approximately, even, because American race designation is kinda
| weird anyway.)
|
| Sure, socio-economic circumstances are correlated with race.
| (Unfortunately still in this day and age.) Not perfectly, but
| there is a correlation, so absent other data, it can be used as a
| proxy for the socio-economic circumstances in which the student
| grows up. But there are multiple problems with this:
|
| 1. If we are to lessen discrimination, the very first thing we
| should do is _stop discriminating_. Is this considered normal in
| the USA? Stop tracking race! And even if you do track it (or an
| approximation of it) to double-check you 're not inadvertently
| disadvantaging certain minority groups, certainly (1.) there are
| better measures to designate minority groups, and (2.) one can do
| this without telling all the world about it and giving society
| even more fuel for discrimination. If people see other people
| treat people equally, and see that as normal, they will tend to
| do the same. We should lead by example, not start a discussion on
| equality with the worst kind of discrimination.
|
| 2. Surely there are better indicators for socio-economic
| circumstances than race? What about the salary of their parents?
| This is a typical measure in The Netherlands (where I live). Or
| even where they live. And if you say that we cannot track those
| things because that would be an infringement on privacy: how on
| Earth is tracking parents' salary an infringement on privacy but
| not tracking race?
|
| Like, I agree that teaching less math is bollocks. But that's not
| the thing that surprises me most when reading OP.
| Dig1t wrote:
| You are totally correct.
|
| It's cultural though, we (the people in the US) are obsessed
| with race. Literally everything you do and talk about is
| colored by it, and it's pretty much impossible to escape.
|
| The more heterogeneous the society becomes the more obsessed we
| become with the differences between us.
|
| You're seeing it too in the UK and will be seeing a LOT more of
| it as your demographics shift to be like ours.
| eftychis wrote:
| Good point with a little nit.
|
| Usually in data science, you "mine" for features or combination
| of features. That is you collect as much as possible, then
| actual find the critical features e.g. to construct a random
| forest/decision tree/ ...
|
| Here they are going as you point out the other way. And the
| more I study U.S. history (and politics) the more racist I find
| it.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| You don't have the historical or cultural context to be
| commenting on race relations and policy in the U.S.
|
| Sorry; it's not personal. Few Europeans do unless they have
| lived here for a long time (and even then I see many struggle
| with the topics).
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Conversely, many European countries have a history that
| includes slavery and an arguably better track record of
| successful abolition and reconciliation. Maybe there's
| something the US can learn.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| European countries' history with slavery largely consists
| of having it in far off colonies and then cutting those
| colonies loose. The US doesn't have the luxury of making a
| clean break.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Im not saying there aren't differences, there certainly
| are.
|
| Do you think that the US has been doing such a good job
| managing race relations that we can take a superior
| attitude and reject commentary?
| [deleted]
| cvalka wrote:
| The thing is that most Americans don't have the historical
| context to be commenting on race relations and policy in the
| US.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The USA is currently obsessed with race, and this influences
| all discussions.
|
| I agree that this topic could be more accurately and
| inclusively framed as how to improve outcomes for low income
| students, or children with absentee/incarcerated parents, or
| children of addicts.
|
| Unfortunately, some people care much more about racial outcomes
| than they do about any of those I mentioned.
|
| The point of the racial framing _IS_ to polarize, divide, and
| mobilize a political base, not to solve an underlying problem.
|
| Talking about helping poor children doesn't get people as riled
| up, and has the risk of actually leading to agreement and a
| solution.
|
| American politics has no hindsight and is a zero sum game. If
| you fix a problem in American politics, you don't get credit
| for it later. You only get credit for promising to fix problems
| in the future.
|
| If parties agree and implement a solution, neither party comes
| out ahead, and even worse, you just made the opposition look
| more reasonable. It is a prisoners dilemma where cooperation is
| punished
| cmh89 wrote:
| >The USA is currently obsessed with race, and this influences
| all discussions.
|
| The United States has _always_ been obsessed with race. The
| south had completely different schools based on a child 's
| skin color. What makes you think this is new?
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| It goes back much further than that, literally to the
| founding of the country. Our constitution has provisions
| specifically protecting the slave trade. The way we elect
| our president was designed specifically to give slave
| owners more power. Racism is an integral part of US history
| and always has been. You literally cannot make sense of US
| history without it.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Slavery goes back a lot further than the founding of the
| US, and is important context for broad swaths of History.
|
| Regarding the election of the president, I assume you're
| talking about the 3/5 compromise. I think this has the
| opposite impact of what you're claiming.
|
| It gave white male voters less power. Representation
| based on total human population would have given them
| more.
|
| If you are voting white male in the North, your
| representation was based on the total population of your
| state, including women and children that can't vote.
|
| In the south, your total population for the purposes of
| proportional representation was produced
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I totally agree that racial issues have always been a topic
| in American politics. from the colonial period, to
| secession from Brittan, to the failed secession of the
| south, to the civil rights movements, to now.
|
| That said, the relative importance of the issue and
| satisfaction obviously shifts over time. Gallop polling
| shows that that by many metrics, perceptions of racial
| Injustice are at a multi-decade high. It is interesting
| that far fewer people feel that black people are treated
| fairly than in the late 90's. It would be interesting to
| see data going back even further.
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/352544/larger-majority-says-
| rac...
| cmh89 wrote:
| So the actual issue that we've started talking about how
| our obsession with race effects the people on the losing
| end of that deal.
|
| >. It is interesting that far fewer people feel that
| black people are treated fairly than in the late 90's. It
| would be interesting to see data going back even further.
|
| It seems intuitive to me. If you have a problem and then
| activists put in a ton of time to make that problem more
| visible, its going to change people's perceptions of
| social issues. For example, if you asked people in 1990
| and 2020 if the Catholic church adequately protects
| children from sexual predators, you're probably gonna get
| a pretty drastic difference in responses.
| eftychis wrote:
| To give a bit of context to all the sibling comments:
|
| We are talking about a history where: a) A decision to not
| occupy a defeated country was made because they were
| impure/non-white (Mexico)... [I don't think I have
| encountered a similar historical example. I will spend some
| time looking/reviewing just in case I am forgetting some
| similar situation.] b) Called Germans and Finnish immigrants
| "non-white":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_th.
| ...
|
| Italians and Greeks faced the same treatment. Everything and
| everyone had to be assigned at some class/color. The
| wikipedia article goes even more in depth about the issue
| that also posed for Asians in the U.S. which is a whole lot
| different rabbit hole, and which I am still confused about.
|
| c) Gun control and argumentation started because of racism.
| NRA actually did support gun control at one point: when the
| Black Panthers tried to exercise their right to bear arms.
| And when Reagan introduced the Mulford Act in response,
| evidence shows it was enforced based on race.
|
| https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-
| nra-...
|
| https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-mulford-act-and-
| americas-r...
|
| And going way back: Black Codes were a big part of Jim Crow
| measure: everyone could have a gun; unless you were "black."
| (Or other undesirable.)
|
| And to place the final nail:
| https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-
| uncovers...
|
| There is the claim that the 2nd amendment was enacted to
| ensure slaves wouldn't revolt. Not sure yet how much weight
| one should place to that claim; but the world history
| supports such considerations. [Review cf. Spartans for
| instance or the Japanese class system.]
| [deleted]
| zem wrote:
| you're missing the fact that here in the US race _is_ an
| extremely large factor in how students succeed, partly from
| correlation with socioeconomic and cultural factors, but also
| because it determines what sort of treatment kids get in
| school, from the teachers and from the administration.
|
| anecdotally, I have a friend who, when she was looking for a
| school for her kid, had to drill down into the data for which
| schools had significantly worse results for black students,
| because that spoke to systemic factors in the school
| environment, and so even if the school looked good in its
| overall statistics she knew her kid would not likely get a good
| education there.
| tomsmeding wrote:
| This is actually a good point; I had not considered that the
| equality that people are trying to achieve here _is_ equality
| between races. And if that 's what you're interested in,
| surely that's what you need to track.
|
| I'm sorry for your friend; that situation sounds like a very
| odd mix of empowering (having the data -- albeit after
| drilling) and deeply discriminatory and marginalising.
|
| Over here we do actually have at least some of the race
| inequality problems, but we're putting much less emphasis on
| them. The approach has advantages but clearly also
| disadvantages. Thanks for the thought-food.
| [deleted]
| sergiogjr wrote:
| In the name of progressivism, epistemology in humanities has been
| dismantled, and business schools soon after were captured by the
| DIE (diversity, inclusion, equity) religion.
|
| Finally the demented Paulo Freire idolaters are coming for stem
| fields. Let's see if the push back is too little, too late, or if
| there's hope. Otherwise, do tutoring or homeschool your children.
|
| Edit: and of course, the result of those last 2 proposed actions
| will be that the gap between social economically well off kids
| with good structured families and those in difficulty will soar
| sky high. And progressives will use that increased gap to double
| down on asinine policies.
| netbioserror wrote:
| The content and curriculum that has been excised from public
| education in past decades should draw the attention of anyone
| wanting to learn the mechanics of power. When control of
| childrens' upbringing (for 7 hours a day) is up for grabs, what
| is and isn't taught is critically important to understanding
| motive and intent.
| cauch wrote:
| The author says
|
| > The idea that offering children fewer educational resources
| through the public school system will help the poor kids catch up
| with rich ones, or help the Black kids catch up with the White
| and Asian ones, is unsupported by any available evidence of which
| I am aware.
|
| I was wondering if some people are aware of studies supporting
| this strategy.
|
| I could try to dig them up, but I remember few studies
| demonstrating that school success is more correlated to the
| socio-economical situation of the parent than to the child
| intrinsic capacities (I think one usual method is to compare
| success of twins adopted in different families to remove the
| naive argument "higher socio-economical situation means that
| these people are intrinsically smarter").
|
| If it is the case, while avoiding the privileged ones to run
| ahead is not ideal, the alternative of doing nothing is even
| worse (which is in practice what a lot of people criticizing this
| measure prone: they did not have any plan to change anything
| before the subject was introduced).
|
| I think that the idea is not to "dumb down" the kids, but to have
| a goal that everyone can achieve instead of a goal that is
| impossible to achieve for some of the poor kids anyway. See under
| this lens, the proposal makes more sense: the lectures are given
| at the NORMAL pace, without assuming that extra learning is made
| at home while it is known that this extra learning is impossible
| to do for some. A bit like if your professor was saying "we have
| an exam on chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4, I will tell you the chapters 1
| and 3, the chapters 2 and 4 are in the books but I'm going to
| give this book only to some students and not other". If a
| professor does that, people will obviously say that it is stupid,
| that the professor should teach chapters 1 and 2 to everyone and
| then do a test on chapters 1 and 2, and nobody will pretend that
| this is "dumbying down" the students.
| javajosh wrote:
| No-one does real intelligence studies in humans because it's
| such a third-rail in academia. Think "The Bell Curve". Some
| scientists seem to believe that intelligence is intrinsic. The
| analogy with dog breeds, with their different temperaments and
| capabilities, with individual variation, applies to humans as
| well.
|
| See Richard Haier: IQ Tests, Human Intelligence, and Group
| Differences | Lex Fridman Podcast
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppbxV9C63g
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| Some people believe being homosexual is also intrinsic,
| despite identical twin studies showing contrary evidence.
| People like simple answers. It's probably partly genetic,
| partly environmental. In other words, something worth
| studying further.
| achates wrote:
| They've studied it extensively already. Twin adoption
| studies have conclusively proven that intelligence is
| mostly genetic with environment playing a small role.
| javajosh wrote:
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
| his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" This
| generalizes. Good luck funding research into a question to
| which people really don't want an answer to. There's some
| valid reasons to not want an answer - eugenics was and is a
| real thing, and its terrifying. For a while we seemed to
| skate by on a kind of "gentleman's agreement" to not look
| into it too much. Just like there was a kind of
| "gentleman's agreement" to not point out the facts of
| sexual dimorphism in humans, as a paean to feminism. When
| feminists start claiming superiority of females to males,
| or extremist egalitarians start claiming we're all the
| same, I think an argument could be made that they have
| invalidated the agreement. Unfortunately.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > No-one does real intelligence studies in humans because
| it's such a third-rail in academia.
|
| It just doesn't look good. Pretty much every study done has
| shown such a strong lean towards genetics everyone avoids it.
| decremental wrote:
| [dead]
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| A goal that everyone can achieve is not learning anything at
| all. Let's set that as goal, right?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I don't follow this debate closely. In the late 1970s, I had
| the option to take algebra in 8th grade. I was stunned that I
| was selected, because I was terrible at arithmetic, and
| honestly I still am. I got Cs, maybe a B every now and then, in
| math up through 7th grade. My parents didn't apply any pressure
| (that I know of) to get me in. I remember taking the assessment
| test for algebra and I didn't even finish it. It was very
| stressful. But somehow I got in. And starting with algebra,
| something clicked. I could actually see how math could be used
| to solve practical problems. I got mostly As in math after
| that.
|
| More recently, my kids had the option to take algebra in the
| 8th grade. I don't see any good reason to not keep it
| available. Sometimes kids need a challenge (or at least need to
| see a point to it) to engage in a subject.
|
| My guess is that the districts that want to eliminate it are
| looking at poor math achievement and thinking that applying
| more resources to getting _all_ the kids up to some minimal
| level of math literacy is better than diverting some of those
| resources to a smaller number of kids who are ready for more
| advanced topics. And yeah, sad to say but there are some
| teachers who are not themselves capable of teaching algebra or
| anything more advanced. So teaching it in junior high leaves a
| smaller pool of qualified teachers for high school math.
|
| So the problems they are trying to solve are really a scarce
| resource problem. They need more resources to try get the low
| performers up to some satisfactory level. The real answer of
| course is always the same whenever you have a supply problem:
| you need to pay more. Wealthy families will do this. They will
| hire tutors, either personal or virtual. For the rest of the
| kids who only have public education available, we've shown a
| consistent unwillingness to properly fund it. And I don't
| necessarily mean in terms of total dollars. We spend a lot of
| money on public education, but we spend it poorly.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > the lectures are given at the NORMAL pace
|
| Nobody has a problem with there being options for students to
| learn at their own pace.
|
| The problem is not allowing people to take more advanced
| classes, if they so choose.
|
| > nobody will pretend that this is "dumbying down" the
| students.
|
| If you prevent students from taking more advanced classes, if
| those students choose it, then yes it would be dumbing down
| their education.
|
| Just let them take the more advanced classes. Stop removing
| their options.
| cauch wrote:
| > The problem is not allowing people to take more advanced
| classes, if they so choose.
|
| The article itself says that students who want to go ahead
| will get private lessons.
|
| The idea is not stopping people to get more advanced classes,
| the idea is to cancel more advanced classes as long as
| "normal pace" classes are not present.
|
| The way it works is that if you put an advanced class and no
| normal pace class, people who need the normal pace class will
| fail school over and over again and finally drop out of it,
| and people will just say "the advanced class is just a normal
| pace class" without realising it's not the case.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| replace "normal" with "slow" and "advanced" with "normal",
| and you will discover:
|
| 1. Why this initiative is a problem
|
| 2. That simply rewording "slow" to "normal" and "normal" to
| "advanced" _seems_ to constitute the majority of your
| argument, without which there isn 't a good one
| cauch wrote:
| And replace "slow" by "terribly fast" and "normal" by
| "advanced" and, magic, now everyone gets advanced
| classes.
|
| Estimating if the pace is "fast" or "normal" is very very
| complicated. Only an idiot will pretend they know for
| sure that "this is too slow" (unless obvious extreme
| cases which don't correspond to what we have here)
|
| Also, apparently, the measure was to replace advanced
| algebra by advanced data science which was in fact more
| challenging than the initial recite-by-heart-the-formula
| algebra lessons.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| it's actually not that complicated, just look at what
| other schools in the country do, or what these did before
| the change
|
| then, with that data, you will know to replace "terribly
| fast" with the original "slow", and can try to make your
| proposal not depend purely on the semantics of
| inaccurately renaming "slow" to "terribly fast"
|
| remember, you are the one who started these word games by
| renaming the slow curriculum the normal one, when the
| normal one is the one they had before these changes, the
| one which reflected the _norm_ (hence the name) in the US
|
| if you think that one is actually "advanced", that's upon
| you to convincingly make the case for, otherwise we
| default back to the above, but a purely semantic argument
| is pretty weak on its own anyways
|
| also, the last paragraph of your post presents a false
| dichotomy: creating a new class doesn't require
| cancelling advanced algebra (advanced advanced algebra?)
| cauch wrote:
| > it's actually not that complicated, just look at what
| other schools in the country do, or what these did before
| the change
|
| Except that you have not done that. Where are your data?
| Did you make sure that the group you compared are
| representative to each other? How do you correct for all
| the differences in state (unemployment level, diversity
| in education, political orientation, level of rurality,
| ...) that all have an effect? ...
|
| So, no, it is objectively pretty complicated. You should
| have taken advanced data science, you would understand
| better that just comparing 2 states is very very naive to
| draw conclusions.
|
| > remember, you are the one who started these word games
| by renaming the slow curriculum the normal one, when the
| normal one is the one they had before these changes, the
| one which reflected the norm (hence the name) in the US
|
| In fact, I was not the one who started: the measure that
| is in question in the article has been proposed because
| people have done a study (a real one, comparing the
| numbers, you know, the thing that you say one should do
| before saying if it is slow or not but that you did not
| do) and concluded that there was a problem.
|
| The document is 1000 pages long, of course it covers the
| elements that support their proposal (and you should
| agree with that as you say it's not complicated). These
| elements were themselves critized (maybe correctly), so
| it is funny to see that sometimes the argument is "their
| base study is badly done" and sometimes it is "I claim
| that I know what is 'slow' or not, without study, which
| is fine because if someone says it's not, they have just
| renamed without study"
|
| If a team came up and say "we had a look and concluded
| that we should replace algebra by data science" and you
| just say "naaah, I have ZERO study on the subject, but I
| want to believe that algebra is fine", when someone says
| "but the point is that algebra is not fine", you cannot
| say "you haven't done a study": YOU are the one who
| pretend that the measure is not supported by the data,
| while you are the one having not looked at the data.
|
| (and don't get me wrong, it does not mean that the study
| done by the people who proposed these measures is perfect
| or even correct. On the opposite: such study is
| difficult. If you now claim their study is invalid, it
| just show that 1) it is true it's complicated, 2) you
| don't care about the reality as you didn't even consider
| that they may have been backed by a study, you just
| assumed there was none because it was more convenient for
| you)
|
| > also, the last paragraph of your post presents a false
| dichotomy: creating a new class doesn't require
| cancelling advanced algebra (advanced advanced algebra?)
|
| What are you talking about: I'm not saying they had to
| remove advanced algebra in order to introduce advance
| data science, I'm saying they decided to replace
| something that they think is not challenging, engaging
| and useful enough by something more challenging, more
| engaging and more useful.
|
| And if you think "aaaah, it's awful because before there
| was algebra and now there is no algebra, so it tortures
| the poor students who like algebra", why were you not
| crying about the poor students who like data science that
| was "canceled" before this proposal.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> Except that you have not done that. Where are your
| data?_
|
| It's _your_ responsibility, not _mine_ , to prove that
| what was normal before is now "advanced" by the standards
| of the country, and that slow is now "normal"
|
| _> I 'm not saying they had to remove advanced algebra
| in order to introduce advance data science, I'm saying
| they decided to replace something that they think is not
| challenging..._
|
| this contradicts the assertion that the class was too
| advanced, now it's not advanced enough? Doubt. Plus, you
| yourself are using the word "replace", here meaning
| removing 1 class and adding another: two acts. There's
| nothing requiring them to remove the first class, and
| there doesn't seem to be a convincing case for doing so.
| If you want to have a new class, go ahead, but don't nuke
| good, unrelated classes in the process.
|
| _>...by something more challenging, more engaging and
| more useful_
|
| is it, though? That's what they say, on 1 side of the
| issue, but it doesn't seem like that's the case, and
| again, both are useful, so that's not a valid excuse for
| nuking 1
| stale2002 wrote:
| > the idea is to cancel more advanced classes
|
| Canceling advanced classes quite literally prevents people
| from taking those classes.
|
| If someone doesn't want to do the advanced classes, they
| don't have to. But don't prevent others from taking those
| classes if they want to take them.
|
| > people who need the normal pace class
|
| This is about allowing people to take the advanced classes
| if they choose, and allowing others to take normal classes.
|
| And other people, who want to cancel the advanced classes,
| are definitely the ones who want to dumb things down.
|
| Just allow people to take those advanced classes if they
| choose, and allow others to take take the normal classes.
| Problem solved.
| cauch wrote:
| > Canceling advanced classes quite literally prevents
| people from taking those classes.
|
| 1) You've cut my sentence, which says "cancel more
| advanced classes IF ...", which means that not all
| advanced classes are cancelled.
|
| 2) You are therefore asking to cancel "beginner's
| classes". I'm saying "cancel advanced classes as long as
| there are not enough beginner classes", so you are in
| practice canceling beginner classes. As any "advanced
| class" student was first a "beginner class" student, you
| are canceling the path towards advanced class.
|
| > This is about allowing people to take the advanced
| classes if they choose, and allowing others to take
| normal classes.
|
| Quickly looking closer to this, it was NEVER QUESTION TO
| CANCEL ADVANCED CLASSES. Simply, instead of algebra, do
| advanced data science (basically statistics), which is
| probably 1) more challenging, 2) more engaging, 3) more
| practical.
|
| > Just allow people to take those advanced classes if
| they choose, and allow others to take take the normal
| classes. Problem solved.
|
| Which problem exactly? It looks like the "no advanced
| classes" is just people on the internet getting all
| exited for something that was never considered.
| tyg13 wrote:
| > The article itself says that students who want to go
| ahead will get private lessons.
|
| This is a ridiculously privileged view that hurts the
| people it claims to help.
|
| As a child, I was heavily invested in math, but I was
| raised by a mother who had no resources or inclination to
| pay for private lessons. Luckily my public school district
| had a few advanced classes available for all, and along
| with my own initiative, I was able to scrounge up a
| passable math education.
|
| > The way it works is that if you put an advanced class and
| no normal pace class,
|
| Caveat: I didn't grow up in California. I don't know how
| public schools are run there. That being said, this sounds
| like nonsense to me. There were always normal pace classes
| for students who excelled less. These were, in my
| experience, the most populated classes.
| cauch wrote:
| > This is a ridiculously privileged view that hurts the
| people it claims to help.
|
| I'm not saying it is what it will happen, I'm saying that
| some says "this measure is stupid, smart students will
| get private lessons anyway" and other are saying "this
| measure is stupid, smart students are forced to not
| learn".
|
| All I was saying was: if you think that the "private
| lessons" argument is elitist or unrealistic, then you
| should disagree with the author of the article.
| toast0 wrote:
| > If it is the case, while avoiding the privileged ones to run
| ahead is not ideal, the alternative of doing nothing is even
| worse (which is in practice what a lot of people criticizing
| this measure prone: they did not have any plan to change
| anything before the subject was introduced).
|
| > I think that the idea is not to "dumb down" the kids, but to
| have a goal that everyone can achieve instead of a goal that is
| impossible to achieve for some of the poor kids anyway. See
| under this lens, the proposal makes more sense: the lectures
| are given at the NORMAL pace, without assuming that extra
| learning is made at home while it is known that this extra
| learning is impossible to do for some.
|
| The NORMAL pace is too slow for some kids who aren't even doing
| any math at home. The solution to kids learn at different paces
| and some kids can learn at a faster pace if they have resources
| at home, but not all kids have resources at home isn't force
| everyone onto the normal pace. It's to make sure all kids have
| access to resources.
|
| If it's hard to get resources, then maybe you can free up some
| by adjusting class sizes. Instead of 60 kids, and 20 kids /
| class room all at the same pace; you can take the 30 kids
| capable of doing a faster pace and put them in the fast paced
| room, then have two classes of 15 kids at a slower pace and now
| they've got more time for individual instruction, and you
| didn't have to hire anyone.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Let me get this straight. We're behind the rest of our class
| and we're going to catch up to them by going slower than they
| are? -Bart Simpson
|
| People who fall behind don't need a slower pace. They need to
| move faster. That means not just more attention but longer
| hours. But there is only so much time. A school wanting to
| maximize its graduation rate needs to spend less energy on
| teaching people who are good at a subject in order to divert
| resources to those who need more. That means,
| counterintuitively, that kids who are good at math should be
| spending less time on math, not more.
| toast0 wrote:
| > That means, counterintuitively, that kids who are good at
| math should be spending less time on math, not more.
|
| Maybe it's the right thing to do, but you're not going to
| get a lot of support for letting the kids who are good at
| school go home after an hour. All the students are expected
| to spend the same amount of time sitting in a math class.
| Might as well try to have something for them to do other
| than throw paper airplanes after ten minutes and distract
| the kids who need the whole hour.
|
| Anyway, I suggested 2x the pupils for the fast math class,
| so that the normal math class got more resources. If you've
| got smaller schools, it's harder to allocate resources, and
| that's understandable, but a lot of schools have enough
| kids to push the ratios around to get more attention to the
| kids that need it.
|
| It's unnecessary for all high school graduates to have
| taken AP Calc; but it's a waste of students' time for those
| who could have made it through that not to have had the
| opportunity. Just like it's a waste of students' time for
| them to be in classes that are beyond their current level
| so much that they can't catch up and then just passing them
| because there's no alternative, so they just zone out.
| Admittedly, the daycare function of school doesn't really
| care about wasting students' time, but that's only part of
| the function of school.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Such a school fails its fast learners. Do you really want
| fewer scientists in the world?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| What is measured is what gets done. If schools are judged
| by graduation rates, then yes, fewer scientists but more
| people graduating highschool. Or we go the other way and
| judge schools by how many elite scientists they produce.
| Identify the best students early. Give them everything so
| that they can all become neuroscientists. Abandon all
| those who struggle in order to focus resources on the
| future doctors. Imho a public school should only start
| diverting resources to elite students once the school has
| achieved a reasonable graduation rate (90+% imho.)
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I can see how that would help with the feelgoods, but how
| will this advance science and technology? The very things
| that allow you (and me) to be here pontificating about
| this instead of sustenance farming.
| cauch wrote:
| Apparently, the measure was not to "cancel advanced
| classes", but to replace advanced algebra by something
| more challenging, more engaging and developing more the
| scientific brain of student (in this case, advanced data
| science).
|
| It looks like a lot of people who are screaming at the
| end of science haven't even realized the problem may just
| be in their head.
| chriskanan wrote:
| I agree with you, and I think AI-based tutors and software
| assisted personalized education could help a lot in this
| regard [1]; however, I'm not that optimistic in terms of
| implementing this in the USA.
|
| About two years ago I chatted with a professor at ASU who was
| developing AI tutors and other sorts of systems and was able
| to show in research papers that they enhanced the learning of
| the class overall. However, he claimed that adoption among
| teachers and schools was largely rejected because teachers
| hated having imbalanced knowledge among the students.
|
| China is apparently pursuing this education strategy, though:
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/02/131198/china-
| squ...
|
| Speaking as a parent with a child in private school, even
| there they have a strong resistance to teaching kids who
| already knows materials from the current year, where I was
| explicitly told those topics wouldn't be covered for two more
| years rather than embracing my child's curiosity and
| interests. K-12 education seems extremely non-optimal except
| for enabling parents to work, but my complaints about
| education aren't new [2] and our K-12 education certainly
| doesn't cultivate geniuses [3].
|
| [1] https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s405
| 61-...
|
| [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-
| learn/201107...
|
| [3] https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/why-we-stopped-
| mak...
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| They address that in the article: tutoring. One on one tutoring
| works amazingly well. I used to volunteer as a tutor. The
| students I worked with accelerated drastically. It's simply a
| matter of money.
|
| They do leave out some things: food + shelter. Many poor
| students have problems with nutrition and safe shelter, both of
| which make learning near impossible.
|
| The metro area I'm in is a perfect example of this. We have two
| small cities side by side. Pretty much the same socioeconomic
| makeup in both. One invests massively into education, tutoring,
| summer programs, etc. In the other the schools are literally
| crumbling, but hey, the police budget is at an all time high!
| The city investing into education ranks 9/10-10/10 on state
| tests, the city that allows its buildings to literally crumble
| (the library was off limits for a while because the ceiling
| tiles were falling so often they were injuring the children),
| ranks 2/10.
|
| We don't need to dumb down anything. We need to raise everyone
| up by investing in education.
| cauch wrote:
| They don't really address it: tutoring is OBVIOUS, everyone
| knows that tutoring works. The reason they are applying this
| measure is because tutoring is not doable.
|
| > We don't need to dumb down anything. We need to raise
| everyone up by investing in education.
|
| And we can also give poney to every kids.That's a nice
| thought but that is so deconnected from reality, which means
| that you are pushing for something that will never happen and
| at the same time the unfair situation will stay the same.
| cwkoss wrote:
| We can tax corporations and billionaires. Building a
| functional education system isn't an unrealistic pipe
| dream, its an imperative for a well adjusted society.
| pjscott wrote:
| Billionaires aren't the unlimited money pinata that you
| might hope; their total assets are less than federal
| yearly tax revenues, and good luck getting even a tiny
| fraction of that per year. As for corporations, I assume
| you're proposing raising the corporate tax rate -- but
| we're already near the revenue-maximizing peak of the
| Laffer curve on that particular tax, and there's just not
| much room to get more money that way.
|
| (Also, only about a third of the incidence of corporate
| taxes falls on shareholders, with the rest being split
| about equally between lower wages for workers and higher
| prices for customers. It can be surprisingly regressive!)
| cwkoss wrote:
| The Laffer curve is a laughably poor model to inform tax
| policy:
|
| - There are many taxes, not a single tax rate
|
| - It completely ignores the idea of progressive taxation:
| rich individuals and giant megacorps can afford to pay
| higher tax rates without the same issues that would occur
| by applying those tax rates on lower and middle classes
| and small business.
|
| - It cannot be empirically validated without cherry
| picking data because it ignores many crucial factors.
|
| It's basically just propaganda paid for and promoted by
| the rich to convince the proles to let them keep more
| money.
| cauch wrote:
| I would love that (more money for education), and I'm
| pretty sure the people who proposed this measure would
| drop it immediately in exchange for more money for
| education.
|
| But you are obviously not the first one coming up with
| this idea. Plenty of people have tried and are still
| trying, and it still does not work (it does not mean we
| should not try). In the meanwhile, we still need to
| improve the situation for people who are being the victim
| of it.
|
| This is why this measure has been created while your
| measure is still far from being reality.
| kaitai wrote:
| You are on to something here. The thing I'd contribute is that
| then we need teacher training to improve math teaching in the
| US. Math teaching in the US is often of poor quality, as
| teachers may not be trained well and are often not confident in
| their own mathematical ability. Curricula are often haphazard.
|
| The US generally takes the approach that changing the
| curriculum or changing standards will change outcomes, but
| rarely invests in teacher quality, which would have very high
| impact (compare to Korea, Finland, etc.).
| zzleeper wrote:
| But then engaged parents will take their kids to Kumon, and
| rich parents will take their kids to private school.
|
| Their kids will then mop the floor against all other kids,
| including engaged kids without engaged parents, that would have
| benefited from more advanced classes. Is that equality?
| cauch wrote:
| That does not make any sense: without this measure, the kids
| that you are trying to save from moping the floor will ...
| mop the floor twice.
|
| Without this measure, the kids that are not able to follow
| classes that needs things they cannot afford will just fail
| the lecture and drop from school, from THE WHOLE SCHOOL.
|
| Without the measure, you have people who drop out of school
| and get a mathematical education close to 0 and will compete
| with people of mathematical education of 10. With this
| measure, the same people will get a mathematical education
| closer to 5, and will compete with people of mathematical
| education of 10.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| I think you might be misunderstanding the system. In
| California, you had standard track math, and advanced or
| accelerated track. This measure gets rids of
| advanced/accelerated, and forces everyone into standard.
| Without the measure you have 5s and 10s separated, with the
| measure, you have 5s and 10s together.
|
| But as the parent post points out, 10s either dominate the
| class, leave the class, or ignore the class and take math
| outside school. None of that help's the 5s, and all of it
| hurts, or is wasteful for the 10s.
| cauch wrote:
| Thank you for bringing my attention to that. Looking
| closer, I'm even more confused: it was never question to
| drop "advanced math", but to replace "advanced algebra"
| by "advanced data science mathematics". The program was
| even claiming (maybe incorrectly, but it's not the point)
| that they wanted to replace the boring memorization of
| formula by real life problems more challenging for
| students.
|
| So, I'm now not even sure where this "dumbing down" the
| students comes from. Maybe it's yet another moral panic.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| It is not a moral panic, it is legitimate dumbing down of
| the math curriculum.
|
| You have to look further back. They are blocking middle
| schoolers from taking Algebra. That means they won't
| haven't progressed enough to get to Calculus unless they
| skip ahead a grade level of math, either via summer
| school, or other outside study.
| cauch wrote:
| > They are blocking middle schoolers from taking Algebra.
|
| By replacing it by another challenging mathematical
| content. How is that "dumbing down".
|
| It's like saying "they are making students less musical
| because they are replacing piano lectures with guitar
| lectures".
|
| And, yes, I get that Algebra is not the same as Data
| Science, and that Algebra may cover some foundation
| needed for a math specialization. But a lot of students
| don't end up doing a specialization in math: for them,
| Data Science may make them SMARTER than Algebra which
| give tools rather than train the brain to think
| differently.
|
| I had a strong math cursus at uni, and I've observed that
| it takes a while for the "math point of view" to "click"
| and suddenly make sense. It is also the case in some
| comments here. I have never seen someone saying they have
| "clicked" before uni (I'm sure there is some, the point
| is that they are too rare to be the reason we waste all
| the other students' time). The reality is that teaching 1
| year of something that you need 2-3 years before
| "clicking" means that it is just wasted on people who
| just do one year.
|
| And, of course, Algebra is not limited to that. But it is
| also just true that a lot of it is learning formula by
| heart, which makes it difficult to pretend teaching a
| more challenging, engaging and practical math domain will
| make people somehow less smart.
| inconceivable wrote:
| of course not, but all of this insanity is just based on
| feelings, not actual outcomes.
| colpabar wrote:
| To me, it seems like the people who are pushing these policies
| are doing so to "juke the stats" and make it look like certain
| demographics aren't as behind academically as they actually are.
| Statistically, bipoc kids don't do as well in school as
| white/asian kids, right? I am not trying to make this about race,
| and I am not suggesting anything other than that statistical
| reality. But that sentiment seems pretty common when I read about
| these "equity" programs. "We are doing this to reduce the
| inequalities between groups X and Y".
|
| One way to fix the statistical aspect of that problem is to
| reduce the possibility for such disparities to exist, which could
| be accomplished by removing "higher level" classes, such as
| algebra in middle school. If the upper limit of what a student
| can learn is lowered, then the students below that limit are
| "closer" to the students who are are at or above it.
|
| Can anyone convince me this isn't what's happening? It just seems
| like a entirely ineffectual political move with the singular goal
| of making the people behind it look good, so that they can retain
| power. I cannot provide evidence, because part of my theory is
| that everyone involved in enacting these policies is either
| lying, or they incorrectly think that these policies help. I just
| can't see how anyone can think this is a good idea, or that it
| will help _anything_ other than the stats. But why shouldn 't I
| think this?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > To me, it seems like the people who are pushing these
| policies are doing so to "juke the stats" and make it look like
| certain demographics aren't as behind academically as they
| actually are. Statistically, bipoc kids don't do as well in
| school as white/asian kids, right? I am not trying to make this
| about race, and I am not suggesting anything other than that
| statistical reality. But that sentiment seems pretty common
| when I read about these "equity" programs. "We are doing this
| to reduce the inequalities between groups X and Y".
|
| They're trying to make the schools fix poverty (whether caused
| by racism or anything else), in order to avoid directly fixing
| poverty. It's an endeavor doomed from the start because it
| rests on the religious belief that success is directly
| proportional to merit, and merit is best shown by achievement
| in school.
|
| But we can't have a society of middle-class strivers, because
| no ditches will be dug, so all you end up with in the fantasy
| case is a bunch of well-educated ditch diggers who now have
| massive student loan debts. What you get in the real case is a
| bunch of people who realize that they can either A) be
| depressed baristas lamenting their failure to do better with
| the expensive degree that has given them a lifetime of debt, B)
| be depressed baristas who don't owe $100K for a useless degree.
|
| It's not compulsory and free primary education that will fix
| poverty, and it's not the job of teachers to repair all
| inequity in society (although to the most egomaniacal, it's
| _all_ they think their duty is.) Just like it isn 't college's
| duty to fix racism. The way you fix these things is by directly
| addressing them, not explaining to children how to use a
| bootstrap.
| vuln wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| bamfly wrote:
| Yeah--but part of the reason for this is because we aren't
| capable of addressing the actual causes of educational
| inequality (among other forms...) which have very little to do
| with schools. Instead we focus on schools and ask them to do
| the impossible. The results are, predictably, absurd, and
| harmful to other worthy goals schools ought to have, because
| the only way to make serious progress is by faking it one way
| or another, or just getting lucky.
|
| But this is far cheaper than actually fixing our entrenched
| poverty problems, screwed-up justice system, and terrible
| social safety net, and school reform programs are easy and
| often fairly popular (as opposed to what we actually need to
| do, which is guaranteed to be controversial and probably end up
| sabotaged no matter _which_ plausible set of solutions one
| proposes) plus the real solutions would take many years to
| yield results, which is far too long for our political cycle--
| so we keep trying, then act surprised and /or outraged when the
| results are very stupid, when we've set things up such that
| we're basically _asking_ for stupid results.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I don't know why this author needs to use this issue as a
| political cudgel against "progressivism" - I don't see anything
| particularly progressive about this policy vs the Dallas one he
| also mentions - the goals are exactly the same, to bring more
| equity to disadvantaged and minority students.
|
| Here is what Jo Boaler has to say on the issue:
| https://patch.com/california/across-ca/lets-move-past-acrimo...
|
| she claims that having different math tracks creates a
| "mathematical nowhere" for some students that stop at algebra 2,
| but absolutely nothing in her system really alleviates this non-
| issue or makes it better. It's honestly such a nonsensical policy
| to me that has nothing to do with politics whatsoever, in my
| mind, but people will inject what they believe into what they
| see.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Came here to say the same thing. Progessivism, wokeism, etc are
| being hit by a propaganda campaign by the uber rich. Because
| they can't profit from the healthy public policies that people
| like me grew up under in the 80s and 90s. Before they got
| systematically undermined and replaced with whatever all this
| is.
|
| If any young people out there are reading this and scratching
| their heads, let me offer a small piece of advice: if someone's
| argument hinges on generalizations against a group of people,
| it should give one pause.
|
| Edit: I just made a generalization about the uber rich. Please,
| think of the uber rich. They suffer so.
| karaterobot wrote:
| To be fair to the author, he is not the one who framed this as
| a progressive issue, many of its proponents did that. I agree
| that it isn't progressive, or maybe just that it is an example
| of when something goes so far in one direction that it looks
| exactly like its opposite. In any case, it deserves to be
| called out as a dumb idea.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Public education is political. It is run by directly elected
| boards, with funding provided by the legislature, and under the
| laws of the legidlature.
|
| Education policy is difficult, and every political movement
| that has worked on it has had at least 1 stupid and
| counterproductive idea. The particular stupid idea under
| discussion here happens to be one done by the movement that
| identifies itself as progressive, and in a state where
| progressives hold a lot of political power.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| What evidence do you have that this policy is influenced by
| any kind of "movement," and what are the differences of this
| "movement" compared to the Dallas policy mentioned in the
| article?
| underlipton wrote:
| It's a common manifestation of the dissonance in American
| politics. TFA is advocating for a fundamentally progressive
| stance, but he's arguing against ostensible Boston lefties.
| What's unspoken is that the people making these decisions for
| public schools in Cambridge are elites who send their own kids
| to private schools, often prep; this is just another way to
| bleed a public institution so that they're not on the hook.
| Bonus points: their darling children have less competition for
| the local universities.
|
| IME, tracking is only a portion of the issue, anyway. A
| confluence of factors stymied my growth; having to take Algebra
| 2 and Trig separately and Precalc as a standalone course didn't
| help, but poor instruction from "sink or swim" advocates was
| probably more consequential, and having parents distracted by a
| messy divorce and economic stresses from the 07/08 crash even
| more so. Between those, I went from starting middle school on
| track to take college-level Differential Equations or Calc 2,
| and ended up almost flunking AP Calc. Never really recovered.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I took AP calc in highschool and much later in life got
| placed in trig for college. I was greatly annoyed that the
| subsequent precalculus class was the exact same stuff I
| learned in trig, to the point where I asked the professor if
| I would learn anything new, and they said no.
| [deleted]
| pwthornton wrote:
| This is the way. Teach kids more, not less. Ask more of them, not
| less. If you need to lengthen the school day and school year to
| do so, do it. Do it now.
|
| "So what should we do instead? Dallas came up with an answer:
| Teach kids more math instead of teaching them less. In 2019,
| Dallas Independent School District implemented a new equity
| policy that encouraged many more people to take honors math
| classes:
|
| Many capable Hispanic, Black and English learner students did not
| elect to join these classes on their own or were passed over by
| their instructors. And their parents were often unaware they
| could make the request.
|
| Dallas ISD, which serves some 142,000 children, took note of the
| disparity and in 2017 formed a racial equity advisory council --
| some of whose members had children in the district -- with the
| goal of improving opportunity for all...It decided to move from
| an opt-in model to an opt-out policy in the 2019-20 school year.
| Since then...students cannot opt out [of advances classes]
| without written parent permission. The move has dramatically
| increased participation among traditionally marginalized
| children."
| proxiful-wash wrote:
| It was you wonder if a foreign state adversary is influencing
| us to stupify our next generation. I'll keep my comments civil
| here but its pretty obvious who is behind this.
| throwanem wrote:
| If it's all that obvious, you should have no problem naming
| who's behind this and providing evidence to support your
| claim, rather than merely fearmongering to no useful end.
| dial9-1 wrote:
| [flagged]
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I don't know. These "equity" arguments are
| indistinguishable from a deliberate attack.... the sort of
| attack you'd expect from a country that, having been unable
| to either compete with the West or conquer it, is well-
| known to have resorted to memetic warfare.
| throwanem wrote:
| > I don't know.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| But you do, it sounds like. Enlighten us.
| baremetal wrote:
| That would be way too spicy for this place, Bob.
| throwanem wrote:
| I'm not claiming to know anything. I'm just asking that
| those who do make such claims be a little less gnomic in
| their commentary, so that the rest of us can evaluate
| whether or not you're talking nonsense.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| TIL _gnomic_. Thanks!
|
| And if I knew whether or not it was nonsense, I wouldn't
| have prefaced the post with "I don't know." The priors
| are suspicious enough: might a country that attempted to
| get the world to believe that the US created the HIV
| virus [1], successfully influenced a razor's-edge
| Presidential election [2], and plotted to stir up
| domestic racial conflict [3] try to handicap the US by
| originating and propagating counterproductive educational
| ideologies? It's certainly believable, but there's no
| smoking gun.
|
| 1: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/14/r
| ussian...
|
| 2: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-
| finds-rus...
|
| 3: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-documents-
| reveal-...
| linksnapzz wrote:
| Robert Conquest's Third Laws of Politics:
|
| "The simplest way to explain the behavior of any
| bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is
| controlled by a cabal of its enemies."
| glonq wrote:
| Well either _the US is especially vulnerable to foreign
| sabotage_ or _the US is especially vulnerable to self-
| sabotage_.
|
| I'll let others debate over which is worse.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > Teach kids more, not less
|
| It's an odd combination of teaching kids too much in elementary
| school and too little in high. The children are exposed to a
| far more comprehensive curriculum at the expense of never
| practicing the skills enough to master them. As soon as summer
| resets their brains, they suddenly have large gaps in knowledge
| that slow next year's learning.
| Romanulus wrote:
| [dead]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _with the goal of improving opportunity for all_
|
| I'm chatting with some friends who are parents in the Bay Area.
| Their admittedly very Californian response is that at least
| this should reduce competition for college spots. (Their kids
| are obviously going to get tutoring.)
| throw9away6 wrote:
| Ha that's not actually happening though because college
| admissions aren't going to be based in knowledge but on
| ability to jump through hoops perfectly
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| AI is going to upend everything about education.
|
| I can't imagine colleges doing much beyond lots of AI
| interviews in the near future. That's if there is even a
| point in getting 95% of degrees anymore anyway.
| bluescrn wrote:
| The internet should have transformed education. For
| curious self-learners it has, there's incredible
| resources online for those who seek them out. But it
| hasn't made much of a dent in 'the education system'
| throw9away6 wrote:
| Because ability to asses knowledge is poor everywhere.
| programming might be a bit better at it but everyone else
| relies on signaling. Also many industries are essentially
| government adjacent so they continuation of college
| entrenchment continues
| guidoism wrote:
| Something I say to anyone who will listen is that we have
| lived through the moment in history when the cost to
| receive a world-class elite education has collapsed to
| near zero and hardly anybody has noticed. We still talk
| as if an official four year university education is _the_
| goal and bemoan the cost of it rising faster than general
| inflation and worry about taking on debt that will burden
| them for the rest of their lives and worry about our kids
| "getting in" to the university of their choice.
|
| It _has_ changed education. And people who have kids
| nearing college age, who have noticed, will be able to
| help them navigate this world in a much more useful way
| than people who tell their kids to take on as much debt
| as they can to go to any university they want.
|
| The pipeline that fuels our decision making of what to
| focus on in primary/secondary school as it relates only
| to what will help them stand out in a college application
| and our decision making of what a university-level
| education means as it relates to getting a job is
| fascinating.
| orangepurple wrote:
| The main purpose of college besides education and
| networking is the development of social stratification.
| Many employers will toss your CV without a degree even if
| it is not required in any capacity for the job in
| question.
| candiodari wrote:
| And what, exactly, do you expect administrators to do? They
| don't have any actual knowledge and if they do, they
| absolutely do NOT want to use it, so tests are out. There
| are now more administrators than teaching staff. We're not
| far off from having more "social" workers in schools than
| teachers.
|
| First and foremost, these people want to _decide_ what is
| equitable. Firstly, without taking actual ability (or
| "conscientiousness", how much effort kids are willing to
| put in), and secondly, they're human. They're corrupt.
| throw9away6 wrote:
| That's exactly what I expect. With no ability to
| differentiate candidates by ability all you can do is
| chase diversity metrics or look for people that haven't
| made any mistakes yet (4.0 vs 3.9 etc)
| [deleted]
| btilly wrote:
| Don't worry. DEI programs have this covered as well.
|
| Stop using standardized tests to get in. And then just aim
| for the perfect "socially desirable" mix. Regardless of
| ability.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| I know it's vogue to ridicule DEI programs, but the reality
| is that as the blog post points out, these measures achieve
| the opposite of DEI (all 3 letters of those).
|
| Even standardized tests. There is already evidence that
| standardized tests reduce equality. Which is not surprising
| at all because standardized tests are the one part of a
| college application that someone can excel at purely with
| concentrated hard work over a relatively short period of
| time.
|
| An underprivileged kid motivated to go to a good college
| cannot make up for poor grades earned from K-8 when they
| barely had the ability to plan a day in the future, and so
| was driven to do whatever their friends were doing. And
| then that set them up behind the 8 ball in many ways from
| 9-12 as well.
|
| Finally, real DEI requires listening to actual
| underprivileged people. The vast majority of
| underprivileged parents will not respond to data showing
| that their kids are underperforming by saying "make sure no
| one can do this". They will respond by demanding the
| schools provide more resources so their kids can excel.
|
| The OP wonders how Cambridge, Mass and CA are making such
| changes. But it's not surprising at all because these
| decisions are being driven largely by upper middle class
| educated people who absolutely cannot relate to the under
| privileged people they claim they're helping.
|
| And this is an implementation of the worst of privilege.
| Making decisions for the underprivileged by the privileged
| without ever asking the supposed beneficiaries what will
| actually help them.
| nancyhn wrote:
| Can someone explain how DEI programs got so embeded despite
| being flagrantly regressive?
| Dig1t wrote:
| I personally am afraid to speak out against such things.
| I did in college and was viciously flamed by people who
| thought it was a good idea. You can shut down the entire
| conversation by just calling someone "racist" or "bigot".
|
| I don't want to lose my job or be ostracized.
|
| To be clear, my opinions are only that it seems wrong to
| me to discriminate against someone based on their
| immutable characteristics (like race).
| rainsford wrote:
| It only seems inexplicable if you accept as reality the
| most extreme characterization of DEI programs, which
| personally I believe should be a tip-off that such a
| characterization might not be entirely accurate. The more
| ridiculous programs naturally get the most attention,
| regardless of how representative they are, and DEI
| programs as a whole are further strawmanned by
| politicians and pundits looking to trigger your outrage.
| The discourse thoroughly ignores all the programs working
| on DEI as a topic in ways most reasonable people would
| probably be OK with.
|
| As an example right in this thread, the grandparent
| comment talks about the Dallas schools looking at the
| issue of children unevenly taking advantage of advanced
| courses and coming up with a solution that helped expand
| access across the board. This absolutely would qualify as
| a DEI program (they even used the equity trigger word),
| but did not do anything I would think many people would
| find objectionable.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| The amount of equity a society enforces should be inversely
| proportional to age. If a kindergartener is unable to
| succeed, we need to give them extra help. If a 45 year old
| is unable to succeed, they had their chances and it's their
| fault.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Even if an older person's situation is largely not their
| fault, it is much more difficult to correct, and
| society's benefit for its investment is much lower.
|
| On ramps for everyone are important, but as you say, far
| far more important and effective in people's early years.
| [deleted]
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm not sure it will -- there are still plenty of schools
| elsewhere that offer advanced coursework, and their graduates
| can more than fill the freshman class of elite colleges.
|
| For example, I grew up in Sacramento, and our public schools
| had a tracked program from 2nd grade. Pretty much all of us
| took algebra/geometry in middle school, and those who were
| advanced were taking precalc or calc by 9th grade. It has
| been a disappointing experience to learn that in the heart of
| silicon valley, 30+ years later, the public schools have less
| to offer in terms of differentiated learning and accelerated
| education.
|
| BTW, I have also been talking with Bay Area parents about
| this, including some HNers. Would love to chat with you/your
| friends to know how folks are sorting this out. We've had
| some success and are always looking to help others do the
| same. Contact info in profile.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| I think this is exactly the type of program they're trying
| to get rid of because it caused a disparity of outcomes of
| students at graduation.
| rayiner wrote:
| * * *
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Tracking helped me in particular by making my homeroom (the
| British school equivalent, j called a class) more
| civilized, n fair to students w less academic talent than
| me. Given the tracking in English n at one point, briefly,
| Mathematics, it meant the other boys had a shot at getn the
| best score in the class or at all enjoying leniency in
| grading, which my presence as a future Erdosian
| mathematician made impossible, n their parents would deny
| them privileges n beat them sometimes if they weren't
| excellent students, so they'd bully me for monopolizing the
| academics completely. The girls did not, because i believe
| there was not an expectation they be the best student n
| plus i was very good-looking to them, though not to myself.
| Future model too. But the bullying was the main challenge,
| no matter what they threw at me the academics were nothing
| in difficulty compared to the bullying. So for that reason
| alone tracking helped me out, n the homeroom out too.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Not sure exactly what you're dancing around, but man, if some
| of those top schools in CA could reduce competition by, say,
| expanding admissions, that would be great.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Not sure exactly what you 're dancing around_
|
| Poor Californians who can't afford tutors will lack the
| skills to compete with other students. (If you're
| graduating without calculus, you'll have a tough time
| becoming an engineer or performing on a standardised test.)
| That reduces those with means' competition, _ceteris
| paribus_.
| [deleted]
| orangepurple wrote:
| It won't reduce competition for college spots. Admissions
| committees will continue to fulfill shadow racial quotas
| using first names, last names, and reparations sob stories as
| filters to maintain the status quo. Test scores of special
| protected classes hardly matter as long as those primary
| objectives are met.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Lengthen the school _year_ sure, but I'm skeptical that
| lengthening the school _day_ won't have, at best, mixed
| effects, especially given all the studies on sleep etc.
| mfer wrote:
| Kids need time to free roam and just be. Always being fed
| more information in controlled environments is not good for
| the psyche or their creativity.
| djbusby wrote:
| Start at 10am, go till 4pm?
| cobbaut wrote:
| European here, I went to school from 8:20 till 16:05. You
| guys really have school starting at 10:00? Who takes care
| of the kids after parents go to work and before school
| starts?
| jdale27 wrote:
| No; the comment you replied to sounded like a suggestion,
| not a description of reality.
|
| In the US, it's common for schools to start at 8:00 or
| even 7:30. Recently there has been a push to start later
| to give kids more time to sleep. So pushing it back to
| say 8:30 or 9:00 (but not shortening the day, so
| basically everything just gets pushed back, and the kids
| stay up later, and need more time to sleep...).
| cobbaut wrote:
| Thanks.
| pwthornton wrote:
| My high school started somewhere around 7:22. I got up at
| 5:45 in high school. Just nuts. I get up for my joby job
| as an executive at 7:15.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| In general in the US I think high schools start and
| finish earliest, then middle schools, then elementary
| schools.
|
| The reason is purely practical- start times need to be
| staggered to allow schools to share buses, and having
| high school students get home first means they can look
| after their younger siblings until their parents get home
| from work.
| gerad wrote:
| Yeah school starts between 7 and 9am, but we still have
| the problem on the other side in the US, schools end
| between 1:30 and 4pm (at least here in CA). Figuring out
| after care is an exercise left to the reader.
|
| It's completely ridiculous, especially considering how
| sane many (most?) countries in the rest of the world have
| it.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Hell, start at 10am go to 6pm. That's still less than 8
| hours of instruction considering there's lunch, gym/recess,
| etc.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This really should vary with grade. It's hard to keep a 6
| year old's attention for almost 8 hours. Far more
| possible in High School.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's hard to keep _my_ attention for almost 8 hours. And
| generally a lot less and that 's with coffee and
| generally being able to get up and stretch my legs. And,
| while the situation is much different, I've become a fan
| of shorter presentations, meetings, etc.
|
| ADDED: I often think I couldn't handle high school today.
| bamfly wrote:
| Looking back on high school, no wonder I was so damn bad
| at it and hated it so much. And depressed all the time.
| And probably picked up SAD that took me a decade beyond
| it to shake.
|
| I'd quit a job as soon as I could find another, if it
| demanded of me what high school did. Hell, I'd quit based
| on the consistent 10+ hour days and constant due-tomorrow
| deadlines, let alone the rest of it like the before-the-
| sun's-up start time, having to ask permission to go take
| a piss, sitting in crappy chairs in bad lighting for
| back-to-back ~hour blocks all day, and having to keep
| "working" indefinitely with people who won't stop being
| shitheads in ways that'd get them fired from most any job
| inside a week. It's _insanely_ terrible.
|
| Like, there are _multiple_ bad things about it that I 've
| never had to tolerate in such abundance and variety even
| in low-skilled jobs I've held. WTF.
|
| College and adult life are _so much_ more chill than high
| school. It was a real shock, leaving there for the wider
| world. So glad the people who were like "this [shitty
| thing] is to prepare you for the _real world_ , which is
| way harder and less forgiving!" or "enjoy it, because
| this is the best time of your life" were entirely wrong.
| I'd probably have offed myself by now, if they'd been
| right. Four years was barely tolerable--a lifetime of
| that, or worse? No, thanks.
| VK538FY wrote:
| I thought that I was the only one to feel this way! Not
| anymore.
| ghaff wrote:
| Unfortunately for a lot of people work is probably a lot
| more like high school than we might wish. But, yeah, in
| college I mostly attended class, some I genuinely enjoyed
| more than others, spent a _lot_ of time on
| extracurricular activities /sports which is where I
| generally formed lifelong friendships (and developed a
| lot of the skills I use day to day)--and squeaked
| through. And, as the alumni donations person I've been a
| friend of for almost 40 years who works for $SCHOOL likes
| to remind me, I've done well and $SCHOOL taught me a lot
| in general. And I've had a good career. Luck has played a
| role.
| zztop44 wrote:
| Glad you found your place. High school wasn't _quite_ as
| bad for me but I was constantly sick and battled
| migraines that stopped as soon as I left. Now I work
| hard, work long hours, but I'm happy and feel healthy and
| strong. It's very different.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Most school districts want to have students home before the
| evening rush "hour" starts. Mixing school buses and parent
| pickups with peak afternoon traffic is something they
| absolutely want to avoid.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Pretty sure that's a shorter day than when I was in school.
| Though, I wouldn't have complained about a 10am start time.
| achates wrote:
| Does putting marginal students in advanced classes actually
| help them?
| whiddershins wrote:
| This isn't what they did. What they did was automatically
| enroll kids with higher test scores into advanced classes,
| making it opt-out instead of opt-in.
|
| That's all.
| ryandamm wrote:
| The results cited in the article suggest that either the
| answer is yes, or in fact "marginal students" are perfectly
| capable students who were being passed over.
|
| The text of the article further suggests that many of the
| students who scored well on qualifying exams weren't taking
| the classes because they didn't have the parental involvement
| or default assumption that they would take it.
|
| (Note that the opt-out group was selected from the general
| population based on the results of an exam; it wasn't a
| population-wide opt out. I suspect from your comment you
| didn't see that?)
| recursive wrote:
| Am I meant to believe that all students are equally
| capable? That's a tough sell.
| nomat wrote:
| students definitely are not all equally capable in one
| aspect for sure: their ability to hire or provide private
| tutoring outside of school hours. Cutting access to
| state-funded programs (such as algebra classes in middle
| school) just means the rich children get even more of a
| leg up on college admissions and life in general.
| [deleted]
| ouid wrote:
| The way math is typically taught at the lowest levels
| actively hurts mathematical ability. Just taking them out of
| those classes will help them.
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| Yes because I refuse to believe "stand and deliver" could not
| happen in real life!
|
| Seriously tho I think it will. I'm sure a foundation is
| important in many fields but one can get pretty far by
| jumping in. I remember my high school physics teacher take us
| on a wild ride of quantum mechanics for three weeks. If
| nothing it opened up a lot of future reading
| hdior wrote:
| [dead]
| mabbo wrote:
| It's hyperbolic and not a totally fair comparison, but reading
| this, I had to go find and reread "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt
| Vonnegut.
|
| https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...
|
| When the means to achieve equality is to handicap the strong,
| we're going the wrong way.
|
| It would be more expensive and harder to try instead to invest in
| and help those with additional needs. But nobody is interested in
| spending more to help others.
| lispisok wrote:
| >When the means to achieve equality is to handicap the strong,
| we're going the wrong way.
|
| A lot of people in the equity/equality movement have been
| following "the means justify the ends" for quite some time now
| and that approach has been growing in administrators. One of
| the reasons the supreme court ruled against affirmative action
| is the implementation of affirmative action in college
| admissions turned into shameless racism.
| baremetal wrote:
| Affirmative action meets the definition of systemic racism.
|
| Policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society
| or organization, and that result in and support a continued
| unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful
| treatment of others based on race[1]
|
| [1]https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sys
| te...
| ranting-moth wrote:
| [flagged]
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| Spending more doesn't seem to help. California is the best
| funded but worst grades.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by "best funded" but California
| spending is fairly middle-of-the-pack compared to all U.S.
| states. ~14k per pupil, compared to most North East states
| spending over 20k per pupil. [1]
|
| https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-
| releases/2021/public-s...
|
| But if you take these rankings at face value [2] it does seem
| there's more than spending at play here. Though perhaps
| spending simply has to be normalized against Cost of Living?
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/rankings/education/p...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Im having trouble reconciling these numbers with with total
| spending in California. Does it include local and federal
| funding?
|
| The California department of education puts[1] per pupil
| k-12 spending at 23K, almost double that listed in the
| census.
|
| >The total overall funding (federal, state, and local) for
| all K-12 education programs is $124.3 billion, with per-
| pupil spending of $21,596 in 2021-22. For 2020-21, per-
| pupil funding increased from $16,881 in the 2020-21 Budget
| Act to $23,089 in the 2021-22 Budget Act.
|
| There is a minimum _state_ funding of $13,976, which is
| pretty close to the census numbers. There could also be a
| difference due to comparing the 2023 CA budget to 2019
| census data, but a near doubling in 4 years seems pretty
| extreme.
|
| https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/eb/yr21ltr0811.asp#:~:text=For
| %....
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Perhaps it is a cost disease issue with high cost of
| living driving up expense of mostly labor expensed fields
| with little automation fields like education?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think there are lots of possible reasons for different
| outcomes. I was mostly curious about which funding
| numbers are accurate.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Very interesting, I didn't realize there was a recent
| sharp increase in spending.
|
| I think you're right, the census is out of date. However,
| given spending likely has a lagging effect, the
| historically low budget - coupled with harsh covid
| lockdowns - does begin to explain why CA ranks low among
| public schools.
| danans wrote:
| > It would be more expensive and harder to try instead to
| invest in and help those with additional needs. But nobody is
| interested in spending more to help others
|
| Underneath all of this is a budgetary trade-off. Quite often
| there are funds to pay either for more support for struggling
| students or advanced opportunities for advanced students, but
| not both.
|
| That budgetary problem is ultimately fueled by larger socio-
| economic challenges, including high cost of living that is out
| of pace with tax revenue for school funding, high public
| pension costs, and ever-increasing demands on public schools to
| be social service hubs dealing with fallout from things like
| drug and violence epidemics. Those are expensive problems to
| treat.
|
| Furthermore, those problems are not distributed uniformly
| across society. They are heavily disproportionately present in
| lower income communities, whether they're urban or rural.
|
| Schools in uniformly well-off communities don't need to worry
| about treating these problems to anywhere near the same degree,
| so they need fewer behavioural and educational specialists just
| to keep the classroom functional, if they can do that at all.
|
| Well-off children from supportive homes and communities are
| cheaper to educate. They arrive in the classroom with years of
| preschool and summers of educationally stimulating camps. They
| don't come to school hungry.
|
| As a society, we _could_ address some of the deeper inequities
| in opportunity, to relieve low income schools of the additional
| societal burdens we place on them, but those sorts of measures
| are even more polarising than school funding.
|
| Therefore, we end up with the default, which is individuals
| optimizing purely for their own interest (i.e. the push for
| school vouchers), not what is more sustainable for society.
| [deleted]
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| So many such policies remind me of a 6th grade story "Harrison
| Bergeron". (yeah, a few decades ago)
| [deleted]
| racl101 wrote:
| Race to the bottom.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| A common phrase of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is at
| work here. Those held to lower standards will fall to lower
| standards, deprived of the resources and support to achieve. The
| article attached provides a fantastic explanation.
|
| https://www.educationnext.org/teachers-should-replace-the-so...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| For those who think this is hyperbole, see [1] for a
| mathematician taking down the framework.
|
| California's new standards were written by folks without a
| background in math nor neuroscience. They misquote neuroscience
| papers [2] while making mathematical mistakes in their policy
| paper.
|
| [1]
| https://sites.google.com/view/publiccommentsonthecmf/?ref=st...
|
| [2]
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/17O123ENTxvZOjXTnOMNRDtHQAOj...
| tootie wrote:
| I've gone around in a few circles thinking about this. My
| kids curriculum is really different from when I was a kid.
| They've almost completely dropped grammer, spelling and
| cursive writing. They're teaching a lot more problem solving
| techniques in math. Some of this surprised me, but some of it
| I realized was actually pretty great.
|
| I think there's some really necessary attempts to go back to
| first principles on education. Some steps will be missteps
| but I'm really happy some people are willing to take some
| risky efforts. Do kids take math class because they need to
| learn math? "But teacher, I'll always have a calculator".
| Damn right. A calculator and Wikipedia and chatgpt.
| Remembering the quadratic equation is literally useless
| knowledge to retain. "More math" isn't an end goal to
| anything aside from the 0.01% who will pursue math as a
| career and keep the wiki pages up to date for the rest of us.
|
| So what the hell should kids be learning? Good question. I'm
| not really sure but I'm open minded about the answer.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| > "But teacher, I'll always have a calculator". Damn right.
| A calculator and Wikipedia and chatgpt. Remembering the
| quadratic equation is literally useless knowledge to
| retain.
|
| Remembering the quadratic equation allowed you to make an
| educated argument against its usefulness, so it isn't
| "literally" useless (badum bum psh).
|
| While I agree that there is tons of room for improvement on
| how/what/when we teach students different subjects, I think
| we should be very cautious about offloading subjects to
| tools before students have a firm grasp of the material.
|
| In my opinion, one of the greatest benefits of deeply
| engaging with a variety of subjects is getting into the
| habit of asking "why". I think this is important because it
| encourages students to dig deeper. I can only speak for
| myself, but the times I have learned the most is by far
| when I took an interest and started asking how and why
| things work.
|
| Imo, it's okay that students engage with complex subjects
| that they will never use, if for no other reason than that
| it will provide ample opportunities for them to ask why.
| Perhaps somewhere along the way they will discover that
| they are in fact in the small minority who will pursue math
| as a career.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| Oh my, I read your first link in its entirety and, "Yikes."
|
| The Public comment #5 section regarding chapter 12 (which
| covers homework and assessments) was especially shocking.
|
| Chapter 12 in the 2005 version of the CMF was 5 pages long.
| The same chapter in the current draft is 70 pages long,
| almost entirely due to a slew of opinions against homework
| and other testing practices.
|
| The entire CMF draft was (and still is even after
| corrections) littered with improper citations that at times
| entirely contradict the opinion it's meant to support.
|
| I find it the height of irony that a group of educators
| arguing against homework appear to have... not done their
| homework.
|
| This brings to the forefront a concern I haven't seen
| mentioned much in this thread: let's put aside how such a
| policy might affect any particular student's performance in
| school... what kind of adults will this policy create?
|
| Imo, policy like this will create adults who put in about as
| much effort into their work as the 20 people employed to
| oversee this iteration of the CMF. A single professor did
| their work for them, and even with his help they still
| haven't fixed it.
|
| "Oh, you got an F on your assignment? No problem! Just turn
| it in again next week and I'll give you an A."
|
| To be clear, the specific policy I just mentioned really is
| part of the document - allowing students to always redo work
| for a better grade.
|
| That reinforces that idea that it's okay to do a half-ass job
| because you can always "fix it later". In the real world
| however, poor decisions can have devastating effects the very
| first time, and there might not be a chance for a "do-over".
|
| Homework also normalizes the idea that things will be
| expected from you in this world if you are to be employed.
| It's not only about engaging with the material, it's also
| about practicing being a hard-working and fastidious human.
| Our grandparents might have said that doing homework "builds
| character", and I would agree with them.
|
| Finally, the idea presented by the CMF draft that homework
| just isn't very useful is absolutely wrong. Case in point,
| piano practice. The only way to get better at playing the
| piano is to practice. The difference between someone who
| pokes around on the keyboard every blue moon and someone who
| practices daily is stark.
|
| Some might argue that becoming proficient at playing a piano
| is inherently different than becoming proficient at math, to
| those folks I would ask: How is training muscle memory and
| engaging with new material so different between the two?
| htfu wrote:
| > To be clear, the specific policy I just mentioned really
| is part of the document - allowing students to always redo
| work for a better grade.
|
| If you've learned the material and fulfill the
| requirements, and the course is still ongoing, why should
| it matter you were late? Are you teaching the subject, or
| is [literally every course all the time] really mostly a
| study in time management? (hint: it's not for the student's
| sake, it's about managing teacher time and resources. Which
| is obviously necessary, but not otherwise positive)
|
| > That reinforces that idea that it's okay to do a half-ass
| job because you can always "fix it later".
|
| I'd say it might equally mean not pointlessly throwing in
| the towel and phoning the rest in just because you
| performed poorly early on and (rightly) feel like it
| doesn't matter anymore.
|
| > In the real world however, poor decisions can have
| devastating effects the very first time, and there might
| not be a chance for a "do-over".
|
| Sure. Exceedingly rarely though, compared to school.
|
| > Homework also normalizes the idea that things will be
| expected from you in this world if you are to be employed.
|
| Most jobs don't involve additional work after you've
| finished work. Nor constant artificial deadlines that never
| let you truly relax. Constant stress is bad for humans,
| it's not something that hardens you, and pointlessly
| subjecting people to it "just because" is not just useless
| but counter productive, because you get blunted. It's
| important to have something extra to tap into when shit
| truly hits the fan and it's time to step up, but the
| contrast gets lost if it's a neverending blur.
| msravi wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > It does not matter if they grow up in foster care or a two-
| parent family.
|
| But it does! Very much. I just don't understand why the US
| tries everything other than fixing the most glaring cause. Lots
| of problems can be fixed by encouraging and aggrandizing stable
| two-parent families instead of getting schools and teachers to
| fill proxy parenting roles.
| kneebonian wrote:
| My mothers been an educator for many many years now. She says
| the single biggest factor is parental involvement.
|
| But hey convincing both parents to be gone all day and slave
| away for the corporate masters was smashing the patriarchy
| and breaking the glass ceiling or something, and the fact
| that it doubled the labor pool causing supply to go up is
| entirely unrelated to the fact that wages started stagnating
| at the same point.
|
| But really what use is a family anyway, I mean who needs that
| when you can have a "community" on a platform that is
| dedicated to "content" for you to "consume".
| t-writescode wrote:
| Parental involvement works when there's just one parent,
| too, it's just harder on the single parent because they
| have to work so hard to be able to provide for themselves
| and their child; and, it only gets worse with the struggles
| the everyday person experiences - lower relative wages,
| etc.
| t-writescode wrote:
| The children who *are* in a single-parent household do also
| need to be helped, and demanding that their parents "duh, get
| married, forehead" doesn't help the individuals that need
| that help. And there are a _lot_ of single parents who will
| never want to have a significant other ever again for a
| multitude of entirely valid reasons.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Something about patriarchy or white supremacy or something.
| marcusverus wrote:
| In my opinion, much of this comes down to blind empathy.
| Folks are more worried about hurting people's feelings than
| about their life outcomes. They would rather "lean in" and
| embrace the huge rise in single parent households than push
| back, even with the knowledge that these social changes have
| resulted in millions of children living in poverty who
| otherwise would not have! It's absolutely bananas.
| tootie wrote:
| What the hell does pushing back on single-family homes look
| like? Christian fundamentalism? Think about this from a
| perspective of getting positive outcomes from the actual
| world that exists. Divorce happens. Unplanned pregnancy
| happens. Family planning is being actively dismantled by
| the same people who are pushing for increased privatization
| of schooling and decreases in social safety nets. I don't
| think that's a coincidence.
|
| I think being overly sympathetic is infinitely preferable
| to merciless cynicism. Removing poverty is also much more
| preferable than, what?, making it harder to divorce? We
| could probably makes huge strides in education outcomes by
| adopting universal healthcare and free school lunches so
| single parents aren't so burdened.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Stop incentivizing single parenthood. This reestablishes
| social norms around staying together as they (the
| parents) need each other. Trying to approximate that via
| social engineering and creating clients of the state has
| failed for 50+ years.
| petsfed wrote:
| It turns out that a lot of what makes a relationship work is
| also what causes the children of 2-parent families to do
| better. Namely, if you remove the stress of scrambling just
| to make ends meet, and remove food and housing and healthcare
| and employment insecurity, then people have more time to
| spend on their families. And provided the parents aren't
| terrible people, that leads to better outcomes, more stable
| marriages, etc etc.
|
| Its very easy to say "if we could just keep more parents
| together..." as if the availability of divorce after giving
| birth was the problem. Solve the major reasons why
| relationships fail after giving birth, and you'll likely
| create the situation where kids have more engaged parents
| too.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a
| good measure.
|
| We have a generation if activists and policy makers that have
| grown up seeing measurements as the ground truth, that they have
| list sight of what they were trying to accomplish.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Yes, technically it will improve 'equity' by dumbing down
| everyone. I believe this is the script of the movie Idiocracy
| playing out in real time. We all laughed and now we will cry
| because politicians decided that they'll be inspired by the
| movie.
| nomat wrote:
| slightly off topic but there is a lot of usage of "DEI" and
| other.. buzzwordy terms used in specific circles. is this the
| norm for HN now?
| croes wrote:
| Sounds like a cover up for the real problem: Not enough money and
| teachers for education.
| pjscott wrote:
| In the US, inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending on public
| education has roughly doubled in the past 50 years. If money
| were the real constraint, I would expect 1970s schools to be
| absolutely horrible compared to the schools today -- but
| standardized test scores for things like reading and math have
| been roughly flat over that time span.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| Motivated and rich parents don't care about it. If you don't
| provide the learning opportunities to the gifted students, those
| parents will just look for somewhere or someone else to get the
| job done. Only the poor and the underprivileged gifted students
| are deprived of the opportunities. At the end of the day, that's
| how things work in the real world
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| It'll get USA screwed on the World stage too. For me getn tracked
| in math classes pretty much the whole time, n to the point we had
| a class w four people in it, smallest class-size in the school
| already w the smallest class sizes in the country, all four of
| us, on that table getn the closest thing to tutoring the Chilean
| education system could give us in its most expensive school
| International School Nido de Aguilas, n then it's like...without
| tracking i would have hated math, got bullied much more for
| always cracking the curve, all that shit.
|
| Elon Musk already complained about the basic difference between
| the CCP politicians n the American senators n congressmen is the
| former have a distantly n vertically superior knowledge of math n
| science than their American counterparts, being engineers w a v
| rigorous sink-or-swim training, than the American politicians who
| are generally lawyers n only one of which has a PhD. There's as
| many PhDs as comedians in Congress for fuck's sake, like not
| hating the comedian i appreciate there being one, that's cool,
| but for there only to be one PhD, what the fuck?! Some people
| need to have a PhD, it matters sometimes it is generally a good
| way to get technical expertise spesh w subjects w high stakes
| that require planning for executing correctly, which is why i
| went into algorithms instead, my laptop had no choice but to obey
| n compile what i wrote, n run it, automaton after all, that
| computer was my only audience but an audience nonetheless. There
| it's fine, n that's why coders don't need degrees for the most
| part, low cost of failure, not like a civil engineer which i
| would not allow building a bridge j like that.
| meroes wrote:
| Math major here. Go for it CA. The current "STEM pipeline" is
| garbage and underserving. A larger populace not excluded from the
| pipeline (because it wont exist) and not being turned off by math
| before high school is actually a step in the right direction.
|
| It will take an economy the size of CA to upend things, and they
| need to be upended. If it's progressive to have a larger base of
| the mathematically literate, then so be it.
|
| The current system just hires who resembles the incumbents the
| most. I think that can be broken if enough students and resources
| go another direction.
|
| Math is no different than any other subject at its core. So it
| needs to go _back_ to being a regular subject, not among the few
| in the pipeline, which should never have existed. (Why do I need
| 3 sophomore level prerequisites, Applied Linear Algebra, Calc 3,
| Diff Eq 's, for a junior level class, mathematical modeling? And
| there's worse examples at my university too, I followed the
| _least_ pipelined path. That structure doesn 't exist as directed
| for most subjects. The pipeline needs to go. Math doesn't have to
| be this way).
| robbintt wrote:
| Can you speak to how much you and your peers think early depth
| of exposure matters compared to confidence in the basics?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I feel like your complaint has more to do with the teaching
| structure in university academia, then the high school and
| middle school level. Nevertheless, a much greater focus on
| algebra two as the capstone would even help kids for pre-
| engineering where they just would need to learn some rudiments
| of calculus in college.
| brightball wrote:
| Stuff like this is why I will remain a proponent for true
| vouchers for the rest of my life. No parent should be stuck
| without options when educational governance goes sideways like
| this.
|
| Pull your kid. Find them a school that gives them the greatest
| opportunity to succeed and use the funds earmarked for their
| education to ensure they receive it.
|
| Currently, options are restricted to parents who can afford to
| move to a different school zone, afford private school or have a
| parent available who can facilitate a home school environment.
|
| Letting parents vote with their kids placement will force schools
| to truly advance.
| insanitybit wrote:
| At least in NYC the DOE has to at least subsidize your private
| school if you show that your child has needs that require that
| school.
| JTbane wrote:
| Charter school vouchers are a corrupt way to siphon off public
| funds.
| churchill wrote:
| So taxes the state collects from me automatically become
| 'public funds' I have no say over?
| pwthornton wrote:
| On the math front, what we have seen a lot is that parents from
| families with means or who really care get their kids tutors or
| math services outside of school like Kumon. Some do pull their
| kids from school, but if you just want accelerated math, you
| can do so without needing an expensive private school.
| Something like Kumon is like $200 or less a month.
|
| The best argument I have heard for not getting into algebra too
| quickly is that kids are often not getting enough time spent on
| foundational math skills, and then that leads them not to have
| those foundations as math ramps up in difficulty.
|
| I don't think eliminating advanced math for equity's sake makes
| any sense, but we should also be careful not to rush through
| lower-level math and leave even strong students without
| foundational skills.
|
| Math education in the U.S. is not working for the vast majority
| of students. We need to find a way to make it more engaging and
| applied. We may also need to just spend more time each day on
| math.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| I thought the purpose of this article was to improve
| educational equity, not accelerate existing inequities. . .
|
| I'm against vouchers because I don't think I should have to pay
| with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading as
| private education.
| SilasX wrote:
| Then you're against all the federal funding to help students
| attend religious colleges?
| nancyhn wrote:
| You are against poor people not having school choice? Rich
| people already have that choice. Giving poor people choice is
| the right thing to do.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| I'm for vouchers because I don't think I should have to pay
| with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading as
| public education.
| lostapathy wrote:
| 100% this. I even went to catholic school 7-12th grade.
|
| It was in no way a superior product like they want you to
| believe anyway. It was obvious in college that I had
| inferior math and science education, and I was considered a
| high performer in my high school!
|
| They even turned me off religion completely, so fail on all
| counts.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| You misread the post you're replying to. It is in support
| of vouchers and is implying that public schools are
| pushing a viewpoint that is as faith based as any
| religion and as open to falsification. There are people
| upthread singing the praises of state schools as tools of
| assimilation. The point of the comment you're responding
| to is to point out that many people have no desire to be
| assimilated to the new dispensation and as such the
| political system will accommodate them or not. Not is
| left as an exercise.
| LexiMax wrote:
| Please elaborate on your equivocation. On first glance,
| you're comparing apples and oranges, and it doesn't make
| much sense.
| pierat wrote:
| Places with public school vouchers as law allow said
| vouchers to be used at 100% religious schools.
|
| This: bolsters shitty religious
| propaganda dumbs down the students receiving
| substandard education props us churches
| drains money out of the public schools requires
| that I pay a part of my taxes to an unaccountable
| religious organization.
|
| I'm sure a few google searches would show more
| comprehensively why this is a bad idea.
| LexiMax wrote:
| Oh, so in a voucher system I would've had to choose
| between receiving a worthwhile education and being queer.
| Got it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Places with public school vouchers as law allow said
| vouchers to be used at 100% religious schools_
|
| This isn't a requirement for vouchers. You can simply
| state that religious schools aren't eligible.
| LexiMax wrote:
| What is the realistic likelyhood of this being mandated,
| given how many religious private schools there are and
| how much money they have to lobby with?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What is the realistic likelyhood of this being
| mandated_
|
| Just under a third of Californian's aren't religious [1].
| Nobody is proposing to ban religious schools.
|
| If you can't swing it, make the choice local. Each county
| or whatever can vote on whether to permit religious
| vouchers. The Bay Area will ban it. The Central Coast
| won't. This remains better than the _status quo_. [1]
| https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-
| stu...
| rfw300 wrote:
| This is incorrect as of last year:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_v._Makin
|
| There is a powerful political and legal movement behind
| the idea that state-funded religious indoctrination is
| not only permitted, but required.
| mcny wrote:
| > I'm for vouchers because I don't think I should have to
| pay with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading
| as public education.
|
| are you missing a NOT in there? as in `I'm NOT for vouchers
| because I don't think I should have to pay with my taxes
| for religious indoctrination masquerading as public
| education. `?
|
| because as it stands, your comment makes as much sense as
| saying
|
| > if you are not paying for the product you are the product
|
| Just because you are paying does not mean you are NOT the
| product, to spell it out.
|
| Similarly, just because people have the option to pay for
| their Islamic Madrasah or whatever Jewish or Christian
| equivalents are with vouchers, does not mean they will not
| try to shove their ideologies down everyone in public
| education in the next election cycle.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > are you missing a NOT in there?
|
| No, I'm not. A vision of equity advanced by kneecapping
| math education in public schools is no less faith-based
| than creationism taught in private schools. If anything,
| I'd guess creationism is less damaging to students.
| dboreham wrote:
| I'm sure it's different in other places, but around here
| the only alternative school in town is run by an organized
| religion. Come to think of it, that's also true of the next
| town. Are the voucher people envisaging some eduVC funding
| source that allows me to spin up a school to complete with
| the legacy one?
| lostapathy wrote:
| Almost all voucher proponents want them for religious
| schools - your observation is a feature for them, not a
| bug.
| brightball wrote:
| That's exactly what I envision. I want thousands of
| school startups.
| brightball wrote:
| I hear that line a lot, yet many of the best schools are
| religious schools.
|
| It's one thing if you're forced into through zoning. It's an
| entirely different picture if it's a choice of parents.
| eitally wrote:
| I'm not aware of any religious public schools that kids are
| forced into through zoning/districting. I am aware of MANY
| families who choose parochial schools because of the school
| quality & culture, but are absolutely not religious (they
| tolerate the religious part in order to unlock the
| educational & cultural parts).
| thebooktocome wrote:
| [flagged]
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Well, then I hate to tell you how bad public education is
| then. It is estimated that about 10% of _public_ school
| students will receive sexual abuse from a teacher or
| authority at some point in their education.
|
| https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/02/is-sexual-
| abuse-...
|
| This was also backed by the US Department of Education in
| 2004. Since then they've been very hesitant to revisit
| the issue.
|
| https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED483143.pdf
|
| The _New York Times_ was also admitting, way back in
| 1995, that about 5% of public school teachers are
| abusers. Considering how many teachers a child goes
| through, they 'll probably meet a few.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/21/nyregion/teacher-
| student-...
|
| I think that if it wasn't for the fact that it was
| _school_ , sending your child to any place where there
| was a 1-in-10 chance of them being sexually abused would
| be a crime.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| Your first link is pretty terrible; it took forever to
| find the 2000 AAUW report it refers to. Here's a more
| current version:
|
| https://www.aauw.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Crossing-the-
| Line-S...
|
| The 1-in-10 number is self-reported harassment which is
| different from teacher-on-student abuse but I don't
| really care about the distinction. Your 1-in-20 number is
| a different metric entirely, by the way (as abusers are
| not one-to-one with abused). Again, I don't really care
| about these wrinkles.
|
| Anyway, AAUW's data doesn't distinguish between reports
| from public and public charter, so you can't use this
| data to draw conclusions about differences between public
| and religious schools.
|
| Furthermore, and this is the most important part, their
| main recommendation to reduce the incidence of abuse and
| discrimination in _all_ schools (i.e., one of the things
| I actually want to minimize) is to promote more adherence
| to Title IX protections.
|
| Private schools have no legal obligation to provide any
| Title IX protections, and indeed some religious schools,
| by their very doctrine, cannot.
|
| Next time, if you're going to demand statistics that
| don't exist (as private schools have no reporting
| requirements and the AAUW report demonstrates that many
| institutions obviously underreport) please provide better
| links, thanks.
| RavingGoat wrote:
| You're going to really hate when you look up how much
| sexual abuse there is in private schools then.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Provide examples.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Hilarious strawman that is not backed by real statistics.
| I went to a religious jesuit private school, i talk to
| coworkers about their highschool experiences and they
| talk about gang violence and drug dealing. Meanwhile the
| most interesting thing that happened for me is some kids
| got in a fight once.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > I'm against vouchers because I don't think I should have to
| pay with my taxes for religious indoctrination masquerading
| as private education.
|
| Uh huh. And if you are a homeschooler, or go to private
| school, you are taxed right now to pay for secular
| indoctrination masquerading as public education. /s
|
| But seriously, by this logic, what is the justification for
| using taxes paid by people who don't attend public school, to
| fund the public schools?
| dabraham1248 wrote:
| Your question reduces to "Why should my taxes pay for a
| public good, when I choose to have my kids not experience
| it directly?"
|
| I think the answer becomes a lot clearer then.
|
| Miss Manners has a quote something like "School taxes are
| what we pay to the future in hopes that it has things like
| nice young geriatric doctors in it."
|
| Also, what precisely are you claiming is "secular
| indoctrination"? Evolution? The separation of church and
| state (in the US)? People who went to religious school have
| confidently told me that both are myths. They also told me
| that their school absolutely should have gotten tax
| funding.
| pierat wrote:
| The bad side of vouchers is that my taxes goes to shitty
| religious school that teaches cretinism.. oh, creationism as
| real, the bible is 100% true, and further idiocy labeled as
| "Religion" as true real facts.
|
| Last thing I want my tax dollars go toward is religious child-
| brainwashing and radicalized programming.
|
| In places where vouchers are legal, this is the kind of result
| you get.
| avereveard wrote:
| Which places have school vouchers today?
|
| Besides, the state can mandate a minimum curriculum which
| includes civic education to receive the voucher, with the
| state managing standardized end of years test for the
| mandatory curriculum.
|
| The options to handle it well are there, society just needs
| the will.
| bluGill wrote:
| You should not make that point. Society works much better if
| you accept the wierd beliefs of as many people as you can.
| Fight againt cannibalism (does any of that even exist
| anymore?), but be very careful about even that.
| pierat wrote:
| Simply put: why does their religion get money from the
| state when mine does not?
|
| I dont care if you have weird beliefs. I just don't want
| weird beliefs funded by the state. And that's also
| including my own weird beliefs.
| bluGill wrote:
| The state is not funding religion. It is funding a school
| for kids. The the school in this case is also owned by a
| religion is not relevant.
| electriclove wrote:
| I definitely don't want religious brainwashing. I also
| definitely do not want the indoctrination that is taking
| place in our public schools.
| pierat wrote:
| What "indoctrination" are you speaking of? Care to provide
| some examples?
|
| Are you talking about attempting to erase African
| American's suffering over the last 400 years here?
|
| Or are you talking about erasing LGBTQ peoples?
|
| Or are you wanting to erase health education and sex ed,
| cause "celibacy is better" (aka catholic propaganda)?
|
| Which indoctrinations are you talking about?
| [deleted]
| snapcaster wrote:
| Would it be possible to interpret the comment you're
| responding to more charitably and respond to that?
| pierat wrote:
| That WAS a charitable response to that comment of "public
| school indoctrination".
|
| Searching "Public School Indoctrination" in google shows
| the following:
|
| https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/02/the-
| indoctrination-in... - Goes off about "critical race
| theory" (aka history) and to a lesser extent, gender
|
| https://www.ocpathink.org/post/analysis/indoctrination-
| in-pu... - again, raling on about history classes, err, I
| mean CRT.
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/education/3941143-the-myth-
| of-wo... Op-ed that calls out "woke" for what it is -
| intolerance and hate.
|
| https://www.ocregister.com/2022/02/14/im-a-teacher-heres-
| how... Oped by a teacher, again rails on about CRT.
|
| https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-
| america/communi... Bemoaning the evils of "leftist
| ideology".
|
| And looking at how those "anti-public education
| indoctrination" articles are written, sure as hell looks
| like a thinktank written by the same dozen or so people
| to create a frenzy of anger and outrage. And this
| boogeyman called "CRT" has a different name. It's called
| History.
| 11101010001100 wrote:
| As a parent I'm realizing that many of the institutions not
| only set up kids to fail, but set up parents to fail too.
| tgv wrote:
| > Letting parents vote with their kids placement will force
| schools to truly advance.
|
| That's naive. How much effort will be required to get your kid
| to a better school? Daily effort? Schools get selected because
| of convenience (distance, cost), and because the neighborhood
| friends go there as well. Homo economicus does not exist.
|
| Furthermore, it presupposes an open competition between schools
| without restrictions on placement, and all information
| available and understandable to everyone. It's not going to
| work.
|
| There's also the effect of mixing children with different
| backgrounds. A good school with can absorb a small amount of
| deficient students and stimulate them. Having everyone fight
| for the same school will cancel that, certainly if there also
| are programs that advance one group over another.
|
| The only result of a free market for schooling will be that
| well-informed parents with some means will be able to select
| better schools for their kids. This being a (near) zero-sum
| game (you can't find a million good teachers), it'll mean the
| rest will be off worse.
| yxwvut wrote:
| What's your solution to stop runaway education costs in this
| 'voucher first' world? It's not exactly going well in secondary
| education.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| The funding wouldn't be unlimited. Schools would have to
| figure out how to deliver services with the funds available.
| This is not totally different than how many public school
| systems are funded. My local government sucks $12,000 a year
| out of my paycheck. About 70% of it funds the pensions of
| local public school teachers, the remaining 30% pays for the
| actual schools, with a smidge left over for police and fire
| department, etc.
|
| They can and do raise my property taxes, but it's much harder
| than colleges simply demanding higher and higher tuitions.
| indymike wrote:
| > What's your solution to stop runaway education costs in
| this 'voucher first' world?
|
| This assumes a lot of facts not in evidence. In general
| schools that accept vouchers generally operate on much
| smaller per-student budgets (especially if you include the
| capital budget -- buildings and facilities) than public
| schools do. In many voucher states, the public school gets
| some level of funding for a student even a parent gets a
| voucher and sends their child somewhere else.
| xcxcx wrote:
| Automate/centralize management staff
| busterarm wrote:
| Private schooling is already on average cheaper than public
| schools in primary education at the dollars spent per child
| level.
|
| The reason education costs are screaming out of control in
| secondary education is because the government isn't
| responsible for student loans but students are and they have
| no opportunity to discharge to bankruptcy and there are no
| normal consumer debt protections for them. It's guaranteed
| free money for universities without any underwriting process
| and an albatross on the neck of the middle class.
|
| Tuitions will remain high for as long as they have students
| desperate or ignorant enough to make poor financial choices.
|
| The sad part is that this continues despite universities
| largely not meeting society's needs nor the needs of the
| students.
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| Private schools are mostly quite bad and worse than typical
| public schools. A few outliers distort the general picture.
| busterarm wrote:
| Multiple decades of studies produced by the NAEP directly
| refute your argument.
|
| I would reference the confirming NAIS studies as well but
| they've got some self-interest in those results.
| persedes wrote:
| I was curious and only found: https://nces.ed.gov/nations
| reportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.a...
|
| the data is very very old (20 years), but they did not
| find significant differences after adjusting for the
| schools / students characteristics. Unadjusted scores
| however do look better for private schools.
| busterarm wrote:
| They release this very easy to find data every year
| (although items in the chart may be ~10 years old).
|
| https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dash
| boa...
|
| Private schools outperform in nearly all subjects.
| persedes wrote:
| thanks, but I think that comparison is not fair, if
| you're throwing all demographics in one bucket. E.g. I'd
| bet income explains most of those differences. I'm on the
| fence about public schools in the US as I'm originally
| from a different country where private schools are a
| rarity, but I've learned how bad schools can be here.
| Anecdotally here in NC public schools have a much better
| reputation than private.
| zer8k wrote:
| Anecdotally, but the private schools in my large city are
| miles ahead of the public schools. The difference is so
| dramatic. I graduated from the same public school system.
| The children that went to private schools ended up in a
| far better place.
|
| Do you have any evidence private schooling is bad? This
| is the first time I've heard it's worse than public
| school.
| OGWhales wrote:
| > The children that went to private schools ended up in a
| far better place.
|
| Is this a result of the private schooling or does the
| socioeconomic status of their parents play a significant
| role?
|
| I attended both and the people that were rich enough to
| attend private school but were sent to public school
| anyway still did very well for themselves, not obviously
| different from those that attended private school.
| zer8k wrote:
| Could be parenting too, yeah. I don't think it can be
| discounted the level of violence in public school. Even
| when I was in school it was closer to a prison than a
| learning environment. Both in culture, and in
| construction. I'm sure this had an effect on kids.
| lizardking wrote:
| The public schools in my city weren't even accredited
| when I graduated, as the students were not able to
| achieve the graduation rates and test scores required.
| This was despite the influx of billions of dollars to
| modernize the facilities, equipment, and lesson plans.
| Beyond that they were dangerous from middle school
| through the end of high school. Private school was really
| the only option for anybody who had the funds to escape
| the public school system.
| [deleted]
| yxwvut wrote:
| My point is that vouchers distort demand elasticity, just
| like unchecked student loans, employer-provided health
| insurance, low mortgage rates, etc distort their respective
| markets. The fact that costs (not even prices) may be low
| at present is not an indicator that prices will not balloon
| in the wake of a voucher system. The private education
| profiteers are counting on it.
| peterhadlaw wrote:
| There are no government backed & guaranteed non-defaultable
| loans in K-12, unlike secondary education.
| rayiner wrote:
| There's a reason that folks who are all about "equity" and
| "centering black voices" are silent about the fact that black
| people overwhelmingly support school vouchers:
| https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/new-survey-shows-black-
| pa.... Many of the issues the "equity" folks talk about recieve
| far less support from black people, including racial
| preferences in admissions and hiring (which the majority of
| black people oppose) and even the notion that government has a
| special duty to help the social and economic status of black
| people (which is 50/50) or even the idea that the government
| has an obligation to racially integrate schools (which is also
| 50/50).[1]
|
| [1] https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/the-roots-of-black-
| politic...
| synetic wrote:
| People who have a higher propensity to live in a district
| with shittier schools overwhelmingly support an alternative.
| This isn't shocking. What most people, including it seems
| you, haven't thought about are the long term consequences to
| universal voucher programs given the current idiotic system
| of school funding being largely based on a how much the
| houses in the area are worth. The long term consequences are
| bad and quite predictable.
|
| EDIT: There are lots of papers regarding school vouchers and
| private schools and why it's a bad idea. Simplistic solutions
| to complex problems tend not to work and have bad unintended
| consequences.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >current idiotic system of school funding being largely
| based on a how much the houses in the area are worth. The
| long term consequences are bad and quite predictable.
|
| This hasn't been true for decades:
|
| > _on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil
| expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by
| $229.53 and $126.15, respectively._ [0]
|
| Almost all federal funds go to poor areas, so much so that
| they have more funding on average.
|
| [0]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858419
| 8724...
| eitally wrote:
| This depends a lot on the state & county. Where I used to
| live in VA & NC, property taxes went to the local
| district to spend, and the wealthier schools had better
| programs & facilities. In CA, where I live now, property
| taxes are aggregated at the county level and doled out to
| districts based purely on student population.
| Superficially, this results in rough parity when it comes
| to government-funded services (things like lunches,
| Pre-K, music/PE/libraries/art/etc). However, this all
| falls apart because of the piece that can't be controlled
| this way: direct parent contribution. Some bay area
| schools receive >$1000/kid/year in direct parent support,
| not to mention volunteerism. These schools will always do
| better than ones without this, and not just because of
| the $. The $ & time investment makes the parents even
| more vested in how schools spend, and the outcomes.
| synetic wrote:
| From the paper you cited:
|
| _While total per pupil expenditures may be greater for
| the typical Black or Latinx students' districts, there is
| variation in how these dollars are spent. On average,
| both Black and Latinx per pupil expenditures exceed White
| per pupil expenditures for administration, instruction,
| and social services. On the other hand, Black and Latinx
| per pupil expenditures are less than White per pupil
| expenditures on infrastructure. Black per pupil
| expenditures on all other items are slightly less than in
| the typical White student's district, while Latinx
| spending is comparable._
|
| _Table 1 also illustrates some familiar facts. Black and
| Latinx students' typical districts tend to have higher
| levels of child poverty, on average, than the typical
| White student's district (5.4 and 4.0 percentage points
| higher in Black and Latinx districts, respectively)._
|
| Poor students who come from food insecure homes or live
| in high crime areas need more help in school in terms of
| school lunch programs, after school care, mental health
| intervention, etc. As such they need a lot more funding
| per student.
|
| Complex problems require more than a simplistic solution.
| There are cultural, sociological, and economic forces at
| play. Vouchers are not a panacea. For one thing, private
| schools don't have to accept students they consider a
| problem. Wealthy schools don't want too many undesirables
| so won't accept vouchers. Public schools will end up
| having mostly all the problem students without the
| resources to deal with them.
| ddd00001 wrote:
| https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2017/06/22/no-us-
| school-f...
|
| Being a progressive and seeing real-world data crush your
| entire world view time after time must be a strange
| feeling.
| synetic wrote:
| If you read the paper cited by the person I responded to
| above you'll see merely comparing dollars spent is not an
| adequate analysis. Poorer districts have to spend more on
| ancillary costs - school lunches, mental health
| resources, social services, etc. Poorer districts have
| higher administrative costs, spend less on teacher
| salaries, and spend less on other areas related to
| educational success.
|
| It's not a strange feeling seeing data contradict my
| beliefs. I welcome such occurrences as they provide an
| opportunity to get rid of false beliefs. In the present
| circumstance I've not argued that more money needs to
| spent. I have suggested a better method of allocation of
| expenditures and that school vouchers are not the answer.
| Do you have evidence that I'm wrong on this? If so please
| show the evidence.
| ddd00001 wrote:
| I don't understand how you can read that and think that
| the issue is spending.
|
| The answer is (and always will be) human capital. You
| could airdrop TJHSST kids into a literal warzone and they
| would do well. Smart kids are smart because they are
| smart. There is no magic dirt, and "muh multicausal
| forces" is pure cope.
|
| People like you got ahold of SF's school system and made
| Lowell lottery entrance. They swore that it wouldn't have
| a big impact on test results and that the new class would
| benefit from being on the magic dirt of Lowell High
| School. Of course that's what their theories would
| support. Lo and behold it was an abject failure as anyone
| who wasn't a psychotic leftist could predict.
| synetic wrote:
| I don't think the issue is spending. My main point is
| that school vouchers are bad. I did say that the method
| of school funding is idiotic.
|
| Smart kids dropped into a war zone may or may not do
| well. They might die for one thing. They might get so
| traumatized by the event that they are unable to cope in
| life. Change someone's circumstances drastically enough
| then it won't be possible to know what the outcome is.
| pkulak wrote:
| And now you've limited education to families that can drive
| their kids 20 miles one way, twice daily, during work hours. If
| American cities were known for amazing public transport, and
| changing schools only meant changing the subway stop, I'd agree
| with you.
| hot_gril wrote:
| My goal is to get enough money to afford private education when
| I have kids. Forget the other noise.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| This is a really important discussion and as a non-parent who
| hasn't been through the process i'll reserve judgement. But I
| wonder:
|
| Are there circumstances where the availability of vouchers
| results in a parent making a worse educational selection for
| their student? Would this leave educational marketing to lean
| towards populist institutions (like Kanye West's "schools" or
| Megachurch-derived schools)?
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| > No parent should be stuck without options when educational
| governance goes sideways like this.
|
| You say this, but what you actually mean is _no wealthy parent
| should be stuck without options_.
|
| The hoi polloi that can't afford the voucher plus mountain of
| money private school tuition will still be quite stuck without
| options, except that you've also created an explicit two-class
| system.
|
| I hear those do _wonders_ for social cohesion. As will opening
| a firehose of money into the insane fundamentalist
| indoctrination that so many parents wish to inflict on their
| children, but can 't in public school.
| b800h wrote:
| Bit of a weird position to take that you're in favour of
| schools doing indoctrination, just as long as it's away from
| the viewpoint you don't like. That's pretty authoritarian;
| seems to be on the rise these days.
| vkou wrote:
| > Bit of a weird position to take that you're in favour of
| schools doing indoctrination, just as long as it's away
| from the viewpoint you don't like.
|
| No, it's not. Society only works when people believe in a
| shared fiction, and when they stop believing it, things go
| completely to shit.
|
| I would absolutely oppose indoctrination into a bad shared
| fiction, just like a religious person would oppose
| indoctrination into a 'religion is the opiate of the masses
| and must be purged from society' shared fiction, or like a
| pro-democracy person would oppose indoctrination into 'the
| way forward is installing an autocracy that will seize
| power through force of arms' shared fiction, or like how
| most of us would probably have issues with pro-ISIS
| indoctrination.
| b800h wrote:
| Some people would just be in favour of the rights of
| parents to eductate their children however they like...
| vkou wrote:
| Some people would like to turn this country into, say, a
| religious autocracy, and I will oppose those people with
| every means I have. A secular public education with
| strong civics is one of the strongest and best-ROI tools
| I have to oppose that degeneracy.
|
| 'Some peopling' moral relativism is a bankrupt philosophy
| that will lead us to ruin.
| [deleted]
| rory wrote:
| > The hoi polloi that can't afford the voucher plus mountain
| of money private school tuition
|
| What are you talking about? The voucher is supplied by the
| state, and charter schools are definitionally tuition-free to
| students and their families.
| eitally wrote:
| I don't completely disagree with you, but where's the incentive
| for a government to give you vouchers to spend on non-
| governmental education, directly taking away funding from the
| schools the same government is responsible for managing?
|
| If it was a different pool of money, I get it, but -- speaking
| specifically about the Bay Area -- one of the reasons public
| schools have suffered is because of attrition toward parochial
| & private options. When school attendance shrinks, so does
| funding, which creates a downward spiral of performance in many
| cases. And it isn't even that all the private options are
| superior, but because public school funding is dependent on
| attendance, they detract from the capability & capacity many of
| these schools have to deliver high quality education. I'm sure
| it isn't unique, but I've never lived in a place that had such
| a high proportion of kids in parochial & private schools, and
| it absolutely does harm the public schools. Compare this to
| somewhere like Massachusetts, which is equally progressive,
| treats teachers equally well (better), and has much higher
| performing public schools -- largely because fewer families
| with means to pay for private actually do, and those kids &
| households further support the teachers and administration of
| their neighborhood schools.
| petsfed wrote:
| The Bay Area has a really interesting synergy of situations
| that all contribute to really terrible public schools. A big
| one is that even in the best school districts, the salaries
| do not match the cost of living, so teachers cannot afford to
| live in the communities they work. Another one is that,
| thanks to prop 13, low property taxes on long-held properties
| create a serious bottleneck to funding for the schools. Both
| of these serve to strangle off the quality of education,
| which in turn drives parents to private schools, landing us
| at the point where enrollment is dropping off and, as you
| say, lowering school funding as well.
|
| I would argue that until the Bay Area housing crisis is
| resolved (probably in part by repealing prop 13), the
| private-school exodus will continue.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _where 's the incentive for a government to give you
| vouchers to spend on non-governmental education, directly
| taking away funding from the schools the same government is
| responsible for managing_
|
| The schools are there for the kids. They aren't cattle to be
| used as a commodity input to a jobs and spending program.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > And it isn't even that all the private options are
| superior,
|
| By what metric are the private options not superior to the
| Bay Area Public Schools?
| RavingGoat wrote:
| No education requirements for private schools is one way
| they aren't superior. I would pose that segregation would
| be the other way private schools aren't superior.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > but where's the incentive for a government
|
| The incentive is because it saves the government money, and
| educated the student better.
|
| If costs the government 20k per year to educate 1 child, and
| a private school can do a better job of it, for 15k, then the
| government saves money by having the private school do it
| instead.
| scarmig wrote:
| There's the theory that, by forcing the kids with the most
| engaged parents to go to schools with the kids of less engaged
| parents, the engaged parents will drive school districts to
| implement good educational policies.
|
| In reality, though, that doesn't seem to have worked. School
| board elections have very low turnout usually, and the people
| elected to them are disproportionately ideologues who treat
| engaged parents with contempt for being "privileged."
| matrix_overload wrote:
| >the people elected to them are disproportionately ideologues
| who treat engaged parents with contempt for being
| "privileged."
|
| There are grim economic shifts behind this. The majority of
| people are now priced out of raising their own kids to a good
| standard (i.e. stay-at-home mum). So, more and more people
| feel envy towards those who can, and various "equity"
| movements pop out (that all focus on bringing top performers
| down, rather than bottom performers up).
|
| The only way to fight it is move to an area where most people
| can still afford kids, and in our generation it may mean
| moving out of U.S. entirely.
| orangepurple wrote:
| In this case it is abundantly clear that the school district
| gave up trying to fix underperformers and threw in the towel.
| Engaged parents are domestic terrorists: https://www.washingt
| onpost.com/education/2022/01/13/school-b...
|
| The only option is do not help and do not engage. There is no
| point in expending effort trying to fix a system led by
| people that hate you.
| Kalium wrote:
| I strongly suspect that in practice, those engaged parents
| handle it by moving to the next polity over that's not trying
| to use them to improve policies.
| bluGill wrote:
| They often don't have a choice. They can stay, but as just
| one vote they cannot reform the system. They can fight for
| thier kids, but they may have limited results. (My mom
| faught hard in ~1965 to be able to take shop, but it was a
| boys only class and she didn't win)
| autoexec wrote:
| I'd bet that the school she went to would let a girl into
| shop class today (assuming the school and class are still
| around). Change is possible, but it's slow. It also
| matters if there's one girl who wants to take shop class
| vs many girls who are asking for it. Parents and students
| can work to change the ways their schools are run. They
| may have to campaign for and promote their causes so that
| "one vote" grows into more votes, but votes still mater.
| bluGill wrote:
| Sure, but it was too late for my mom. My mom would have
| been better off finding a different district that would
| let her in (this may not have been possible), instead of
| fighting a system that ultimately failed her.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Sure, but it was too late for my mom. My mom would have
| been better off finding a different district that would
| let her in (this may not have been possible), instead of
| fighting a system that ultimately failed her.
|
| An interesting and important anecdote. But rather than
| focusing on your mom's inability to take shop class,
| perhaps you might reflect on the fact that your mom (and
| many other women/girls) fought for such changes and,
| eventually (albeit too late for your mom), won.
|
| That's how change happens. If you just throw up your
| hands and say "well, I/my mom/whoever couldn't have
| something that was good and important. So there's no
| reason to _ever_ fight for change, " seems incredibly
| reductive and doesn't reflect how change has been wrought
| throughout history.
|
| Please understand, I'm not poking at you or your mom (in
| fact, I don't know her, but I think she's fabulous!).
| Rather, I'm taking issue with the idea that we "can't
| win, so don't try." That's a recipe for those who
| understand how change is made to create the world in
| _their_ image, whether you like it or not.
| api wrote:
| > the engaged parents will drive school districts to
| implement good educational policies.
|
| This assumes that it's actually possible for parents to
| override insulated bureaucrats whose heads are stuffed
| completely up their own derrieres.
|
| Political hyper-polarization doesn't help either. If your
| local crazy-left school board abolishes merit in the name of
| equity, you could always replace them with crazy-right
| Republicans who believe the Earth is 6000 years old and Qanon
| is real.
| blobbers wrote:
| Wow you hit the nail right on the head.
|
| That's exactly what's happened at our board level. The PTA of
| the school itself is the involved parents, and the
| schoolboard has the utmost contempt for them!
|
| None of the involved parents are willing to put in the effort
| or have the desire to be elected to the schoolboard though.
| vuln wrote:
| > School board elections have very low turnout usually, and
| the people elected to them are disproportionately ideologues
| who treat engaged parents with contempt for being
| "privileged."
|
| Not only the School Board but the Teachers Unions and the
| United States Government are anti parents attending School
| Board meetings to support their children.
|
| Red or Blue, 6 or 600, it doesn't matter when the USG decides
| to make parents the enemy of the state.
|
| https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-
| jo...
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/29/garl.
| ..
|
| https://apnews.com/article/merrick-garland-school-boards-
| vio...
| insanitybit wrote:
| > "We are coming after you," a letter mailed to an Ohio
| school board member said, according to the group. "You are
| forcing them to wear mask -- for no reason in this world
| other than control. And for that you will pay dearly." It
| called the member "a filthy traitor."
|
| Ah yes, this is clearly a 'both sides' issue where parents
| are the victims.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| Parents are merely exercising their First Amendment rights
| when they threaten violence against school teachers &
| staff? That's an interesting position.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| [flagged]
| insanitybit wrote:
| The article cites a parent physically attacking a school
| board member and your response is shock that authorities
| were involved?
| ambicapter wrote:
| I find it hard to believe that you find it hard to
| believe that law enforcement was called in to deal with
| individuals threatening violence on others, regardless of
| whether these were parents at a school board meeting.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I dunno--if you want to see America's mental illness
| problem on full, public display, just do a YouTube search
| for "school board meeting outrage". It's great when
| concerned, non-ideological, rational parents show up to
| have a voice in how the school is run, but the flip side of
| that coin is ugly, belligerent, and counter-productive.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| [flagged]
| pwthornton wrote:
| What the hell is "trans ideology?"
|
| This is just a nonsense sentence.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| The ideology that it is possible for a human male to
| transition to a human female (or the inverse).
|
| Not everyone believes in this and that is ok. I choose to
| respect the wishes of adults around me for social
| cohesion. I draw the line when we're talking about
| children.
| feggle wrote:
| Even worse, most people don't believe in it, the ones
| that do are typically just following a popular fad. Which
| is a truly awful reason to permanently disfigure the
| children and adults who have been caught up in this
| nonsense.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| For some of the decisions these boards make, outrage
| happens to be the only rational response anyone who cared
| could possibly have. If they were crippling my children
| for the rest of their lives, I wouldn't get up in front
| of the room and drone on in monotone about how there are
| more reasonable choices to be made. No one could do that
| in full confidence that it could work even some of the
| time, nor do anything but react when it was proven to you
| that it didn't ever work.
|
| As for ideology, I doubt it's possible to be non-
| ideological. I have children not because they are
| accidents or the abortions my wife didn't bother to have.
| Not even because we just didn't know any other way to go
| through life. We had children because children are a good
| thing unto themselves. So good that I hope they grow up
| to have their own and enjoy that experience. Schools are
| hostile to that and seem to be doing what they can to
| encourage sterility.
| OGWhales wrote:
| I'm confused, your comment talks about schools and the
| government making parents the enemy and being anti-parent
| but your linked articles are about parents making threats
| over things like Covid mask policies. What exactly is your
| point?
| ihsw wrote:
| [dead]
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's a fool's quest.
|
| Assume for a moment that my vote matters... in the sense that
| who I choose is elected. Further, assume that I get to craft
| and design these magical candidates like it the sandbox mode
| of some video game.
|
| So, after all this, these candidates of mine are in charge of
| the school board, and no one can cockblock them. At this
| point, does it change the quality of the school's education?
| Not necessarily for my kids... that's a more difficult thing.
| Maybe it's a great school, but my kid's just one of those
| left behind by random individual circumstances. Just _on
| average_ , does this school improve?
|
| Turns out, not really. That school system is still limited in
| many ways beyond the school board's ability to affect on any
| reasonable timescale. There is not just a finite talent pool
| to hire from, but quite limited. And the resources to somehow
| expand that talent pool are limited too (and it seems likely
| that even if you could offer $500k salaries, you're
| attracting money-grubbers more than great teachers). Your
| capacity for the HR system to even pick the best of that
| talent pool is sketchy.
|
| Textbooks? Limited by what textbooks are offered on the open
| market. Limited by whether parents will accept that Timmy
| really is a D+ student, and doesn't deserve automatic Bs for
| showing up and not acting the maniac. Limited by the "culture
| of public education"... if the best field trip ever could
| only happen at the end of July, that doesn't happen because
| we have ideas about how public schools are supposed to work
| and they're just not "on" during that part of the calendar.
|
| If I was some angsty nihilist, I'd be ranting about how
| school boards cockblock everything public schools should be
| doing. But it's so much worse than that. If they did
| cockblock those things, it'd mean they had some idea what
| they should do, and were for some reason opposed to it. They
| don't know. And if they did, it wouldn't matter.
|
| The system is designed in such a way as to be completely
| orthogonal its imagined purpose.
|
| And you don't have to be especially intelligent or attentive
| to recognize any of this enough that you just don't bother
| with the school board elections. Why would anyone bother to
| vote? The truth of the matter is it's mostly between worse-
| and-worst candidates who have no true desire to see any sort
| of real improvement, and your one vote's not enough to sway
| it to one or the other.
| okeuro49 wrote:
| I agree, and particularly this part
|
| > There's the theory that, by forcing the kids with the most
| engaged parents to go to schools with the kids of less
| engaged parents
|
| is really rough on the kids of engaged parents, forcing them
| to be responsible for "fixing" systems that they didn't
| create.
|
| In the UK, we used to have "grammar schools" that selected on
| ability based on a standardised test. They were responsible
| for many working- and middle class children being propelled
| into high positions in industry and politics, including Prime
| Minister.
|
| However the whole idea was deemed inequitable, so they were
| dismantled. Now privately school educated children have less
| competition.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Also being treated like a privileged enemy of the school
| while trying to fix it.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| And if you could fix the system, it would have been fixed
| by now. If you have a kid today, you have 5-6 years to fix
| the system before it starts failing them. Your kid will be
| grown before any meaningful change is made, and any harms
| caused by the current system will be fully baked in.
|
| If you have money, you have an escape hatch right now.
| Vouchers make that escape hatch available to more people.
|
| Public education doesn't have to mean public schools.
| tmaly wrote:
| Compare how much money US spends on average per student
| in public education verse other countries. How do
| students rank academically in US compared to other
| countries?
|
| Consider this
|
| If you look at the system without vouchers, there is no
| market mechanism to correct the situation everyone is
| complaining about.
|
| There are no incentives. Each year, more and more money
| is dumped into the system.
|
| If you introduce competition, then schools have to start
| fixing problems if they want to get the funding.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Yes. If it were the case that public schools were
| universally regarded as great, and everyone felt well
| served by them, it would be right to be skeptical of
| private interests coming in and trying to capture some of
| that money for themselves. But we have the exact opposite
| of that situation.
| tmaly wrote:
| I would argue that finding a better solution to our
| education problems would be a bigger achievement for
| humanity than putting someone on Mars.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Actually, public education has to mean public schools.
| Vouchers are a band-aid invented by right-wing nutjobs to
| allow religious schools to be funded by public money;
| they do this by taking money away from secular public
| schools. If public schools are broken, we need to fix the
| public schools, not break them further.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| I don't care if public funds go to religious schools. I
| want an educated populous. I could not care less if kids
| are also taught religion along with philosophy, math,
| history, physics, science and communication. Actually, I
| don't even care if schools teach the same subjects. Above
| a base of knowledge required to achieve a depth of
| knowledge I would not mind if schools received public
| funds to start specialization earlier in a child's life
| if they are capable. The key to this is parents getting
| to choose where the money goes.
|
| There is a first amendment case to be made about
| withholding education funds from religious schools. By
| withholding funds from schools that are deemed to be
| "religious" the government is creating a preference for
| schools that are not on the list of religions but may be
| every bit as ideological. The government cannot prefer
| one ideology or religion over another. It is required to
| be agnostic.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I'm almost 50. I've watched this scam play out my entire
| life. We've gotta fix the public schools, they said, when
| I was in public school. They said it year after year,
| generation after generation. It's never happening.
|
| We absolutely should allow vouchers to go to religious
| private schools and secular private schools alike. It's
| time to bleed the public schools dry and use their lots
| to build more housing.
| duskwuff wrote:
| It may surprise you to hear this, but intentionally
| destroying the public school system and hoping that the
| private sector will step in with a replacement is _not_ a
| viable solution to public schooling. Private schools are
| not required to serve all students, either in a
| socioeconomic sense or a geographic one. Allowing public
| schools to fall into terminal disrepair does a massive
| disservice to those students who wouldn 't be served
| appropriately by private schools.
| scarmig wrote:
| Public schools as they exist today are already in a state
| of terminal disrepair and do a massive disservice to all
| their students. Note that the original article is about
| public schools banning the teaching of algebra for all
| students before high school because too many students
| fail it.
|
| Parents complain about this and fight against it but are
| ignored. So what are we supposed to do? There are only so
| many school board meetings you can attend only to get eye
| rolls from officials.
| [deleted]
| mfer wrote:
| > If public schools are broken, we need to fix the public
| schools
|
| Who defines what fixed is? How do you call success on
| those fixes? The process is a problem today and it's
| similar to politics.
|
| I'll give two issues of issues in fixing things...
|
| First example, if there is a problem leaders can come up
| with a policy/process/thing to deal with it. And call
| success at having that in place rather than seeing
| results. If the policy/process/thing doesn't work success
| has already been called. They aren't going to walk that
| back. There is a lot of this.
|
| Second example, schools are being used for social change.
| And the topics of some of the social change are not
| agreed to in society. Who gets to decide what's right?
| Should schools be agents for this change? This is being
| fought in society right now. It's not really discussed or
| debated but more fought if you look at the tactics and
| behaviors.
|
| How do you fix things in this form of environment?
| mfer wrote:
| You need a decent school option within an acceptable
| travel distance. There are many who don't have a good
| choice like that.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| If there is money available the choices will appear. When
| it stops being about the building and government
| curriculum and starts becoming about satisfying parents
| desire to have their child educated, anybody can become a
| teacher or organize a school. If the teacher fails to
| deliver the parents will go elsewhere.
|
| The free market for schools and teachers is created the
| moment Department of Education is eliminated and replaced
| with education vouchers for all.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| New schools appear as soon as the money is available.
| OscarTheGrinch wrote:
| Escape hatch to where?
| lumb63 wrote:
| > Public education doesn't have to mean public schools.
|
| This is eloquently put. I've never heard it said that
| way. There is no reason to believe that an entity like
| the government, great for accumulating and distributing
| the money required for public education, is a good or
| efficient agent for administering said education.
|
| We see this in many other fields. For instance, non-
| government researchers receive government grants for
| research. Similarly (for better or worse), the government
| gives money for agricultural subsidies; nobody proposes
| that the government ought to run the farm. It is
| intuitive to us that specialists in a given field may not
| work for the government; it is high time we applied the
| same logic to education.
| blowski wrote:
| There are still some grammar schools, but they are badly
| distributed, because it's based on political views from
| past ages. For example, the city of Southend in Essex has
| about 7000 grammar school places. Entire counties of
| Norfolk and Suffolk have none.
| gadders wrote:
| Grammar schools do still exist in a few hold-out counties
| like Kent.
|
| One thing that was repealed by the last Labour government
| was the Assisted Places Scheme [1]. If you scored highly
| enough the government would pay for a child to go to
| private school.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_Places_Scheme
| brightball wrote:
| That's a good case for vouchers.
|
| Instead, kids with engaged parents will flee to better
| schools. The other parents will either follow, growing the
| new school and model, or the other school will adapt in order
| to retain students.
|
| Engaged parents are your early adopters. Without vouchers,
| most people can't even afford to enter the market.
| xcxcx wrote:
| What if you launch convenience store-style mini schools
| with really terrible infrastructure and content but within
| five blocks from many buildings?
|
| You could literally rewrite history and language and
| program an entire generation of future voters. Imagine the
| possibilities
| altcognito wrote:
| One of the purposes of public education is also
| assimilating children into the shared values of society. In
| the US this has been forgotten despite guys like Jefferson
| talking about this exact thing.
|
| The free market _can_ be good at optimizing for certain
| outcomes, but I don 't think you're going to get a lot of
| buy in with the current political climate being what it is,
| and a lack of consensus around what kind of outcomes should
| be required.
|
| Furthermore, making schooling a purely financial
| transaction? Where do you think that leads?
| jejones3141 wrote:
| To schools that have motivation to actually educate
| children?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _purposes of public education is also assimilating
| children into the shared values of society_
|
| Regulate voucher schools. Content requirements.
| Restrictions on religion. Maybe even standardized
| testing, or requirements that voucher students not be
| subject to extra fees.
|
| The public is paying, after all. It can attach strings to
| its money.
| chongli wrote:
| _assimilating children into the shared values of society_
|
| The US no longer has universal shared values, it has many
| different sets of values that are all competing for
| survival. Schools have become the front line in this
| battlefield.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The US no longer has universal shared values, it has
| many different sets of values that are all competing for
| survival. Schools have become the front line in this
| battlefield.
|
| I disagree completely. Our shared values include belief
| in the rule of law, equality under that law, equality of
| opportunity and a whole bunch of other stuff that has
| _always_ been the rhetoric, but much of which has only
| grudgingly been implemented for wider and wider swathes
| of Americans over the past 230+ years.
|
| That some folks are at odds some issues most certainly
| does _not_ mean we don 't have shared values. It means
| that we don't share _all_ the same values /ideas. Which
| is exactly how it's been here since well before the
| founding of the US.
|
| Edit: Fixed prose.
| bamfly wrote:
| Yeah, I'm OK paying taxes to get to live in a society
| with universally-available (mostly) fee-free primary and
| secondary education that aspires to some set of
| standards.
|
| I'm not OK paying taxes to help Bobby Baptist send his
| kids to Jesus Is Lord Day School. Or kick in to rich
| parents' budget for Phillips Exeter. If we must have
| vouchers, let people keep their own tax money that would
| have gone to schools and use that for the vouchers. I'm
| not interested in handing people my cash to fund private
| education. I'm interested in _having a public education
| system_. That, I 'll pay taxes for.
| busterarm wrote:
| But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day
| School is assimilating those kids into their society at
| large and Jesus Is Lord Day School still needs to meet
| the curriculum and testing standards that any other
| school in the state has to. And more often than not those
| private schools are _exceeding_ the standard of the
| public education system.
|
| I spent years in both public and private schools. The
| worst part of public schooling was that everything was
| scaled down to the poorest-performing child's level. The
| worst part of private schooling was that a few
| underperforming kids were pushed/passed along with
| everyone else.
|
| The latter outcome is _significantly_ better for society
| than the former.
| altcognito wrote:
| > The worst part of private schooling was that a few
| underperforming kids were pushed/passed along with
| everyone else.
|
| I also went to both. When I didn't have good enough
| grades they just passed me to public schools. Shocker,
| the private school passed off difficult children
| somewhere else. You know who else they didn't serve?
| Special needs? And who else? Anybody who couldn't afford
| it, or didn't believe in the holy trinity.
|
| I realize that a lot of libertarians believe that
| everyone should fend for themselves and that there's some
| sort of natural selection that justifies poor outcomes
| for some based on "fair rules". As I've gotten older in
| life, nothing seems less true.
| busterarm wrote:
| My private catholic schools had plenty of stupid kids,
| non-catholic kids (me), desperately poor kids (also me),
| and kids with special needs.
|
| The worst thing that they did to me was add a course to
| the curriculum about religion so that I had an extra
| course to pass than the public school kids. And we didn't
| even learn exclusively about Catholicism in that class.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day
| School is assimilating those kids into their society at
| large
|
| No, I think you're missing the parent's point -- it's
| assimilating those students into a specific religious
| subculture whose beliefs and values may be at odds with
| civil society at large.
|
| (If you have trouble seeing this, try substituting "Jesus
| Is Lord Day School" in your head for some other implied
| religions.)
| busterarm wrote:
| But that's exactly my point. Would you deny this same
| right to kids that attend Jewish day schools? Could you
| even argue for that without sounding like a massive
| bigot?
|
| Religious people are part of your community and have the
| right to their religious identity and to be a member of
| your community. If they want a school just for them, you
| don't suffer for it.
|
| Religion is not at odds with society. We're not the USSR.
| Religious freedom is an enshrined right in this country.
| altcognito wrote:
| At least in the US, The community is not religious by
| definition in the constitution. The whole gambit with
| vouchers is that you are laundering money for religious
| institutions by putting it under "personal" choice.
| busterarm wrote:
| It must suck going through life thinking that everyone
| "other" from you is out to fuck you over.
| vkou wrote:
| If the political arm of the fundamentalist movement
| focused on morality policing its own members, instead of
| trying to force its values on the rest of us, we'd have
| way less of a problem with it.
|
| It is _very actively_ 'trying to fuck us over'. And it's
| winning, hard, in both the 6-3 sphere, on the legislative
| bench, and in many others.
| noduerme wrote:
| I'm Jewish, I went to Jewish day school for awhile, and I
| definitely don't think tax money should be going to
| Jewish day schools. Nor Christian nor Muslim schools.
| What religion you raise your kids in is your business,
| and no we're not the USSR.
|
| Keeping religion out of publicly funded institutions,
| including schools, is done as much to safeguard free
| religious practice in this country as anything. The point
| is that the public institutions should be entirely civil
| and not under the sway of any one religion, because each
| religion once in control of society ends up
| discriminating against the others. That's why you don't
| allow them power in the civil sphere.
| [deleted]
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >But Bobby Baptist's kids going to Jesus Is Lord Day
| School is assimilating those kids into their society at
| large and Jesus Is Lord Day School still needs to meet
| the curriculum and testing standards that any other
| school in the state has to. And more often than not those
| private schools are _exceeding_ the standard of the
| public education system.
|
| Are they? There are a lot of folks who would disagree
| (and many of those are graduates of such institutions)
| with that assessment[0]: The city has
| determined that four Orthodox yeshivas are failing to
| provide an education "substantially equivalent" to
| what's offered in public schools -- and
| recommends the state reach the same conclusion for
| another 14 yeshivas the city says are ultimately
| under state authority. The findings are
| the results of a long-stalled and politically thorny
| investigation that has stretched on since 2015.
| The city found that just seven schools they investigated
| met standards. That's in addition to two it found
| were up to standards in 2019. [...] The
| investigation was spurred by a complaint from a group
| called Young Advocates for a Fair Education, or
| YAFFED, headed at the time by a yeshiva graduate
| who argued his education left him ill-prepared for the
| world outside of religious studies. YAFFED and
| other critics argue many so-called ultra- Orthodox
| yeshivas provide little to no secular instruction,
| particularly for boys, and instead focus on
| religious studies. Representatives of the schools
| have pushed back strenuously on those claims.
| The schools are private, but do receive some state
| funding and, like all private schools in New
| York, are required to provide children with an
| education "substantially equivalent" to what is offered
| in public schools. The investigation kicked off a
| debate of what exactly substantially equivalent
| means, prompting the state to develop rules for
| determining it.
|
| And that's just one city in the US. I am unaware of such
| reviews in other places (some likely do exist, I just
| haven't heard about it -- please do jump in if you're
| aware of similar investigations), but _religious_ schools
| (of whatever stripe) exist to support their preferred
| religion above all else.
|
| Public funding (and especially taking funds away from
| secular public schools) of religious schools is
| antithetical to the idea of a secular government and
| society.
|
| [0] https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-
| boroughs/news/2023/06/30/new-yor...
| EgregiousCube wrote:
| It sounds like you're in a good spot where the taxes
| extracted from you go to support a value system that you
| are in favor of. Given that taxes aren't a choice, and
| given that value systems vary between people, can you
| envision a case where somebody with a different value
| system would be unhappy about where their taxes go?
| bamfly wrote:
| Sure. Lots of people have ideas or preferences I think
| are terrible. I hope they lose at the ballot box.
|
| [EDIT] To make this more substantive: I think there's a
| distinct difference between collectively funding a public
| system, and redistributing money to folks to go toward
| private entities--this goes beyond not liking the values
| or environments of some of the schools private-school-
| preferrers might spend their vouchers on. That's why I
| suggested that if we _must_ do vouchers, it ought to be
| limited to what a given person paid in themselves, not
| other people 's money--I think there's a fundamental
| difference between funding a public good available to all
| and giving people cash so they can get past a private
| paywall to access a similar good.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > I'm not OK paying taxes to help Bobby Baptist send his
| kids to Jesus Is Lord Day School.
|
| Would you be okay with the exact same amount of your tax
| dollars being used to send his kids to public school? If
| so, then why the difference?
| bamfly wrote:
| One contributes to building a public institution
| accessible to all, and the other does not.
|
| I'm also OK with taxes for public libraries, but wouldn't
| like my taxes going toward vouchers to help people pay
| for access to private libraries.
| devonkim wrote:
| One of the key problems in the US funding system is that
| population clustering effects will cause exacerbating
| effects where people of increasingly similar
| socioeconomic and cultural strata all stick together - of
| course this will cause rising inequality and unequal
| outcomes. The people living in the gated communities fund
| their local school primarily, not the poor one on the
| other end of the street that can't get or retain teachers
| there besides from ideologically driven sources like
| Teach for America because students are absolutely
| horrible when coming from poverty-stricken homes that use
| public education as a meal program while the working poor
| parents do 12+ hour shifts frequently.
|
| The funding structure of every other thing in the US is
| totally backwards and so unless we solve cultural
| problems like xenophobia and tribalism we will be unable
| to solve socioeconomic ones. As such, I have basically
| zero faith that the US will last another 20 years in any
| recognizable form as a liberal democracy.
| [deleted]
| bamfly wrote:
| The funding thing's a red herring. The best-funded
| schools in my state, with by far the highest spending per
| pupil, excluding special cases (e.g. schools that are
| also correctional institutions or otherwise not an
| ordinary school, so obviously have sky-high costs), are
| also among the very worst we've got, and it's looked like
| that for years. Throwing more money at schools in poor
| areas has had little effect on outcomes--not to say we
| shouldn't even out funding or even give poor-performing
| schools extra funding (which we already are doing, and if
| we just evened out funding, we'd be taking money away
| from the schools in very-poor areas and giving it to
| "richer" ones) but it very much does not look like doing
| that will have much effect on educational outcomes.
|
| Money is part of the cause, but where it comes in is
| letting parents sort their families into expensive-to-
| live-in school districts with other parents who could
| also afford those expensive areas. Their kids tend to be
| easier to teach for a whole bunch of reasons--which does
| make the schools more effective, but is not because of
| extra money spent on the schools. The sorting enabled by
| money _does_ matter, but the funding itself (received by
| the schools) does not appear to be a major factor.
|
| Basically, a family pays for school quality in the US no
| matter what, either directly or indirectly--you pay
| either with tuition for expensive, good private schools
| if you're fairly rich, or with real estate and
| transportation costs if you're not that rich, with a
| sliding scale all the way down to "practically
| destitute". The extravagant spending of expensive private
| schools might result in better education (I'm thinking
| especially of the very-small class sizes, like 4-8
| students per class, and the ability to pay for content-
| area PhDs as teachers in higher grades--we'd have to
| triple public school budgets to do that stuff, and that
| actually wouldn't even be enough because demand would so
| badly outstrip supply, should we try it) but beneath
| those relatively-few outliers with far-higher spending,
| moving spending/budgets up or down a (relatively) little
| doesn't seem to do much.
| devonkim wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing that throwing money at bad schools
| won't really help is the thing although it might seem
| like that's where my line of thinking may lead. Heck,
| usually more money at schools from what I've seen ranges
| from more administrators (lol if anyone thinks that
| helps) to equipment for students (as if an iPad will help
| a disengaged kid that much?). Add in the reality that
| lower socioeconomic status folks tend to move a LOT
| (think migrant workers' children) and that has pretty bad
| outcomes on education regardless of potential of the
| child.
|
| In fact, in impoverished areas probably the most
| important thing to do to improve educational outcomes
| after establishing a school at all isn't better schools
| but simply money at home - teachers are only responsible
| for 35% or so of the educational outcome of an aggregate
| population while something as simple as ensuring a child
| has reliable sources of meals and that the meals are with
| family is _way_ more important it turns out (insert
| correlation / causation caveats).
|
| As such, my suggestion isn't to spend more money on
| schools in low performing areas but to direct funding
| toward better home lives for students in the districts
| essentially. What good is spending $100k on better
| teachers and equipment when the students are living in
| trailer parks with abusive parents that don't feed them
| properly? This is a problem _many_ teachers in low-
| opportunity areas have talked about as one of the top
| problems for them.
|
| I used to support charter schools conceptually until I
| understood that the funding mechanisms cause a zero-sum
| game problem which takes funding away from schools that
| could use funding that would do better. At this time I'm
| convinced that almost any policy in education or health
| will fail without addressing the massive harms of large
| scale poverty in a capitalist system.
| bamfly wrote:
| OK, yeah, I think we're basically in agreement.
|
| The core problem is that the effective route to massive
| improvements in equality of access to quality public
| education is basically "solve poverty, and concentrations
| of poverty", which isn't within the scope of schools'
| mission and is going to be far harder to sell,
| politically, take a long time, and be incredibly
| expensive.
|
| We tried "bussing", which directly confronted parts of
| this, _and it fucking worked_ , which makes it
| practically unique among attempts to address this
| problem, and it was relatively cheap compared to other
| things we might try that could work, but literally
| everyone hated it (yes, even the poorer families) so I
| guess that's out.
| vladgur wrote:
| Public education system is definitely a positive thing
| that most of us will pay taxes for.
|
| However when public education is not guided by improving
| meaningful outcomes, but by ideologues, it needs to be
| checked. Vouchers sounds like a good way to insert some
| market dynamics and to allow parents to walk away from
| schools that are on the path to fail to prepare their
| kids for the future.
|
| My son is currently is in public elementary school here
| in Bay Area. If this idiocy persists, i dont believe i
| will keep him in non-STEM focused public school and will
| seek out better education for him that i will need to pay
| out of pocket.
|
| I can afford it, but those who are less fortunate will
| remain trapped and thats a travesty of CA public
| education
| kiba wrote:
| _However when public education is not guided by improving
| meaningful outcomes, but by ideologues, it needs to be
| checked. Vouchers sounds like a good way to insert some
| market dynamics and to allow parents to walk away from
| schools that are on the path to fail to prepare their
| kids for the future._
|
| As opposed to parental ideologues? By letting parents
| choose, we'll be letting them go to different schools
| championing different value system and the customers will
| be parents, not the children they ostensibly are charged
| with educating.
|
| By grouping parents with like-minded parents, we'll
| amplify groups and clusters, leading to not only further
| stratification but also further decoupling society and
| greater inequality.
| vladgur wrote:
| Ultimately, it is your right as a parent to decide what
| values you want your minor children to be taught.
|
| What is an alternative? Forbidding parents to pull their
| kids from schools that are ruining their future by
| following a system with historically worse outcomes?
|
| Most importantly, original articles here provide data
| that show that teaching math the way CA is trying to do
| has led to worse outcomes across the ethnic
| spectrum(unless of course parents had a financial ability
| to complement with private school/lessons).
| bamfly wrote:
| > By grouping parents with like-minded parents, we'll
| amplify groups and clusters, leading to not only further
| stratification but also further decoupling society and
| greater inequality.
|
| This effect is _super_ obvious if you 've ever sent kids
| to a private school. A big part of it is that you're
| opting in to a certain approach and set of attitudes and
| beliefs, _even in secular ones_. If you 're not a fit for
| their program, you don't get to meaningfully agitate to
| change things as you might in a public school--they just
| tell you to go somewhere else, then pluck another
| candidate off the wait list to replace your family.
|
| This can be awesome (though still risky, in some ways) if
| it's a _good_ bubble, but of course they aren 't all good
| ones....
| okeuro49 wrote:
| > One of the purposes of public education is also
| assimilating children into the shared values of society.
|
| From what I have observed of the US's education system,
| the problem is that the public education system is
| assimilating children into values that are _not_ shared
| by society nor their parents.
| harimau777 wrote:
| I think that part of the problem is that I have no idea
| what values you are talking about that don't match
| society/parents.
|
| That is to say: I'm a leftist and I'm worried about
| schools indoctrinating kids into a whitewashed, anti-
| LGBTQ+, jingoistic understanding of the world. However,
| I'm sure there are Republican parents that are concerned
| about kids being indoctrinated into a "woke"
| understanding of the world.
|
| I don't know how you manage things when you have the
| country split down the middle with two completely
| separate worldviews.
| okeuro49 wrote:
| I am from the UK, so view the issue impartially.
|
| The issue is, from my view, very much a problem of the
| Left-wing in the US, introducing victim/oppressor
| politics into schools, teaching children primarily to
| regard themselves as activists first, and students
| second.
|
| I can also see it is causing a mental health crisis in
| students, who increasingly are under pressure to identify
| as an oppressed minority, in order to be marked out as an
| oppressor; victimhood conferring social status.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The issue is, from my view, very much a problem of the
| Left-wing in the US, introducing victim/oppressor
| politics into schools, teaching children primarily to
| regard themselves as activists first, and students
| second.
|
| Where is this being done? What school districts
| _specifically_? What are the _specific_ topics that
| "introduce victim/oppressor politics into schools?"
|
| I'd really like to know, as I'm not aware of any of that
| stuff. Since you're obviously a "disinterested observer,"
| without an agenda, I assume you've gathered actual
| evidence for your assertions.
|
| My view (as an American "with an agenda") is very
| different from yours. If I'm wrong, I'd like to adjust my
| view. As such, please provide me with _specific_ examples
| of what you 're asserting.
|
| Thanks!
| hdior wrote:
| [dead]
| lizardking wrote:
| Or, unengaged parents will blame the school for their kid's
| poor performance and move their kids over, thus bringing
| down the metrics that gave everybody the impression that it
| was a good school in the first place.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| It only works when everyone is committed. When there can be
| no private schools.
|
| If everyone is committed, everything must improve for you to
| see changes. If everyone is not committed they'll just send
| their kids to the best schools and ignore the problematic
| ones.
| jedberg wrote:
| This only works if you require all schools getting vouchers to
| accept all students. Otherwise you end up with all the special
| needs kids in the public schools that are required to take them
| and all the high performers in private schools.
|
| And even then you still have the problem of transportation.
| Only the more well off families have the time and means to get
| their kids to somewhere that isn't their closest home school.
|
| Unless you require the school to accept vouchers from anyone
| who wants to go and provide them transportation, you're still
| going to get inequalities of outcomes.
| Aloha wrote:
| The first part of your comment I think is key, we also dont
| give schools significantly more money for special ed, as we
| should.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Transportation is also essential. Why would we accept less
| going "private"?
|
| As for not giving schools significantly more money for
| special ed, what is significant in your eyes?
| Aloha wrote:
| I think you can ignore the transportation part, if for no
| other reason than impracticality - not all districts
| offer effective or workable transportation now.
|
| I'd suggest that additional funding for special
| education, on a per student basis could be based on some
| sort of disability index, whereas the more services they
| require gets the district more money. Ideally some
| formula that is a mix of numbers based on local
| assessments, and weighted to similar districts in size
| and socioeconomic backgrounds of their residents. Like if
| a district games the system, the weighting should result
| in them being brought back into some mean.
| brightball wrote:
| There are also highly specialized schools that focus on
| special needs kids. Would we end up with more of those? Are
| the services available in public schools as good as what a
| specialty school may be able to provide?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you 're still going to get inequalities of outcomes_
|
| There is inequality in aptitude with respect to education.
| Forcing equality of _outcomes_ is a design for crushing
| cruelty. Some people having good schooling is better than
| nobody in the name of equity. Pursuit of this policy is
| undermining public support for state-run schools.
| [deleted]
| stickyricky wrote:
| > Unless you [...] provide them transportation, you're still
| going to get inequalities of outcomes.
|
| I think you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
| Rich people buy homes near good schools. Poor people live in
| homes they can afford next to bad schools. Removing the
| option for poor parents to drive their kids is not equity.
| Its damnation.
|
| I live in a state where you can _pay_ (yes not a voucher -
| you PAY) to attend a school outside your district. I knew
| several poor families which took advantage. I don't know of a
| single middle-class family which did the same.
|
| Not a scientific study. But it seems to me totally excluding
| the possibility of going to a better school is not kindness
| or progress or equity. Infantilizing poor people who "don't
| have time to drive" is silly. Some don't but there's always
| car pooling. When you're desperate you make it work.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I understand why you would want the choice but I think history
| has already shown that vouchers don't work. You have to
| remember that the thing vouchers do is take money _out_ of the
| school you are leaving. (A better approach would be for there
| to be a private school tax deduction alongside programs like
| 529). This leaves the students that are already behind fewer
| resources to catch up. We need school reform desperately and
| this new program is very bad and not it. However, allocating
| extra resources for those who needed most hasn 't been a
| priority writ large either or we wouldn't be where were are
| now. We also forget that there are many social aspects that
| drive under performers. Food insecurity, family stability, safe
| quiet place to read and do homework, etc. have a _huge_ impact
| on student performance. School breakfast /lunch/dinner should
| be free for all students. We should have more after school
| programs built into the schools for students that need it so
| they can get tutoring on-prem before they even return home to a
| potentially unstable home life. Unfortunately we don't approach
| all the interconnected issues holistically. (Similar to how
| trivial it would be solve most homelessness if we had the
| political courage to change our approach).
|
| You claim that you shouldn't be "stuck" with a bad school
| program but you aren't. You can run for school board along with
| other like minded student-focused parents and get the thing
| corrected.
| madrox wrote:
| So the answer is to take on a second job, spending several
| years fixing the system (and contending with people who don't
| agree with you) so that it will be fixed near the time my
| child has moved on? That isn't a real answer.
|
| What will really happen is what happens today. Kids whose
| parents have options just get put in private schools and the
| problem gets ignored. The kids whose parents have no options
| get left behind.
| kaitai wrote:
| Disagree for a number of reasons.
|
| 1) A good public education should be available to all students,
| with reasonable transportation provided. This is an axiom for
| me.
|
| 2) Private schools do not seem consistently provide a better
| education, but they do enable siphoning and segregation of
| students. Students with disabilities of various types can be
| excluded; the education can be explicitly religious; private
| education can really enable exclusivity of many kinds. On one
| level all that is fine -- but I don't want taxpayer dollars to
| support it. Raise money thru your church to send kids to that
| stuff.
|
| In addition, I think your premise is false. In the school
| district I live in, children can apply to attend any school in
| the district. Charter schools are available as well as public
| schools. Choice is available with a publicly funded model, and
| as a parent I am partaking in that and switching a kid from a
| high-scoring school that I'm nevertheless not fully satisfied
| with to another high-performing school that rivals the privates
| for about $30k less a year.
|
| But in the end, I actually don't think competition forces
| improvement. The misalignment of incentives is too great.
| Individual teachers want to do their best for their kids, in
| general, and they also want to improve their income. To do
| their best, they try to help the visible high achievers if they
| can but they absolutely must take time on the kids acting out.
| Administrators have to deal with district edicts and teacher
| demands, but they don't have the money to support teacher
| development (which would be the #1 thing to help both teachers
| and kids). School districts/boards need to show they're "using
| technology" and "being equitable" and "being innovative" and
| all sorts of stuff that is not the same as improving outcomes.
| Everyone is supposed to do well on the tests, even when the
| tests are stupid (and whoo-hoo are some of them terrible).
| Schools have to deal with homelessness and hunger, because no
| other regional agency deals with all the kids in the area.
| Nothing lines up and so we end up with free lunch that's not so
| nutritious but does hit a calorie bar, attempts at equity
| without supports (putting kids with behavioral problems into
| crowded and understaffed classrooms), a bunch of teachers who
| are scared of math yet have to teach it, who would benefit most
| from upgrading their skills....
| weaksauce wrote:
| except this is histrionics. there was a fervent backlash
| against this and they revised the proposal to make it a schools
| choice to teach it or not.
|
| > Stuff like this is why I will remain a proponent for true
| vouchers for the rest of my life.
|
| The only thing that does is line the pockets of fundamentalist
| christian schools with money and increase the inequality.
| schools should not be tied to local taxes by and large... there
| should be a equality of funding.
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| Not teaching algebra and calculus should not be an option,
| particularly if one is concerned about equity.
| [deleted]
| poorbutdebtfree wrote:
| We should replace algebra with gender studies so that less people
| will be misgendered.
| 1024core wrote:
| This seems such an obvious thing to me, and I'm not even in the
| field of Education. I agree with everything the writer wrote and
| found myself nodding repeatedly, thinking, it's obvious.
|
| So why can't our so-called professionals see this too? Taking
| away learning opportunities from kids does them no good!
|
| I remember once when I was in 9th grade and my elder brother was
| a sophomore in college. I found a textbook of his titled
| "Matrices and Determinants" (or something to that effect), for
| one of his courses. I picked it up and started reading it. After
| a few pages I had some questions, asked my dad. He didn't blink
| and just helped me out. Soon I had finished a couple of chapters
| and had learned more about matrices, determinants, etc. than I
| would ever learn in High School. Nobody told me not to read it;
| they just helped me along whenever I needed the help.
|
| I can't even imagine how toxic this discouragement would be to a
| curious mind!
| gnicholas wrote:
| The effect is even greater on younger students. My kid went
| into elementary school loving math and wanting to learn more.
| They refused to accelerate or even test her to see what she
| knew. She had to do endless busywork and sit through lessons on
| topics she'd mastered years earlier. She learned no math for
| years on end. The only lesson she learned is that "school
| doesn't care whether I learn".
| maherbeg wrote:
| This is 100% the lazy approach to creating equity. Instead of
| investing more to help the kids at the bottom move up, they just
| cap the top.
| Natsu wrote:
| There's only one equal state, among many states of being. We'll
| probably never have true equity at all, and if we do it is
| vanishingly unlikely to last. It's like getting a coin to land
| on the edge.
|
| What we should probably strive for is an environment where you
| can catch back up if you fall behind as long as you're willing
| to put in effort. This can be accomplished by helping everyone
| who is disadvantaged (e.g. poor) equally. This will
| disproportionately help any group that has been
| disproportionately harmed for whatever reason, so it's self-
| correcting over time and only gaps in effort will remain.
| kaitai wrote:
| Thanks for folks pointing out the link to the article on Dallas
| -- I'll post it here to boost it.
| https://www.the74million.org/article/dallas-isds-opt-out-pol...
|
| 25 years ago I was part of my National Honor Society outreach
| committee. One of the things I and my committee co-chair did was
| go to all the "normal" (rather than IB) classes and tell students
| that with a good GPA they could join NHS (as NHS did have a
| demographic makeup that wasn't reflective of the school).
| Students had no idea. The outreach did make a difference. The
| Dallas experiment, and the tutoring discussion in the article,
| resonate deeply with my later experiences as a math prof as well.
| Pushing kids results in higher achievement.
| tomp wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| "the ABC and the 123" are no longer sufficient. we need the xyz
| (allusion to algebra) AND the fgh, which stand in for the f(x),
| the g(y), and the h(z) better known as functions, BUT at the
| depth of lambda calculi.
|
| and yes, for children, because computers.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I'm reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
|
| We are not, should not, and cannot all be the same.
|
| I am bad at languages. Should I now demand that everybody please
| slow down so that I do not have to feel bad about myself? ...
| Nope.
| themitigating wrote:
| You could get extra help after school. Should a teacher just
| move as fast as the best student? You seem to want the
| education system to mirror capitalism which I find morally
| reprehensible.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I can get extra help, instead of everybody else being slowed
| down.
|
| And come on please, not slowing everybody does not mean that
| the teacher moves "as fast as the best student".
|
| What you call morally reprehensible is rooted in your own
| black and white thinking in this matter.
| tappio wrote:
| The author is looking at the topic from a quite narrow
| perspective. The reasoning 'why' what he observed is happening
| could be due many other reasons. I think he also misunderstood
| some fundamental reasons why school exists in the first place,
| such as functioning as a "day care" for bigger kids allowing
| parents to work.
|
| The article is based on an assumption of why something was done.
| It is positioned in a way that it immediately invokes a reaction
| "how can they be this stupid". But... What if that is not what
| those who made these decisions actually think? If he just assumes
| that is the case?
|
| I'm no expert, but maybe it would help here to do a thought
| experiment of "what I might be missing from the puzzle?".
|
| Lack of resources is one thing that was mentioned here. It is not
| that they drop the class and do nothing else. So what was the
| alternative? Where are the resources put now?
|
| I'm quite sure there are other things we are missing too. I'd
| like to step into those people's shoes who are making the
| decisions to understand better why they chose what they chose,
| instead of assuming what they think.
|
| Of course, if the goal is to actually improve equality, it is
| really stupid. Somehow I just doubt people are that dumb. There
| must be something more to it that I'm missing.
| OOPMan wrote:
| In my home country of South Africa the department of education
| decided the best way to deal with high failure rates among
| students with maths was to lower the bar by introducing a "maths
| literacy" course and allowing people to take it instead of proper
| maths.
|
| Unsurprisingly, it was a bit of a disaster.
| misja111 wrote:
| In case anybody has doubts about the accuracy of the author, I
| looked up some sources about this 'equity' policy in CA. It is
| real .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-
| curric...
|
| It reminds me of one practice in communist China under Mao;
| university students were forced to spend some time now and then
| working on the land, to let them feel that they were not any
| better than the farmers who lived there. But actually this is
| even worse.
| eitally wrote:
| fwiw, these are guidelines, not rules, and districts can
| themselves choose their curricula. I'm in the bay area, and
| even though SFUSD has removed algebra from middle school math
| and tried to remove calculus from high school, my kids'
| district still has an advanced math track that teaches algebra
| in 7th or 8th grade, allowing _public school_ kids to reach
| Calc BC their senior year, and /or have an elective slot for
| other AP math options (Stats, etc).
| rco8786 wrote:
| Is there anyone out there who disagrees with this? I have not
| seen a single person (aside from the few people actually
| implementing these changes) that agrees with it.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| One crazy shouting really loudly sounds like more people than
| 1k quite citizens when you're a politician trying to remain "in
| touch"
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| It's a complete straw man argument. Nobody believes that it's
| better to dumb down education, but that's not what's happening
| here. Very specifically, they are replacing middle school
| algebra with a data sciences class. The idea is that the data
| science stuff would be more practical and get people interested
| in math more than algebra, which is a more abstract. It doesn't
| sound completely crazy to me.
| electriclove wrote:
| Read the linked article from last week. Data science as
| implemented in this program is probably not what you think.
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/california-needs-real-math-
| edu...
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| I read that. It was just as bad and didn't really explain
| it. My favorite part was when he told me how society
| teaches girls they're bad at math, linking an article that
| said nothing of the sort. Both of these articles read like
| Fox News pieces. Lot's of anger and non objective opinions.
| It's such a turn off. But there were some interesting bits
| too. I quite like the idea of making AP classes opt out
| instead of opt in. That could be done in conjunction with
| replacing algebra with data sciences. I don't really have
| an opinion on which is better for middle schoolers, but
| this article failed to make up my mind.
| tgv wrote:
| Read the article linked at the start:
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/california-needs-real-math-
| edu..., and you'll find that there are quite a few people
| supporting this, importantly in school boards, and education
| departments and such. They don't care about the rest of the
| world, because they are "the experts."
| rco8786 wrote:
| > aside from the few people actually implementing these
| changes
|
| That, though.
| hackerfooze wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| In general what you'll find is that most of these advanced
| classes are dominated by certain economic groups. Public funds
| are advancing people with more resources when all they actually
| need is to pass state college entrance exams. It's not that
| children from low income families can't do the math, it's that
| they're at a huge disadvantage when their parents are often
| working, can't hover over them to make sure they figure it out,
| and can't afford Kumon. If you agree with a progressive tax
| rate (which not everyone does), surely you understand that this
| is a bad thing.
|
| I personally think all middle and high school should be bare
| minimum. Kids should be able to test out of classes when
| appropriate. The extra funds can go toward paying competent
| teachers for the less advanced subjects. If some parent wants
| their child to be advanced, they can use their own resources to
| help them test out of classes and take whatever APs they need.
|
| Also many of the comments on this topic here and on Twitter to
| me reek of solipsism. Every upper-class parent wants the best
| for their child, and every hacker thinks the story of their
| journey into math and CS is the most important one.
| eitally wrote:
| In addition this, at least in California, kids can dual-
| enroll in community colleges to take supplementary or more
| advanced (or even vocational) courses that mostly do transfer
| for college credit when applying to UCs & CSUs.
|
| I sometimes wonder if this is how the German system came
| about, where there's a hard split in high school / gymnasium
| between the academic track kids and the vocational track kids
| (and there absolutely is not any shame in taking the
| vocational route).
| rco8786 wrote:
| So shouldn't the solution be to get kids from lower economic
| groups into those classes? Rather than stop teaching anyone?
|
| The solution you're proposing takes away any chance of
| accessing these advanced classes for lower economic groups,
| and keeps the economic inequality moving.
|
| What happens when the low income kids test out of the
| remedial class? Oh well, they're just done with school then?
|
| > Every upper-class parent wants the best for their child
|
| I'm not sure how to read into this. Why did you purposefully
| qualify this to only upper-class parents?
| timcavel wrote:
| [dead]
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity
|
| What?! Who would seriously propose this?
|
| > California
|
| Oh.
| ironman1478 wrote:
| I went to public school in the 2000s in South Florida and there
| were after school programs hosted at the schools to help with all
| sorts of subjects. Do these school districts not provide these
| services anymore?
|
| Also, in high school & college I tutored people in mathematics
| (algebra and pre-calc usually). What I found is that everybody
| can learn anything (I truly believe this), they just need help
| and for people to be patient with them. What saddens me about
| this policy is that:
|
| 1. It feels like its giving up on students. Instead of trying to
| help them they're just throwing their hands up.
|
| 2. It also feels like a very lazy and uncreative solution. let's
| assume there are people who just can't do math. Why not create
| tracks for them to succeed in topics they are good at and create
| separate tracks for people good at math? It feels like the school
| districts are trying to fit everybody into the same bucket when
| maybe people should be put into different buckets. This is how it
| was in my public school system (gifted vs. honors vs. regular
| track) and nobody complained. Regardless of the political
| association (progressive or not) it feels very very lazy.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| "That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said
| Hazel.
|
| "Huh" said George.
|
| "That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.
|
| "Yup, " said George. He tried to think a little about the
| ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody
| else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights
| and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no
| one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would
| feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the
| vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he
| didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio
| scattered his thoughts .
| psychphysic wrote:
| It seems that these meta subjects, where rather than teaching a
| STEM topic the usual way. Facts and tests.
|
| They try to teach how to think about a topic without hard tests.
|
| Simply does not work.
| trutic wrote:
| I read meth
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| This stuff seems so cartoonishly bad that I feel like I'm missing
| something. But I've been unable to find the progressive
| arguments. We need popular progressive bloggers to explain the
| other side.
| pjscott wrote:
| The idea behind delaying algebra is that if you teach math more
| slowly, the people who do worst in math will be able to
| progress somewhat further because they have more time to drill
| and repeat things. Someone who would have received an F in
| algebra in 8th grade might be able to scrape a D+ if they spend
| a year preparing and then take it in 9th grade. Empirically,
| they did indeed see a greater percentage of people passing
| algebra when they delayed it by a year. Of course, they also
| saw fewer people taking AP Calculus, since the slower pace of
| education meant that fewer people had the prerequisites in
| time.
|
| So the big question is, why make _everybody_ take the slow
| track? Why not offer the option of 8th grade algebra to
| students who are ready for it? As far as I can tell from
| listening to advocates, it actually is the Harrison Bergeron
| thing, but with a twist: the achievement gaps that they 're
| trying to narrow have strong correlations with race and class,
| which makes closing those gaps almost a sacred cause. And that
| typically is where the arguments stop, in much the way that a
| mathematical proof stops when you say "QED".
| zapataband1 wrote:
| I don't really think it is progressive, just dumb. The Dallas
| project the author defends as a better alternative is also in
| mostly democrat voting city
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| How could it be "just dumb" when a bunch of educators came up
| with the policy? There must be some smart justification, even
| if it's wrong.
| x3qt wrote:
| In most of Europe we have gymnasiums (advanced secondary) and
| lyceums (advanced high) schools, while primary is "just school"
| and the same for everyone. After primary education, usually 4
| years, entry exams are held at gymnasiums, which have a lot of
| profiles (PhysMath, ChemBio, Philology etc, mine was
| Informatics), and those talented enough to pass them are
| transferred there, while the majority is filtered out and stays
| in "just schools". After secondary education (4 more years)
| people could get their high school level education at their "just
| school" or gymnasium, or either go to lyceum (requires exams) or
| college (as well). Lyceums are usually for those who aim at doing
| science at universities, and colleges for those for whom
| associate's degree is good enough (like me). What is really
| useful is that with associate's degree people could admit to the
| 3rd year of university of related profile to get their bachelor's
| in usually 2 more years. The profitable outcome of such a system
| is that everybody gets treated depending on their ability,
| resources are spent effectively and least common denominator
| doesn't sinks talents. Btw all of those are totally free, so no
| "social class" advantages are held by anyone. Maybe it's time for
| US to have gymnasiums and lyceums as well?
| xgl5k wrote:
| is that actually most of Europe or just Germany?
| alephnerd wrote:
| Balkans (former Yugoslavia) and Eastern Europe (especially
| CIS states) have a similar system
| x3qt wrote:
| Eastern Europe in my case, Belarus specifically
| rs999gti wrote:
| Wow, actively dumbing down maths and kneecapping kids from
| learning advanced maths. And for what, equity?
| zapataband1 wrote:
| The proposal sounds pretty moronic, but I don't understand the
| need to call Dallas conservative vs Cali 'progressive'. Dallas
| probably has more democrats ratio-wise than California, it's a
| major city.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| This is why my kids are in private school now. The public school
| system here in NJ has been dumbing down its curriculum for years.
| And while I thought "social promotion" was only a thing in
| horrible inner city schools, we have it here out in the suburbs,
| too.
|
| The first six months was very rough as they caught up from being
| so far behind, but they are being well positioned to the rest of
| their school careers compared to where they would have ended up
| academically in the public schools.
| themitigating wrote:
| How do you know they are dumbing down the curriculum and how
| are you comparing your children's progress?
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| Two ways:
|
| 1) The kids State Standardized test scores were abysmal, but
| they were given great scores by the school. If they failed
| tests they were given unrelated "makeup work" to being their
| grade back.
|
| 2) during Covid, everything went online and we could see all
| the work being given. Our daughter was specifically given
| topics 2 grades below her actual grade to keep her grade up.
| Her teachers told her this, and they didn't assign homework
| "because of need for school / life balance". My son's work
| was dumbed down as well.
|
| For private school, we see it because we had to help get them
| back up to par. I have helped my son understand algebra and
| read Shakespeare, and my younger daughter age appropriate
| math and English.
|
| Both are now able to take over their own studies, which are
| far in advance of where the grade equivalent public school
| is.
|
| Our public schools also have almost no AP courses at all. The
| private school has only college-prep courses, and the
| question is only what level - basic to advanced to honors AP.
| [deleted]
| crop_rotation wrote:
| In the age of Zoom, won't even slightly well to do parents get
| tutors from a remote country for a reasonable price for their
| kids if the school stops teaching math. The only kids who will
| suffer are the kids where parents are not so much focused on
| education, thus increasing the disparity.
| gnicholas wrote:
| You can get remote tutors to teach your kid skills, yes.
| However, if your goal is to have your kid advance to higher
| math classes, it isn't enough to just know the skills. Schools
| erect extreme barriers to advancement (Palo Alto USD has been
| successfully sued on this point [1]), so what students really
| need is to enroll in outside courses that are certified
| replacements in order to get credit. Finding out about which
| courses these are, getting your kid physically to the courses,
| etc., will always be easier for parents with more means.
|
| 1: https://thecampanile.org/27999/news/the-verdict-is-in-
| pausds...
| gotoeleven wrote:
| The article you linked is incredibly confusing. I assume the
| issue is, which is typical of any advanced courses in school
| districts where helicopter tiger moms live, that little billy
| didn't qualify for the advanced math course because he's not
| smart enough but mom knows he's actually a genius. The
| pressure to let in little billy builds and builds until the
| districts relent and fill the classes with buffoons and the
| educational quality is lowered for everyone.
| eitally wrote:
| It sounds to me like there may have been an intermediate
| step, which was for little billy to be enrolled in some
| sort of third party course as a catch-up / qualifier for
| enrollment in the advanced class, and the district not
| accepting that.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The lawsuit was filed because (1) the district refused to
| allow students accelerated placement based on their prior
| outside coursework, and (2) used acceleration exams with a
| pass threshold that was comically too high (requiring
| students to know much more than was actually taught in the
| classes they sought to pass out of). These tests ended up
| having a wildly disparate impact on girls, who passed at a
| much lower rate than boys.
|
| The district lost on (1) but not on (2) because it is
| illegal in CA to refuse placement for a student who has
| completed a course that would qualify for UC/CSU credit --
| which is what PAUSD was doing.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I experienced this first hand.
|
| In 9th grade, to accelerate from Geometry to Algebra 1
| (10th grade) you needed a 95% on the exam, which was 1
| hour long and around 90 questions. And this was despite
| taking Algebra 1 and 2 at a certified private school with
| UC/CSU credit that the C-suites of Tech companies send
| their kids to.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Why would you accelerate from geometry to algebra 1? Do
| you mean algebra 2?
|
| My understanding is that at PAUSD they had two tests, one
| part that measured if you understood the core curriculum,
| and another that was more along the lines of brain
| teasers/math competition problems. You had to pass both
| (many passed the first but not the second). One issue was
| that the district seemed to cherry pick students to let
| them through; students would get access to accelerated
| classes even if they scored worse than other students who
| were blocked.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Haha yep, I meant to accelerate to Algebra 2 in 9th
| grade.
|
| > another that was more along the lines of brain
| teasers/math competition problems. You had to pass both
| (many passed the first but not the second)
|
| Same with my district. I attended a HS that is a peer to
| Gunn here in the Bay Area.
| aduffy wrote:
| This article is better
| https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/03/03/judge-
| rules-h...
|
| The crux is that many students would take the 9th grade
| math course via private courses to then jump ahead a year
| or two when they get to the high school. The school tried
| to prevent people from doing this and the parents sued.
|
| I went to this high school ~10 years ago and at the time a
| handful of kids every year would do this. I'd imagine it's
| much higher now though.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Go straight to college.
|
| I had a somewhat similar issue in high school and 1 summer
| class got me more advanced than anyone else, I was able to
| duel enroll after that.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Dual enroll meaning take classes at a nearby college while
| going to high school? Do HSs let you take just part of
| their curriculum? Did you go to that college full time
| later on, or just for a couple years and then apply to
| regular 4-year colleges?
| vuln wrote:
| > The only kids who will suffer are the kids where parents are
| not so much focused on education, thus increasing the
| disparity.
|
| It's almost like whenever the government tries to "fix" as
| issue and put its thumb on the scale it backfires. The results
| end up being the exact opposite of the government's stated
| goal, unless that was the plan all along.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Learning remotely is hard, especially for kids. People will
| just get normal tutors.
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| This is what I'm most excited for in LLMs. GPT4 Code
| Interpreter was created by taking the Base Model GPT4 + Layer
| of programming questions. I hope they do the same for a math
| tutor model or open up the base model for others to do so.
| pdpi wrote:
| How does that follow from GP's point? If remote interaction
| with a human doesn't quite measure up to face-to-face
| interaction, how does an LLM improve upon that?
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| Major difference between a personalized tutor LLM and
| remote teaching an entire classroom.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| People will get/prefer normal tutors when they can afford,
| yes. But good high school kids would be able to learn from
| remote tutors too, and those would be affordable for most
| families.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Not a kid, but I got a math tutor remotely. 1:1 a lot of the
| group remote problems go away. And market differences make a
| huge difference in affordability.
| headcanon wrote:
| I don't think you need to get a tutor from a remote country. I
| would just enroll them in an after-school math program like
| Kumon. But yes, enhancing the education after school in general
| is likely what motivated parents with means would do.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Isn't Kumon just drilling basic stuff?
| greatfilter250 wrote:
| [dead]
| headcanon wrote:
| yeah its a lot of drills, I hated it as a kid but it
| worked. I didn't use it for algebra or beyond but I'm
| pretty sure they have it.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> The idea behind universal public education is that all
| children -- or almost all, making allowance for those with severe
| learning disabilities -- are fundamentally educable. It is the
| idea that there is some set of subjects -- reading, writing,
| basic mathematics, etc. -- that essentially all children can
| learn, if sufficient resources are invested in teaching them.
|
| Is that the goal? I don't think it is. I think that schools serve
| a host of purposes, some of which we don't like to talk about.
| They are a place where the government can literally inspect
| children. They are where the malnourish, sick or otherwise
| distressed children can get noticed by people in a place to help.
| They are daycares that free up parents to work more and be more
| productive. They are centers of indoctrination where kids are
| taught societal norms. They are cultural melting pots where kids
| learn to navigate self-defining social structures. They are also
| proving grounds, places where children are judged and assigned
| numbers (grades) that will either grant or deny them access to
| higher levels of education or other opportunity. The three Rs
| have never been the entire mission. Looking at what kids do at
| schools these days, education seems very much secondary to
| everything else that schools do.
| greatfilter250 wrote:
| [dead]
| thrashh wrote:
| Does anyone have a less biased article about this to tell if this
| is actually a thing?
|
| I remember the controversy over Common Core Math and I realized a
| lot of people complaining about it weren't very good at math and
| their criticism was more a reflection of that than valid
| criticism.
|
| Now it's hard to believe when people complain about something
| when education is involved.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| There's been a trend in secondary and higher education for the
| past ~5 years or so in favor of removing more rigorous classes
| (advanced math) and more objective evaluation* (standardized
| testing) in the name of equity.
|
| Proponents argue that it advances equity and removes stigma.
| Opponents argue that equity is a bad goal and even if you
| thought it was a good goal, this perversely accomplishes the
| opposite.
|
| You're starting to see articles like this one or this one
| https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/14/metro/cambridge-schoo...
| because well, the worm turns.
|
| *While standardized testing is not truly objective it is
| dramatically more so than grades.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Same, I'm dubious of anything that doesn't directly quote CA's
| own docs about the new standards. Instead the quotes are from
| random people complaining about it.
| zapataband1 wrote:
| Yeah the article reads as biased, but Dallas is a majorly
| democrat city probably more than California. So both are
| 'progressive' policies. One just seems to be geared towards
| giving kids more access to advanced classes, and tutoring
| opportunities. It's a no brainer that this is better for
| outcomes but people will pearl clutch and say 'we have to
| abandon public education' because some school district tried
| something.
| armatav wrote:
| Of course it will - it will make everyone equally as useless at
| the subject
| tjpnz wrote:
| It won't make everyone equally useless, but it will lead to
| even _less_ equitable outcomes. Per the article, parents who
| value education will either teach math to their kids themselves
| or hire private tutors. Kids without that luxury effectively
| get robbed by the state in the name of equity.
| db48x wrote:
| That is the apparent goal of "equity" programs.
| timerol wrote:
| Note that this joke is made, but better, in TFA. With an
| accompanying (non-original) graphic.
| squokko wrote:
| It's not a joke and there's nothing funny about it.
| candiodari wrote:
| Exactly, this is the only way to make everyone equal.
| Equally bad.
| lxe wrote:
| > It is difficult to find words to describe how bad this idea is
| without descending into abject rudeness.
|
| I think it's worth it in this case. You have to be an absolute
| moron or someone with a sinister agenda to think that decreasing
| the standard helps the community in any way. Especially idiotic
| to call this "progressive".
| FredPret wrote:
| (Not trying to start a flame war). There's a strain of left-
| wing thought (of course not ALL left-wing thinking) that
| accepts economic prosperity as unconnected to competence.
|
| Something that's just there in larger or smaller amounts, like
| the weather.
|
| To these people, standards is just another word for
| gatekeeping. In this frame of mind, something like communism
| actually makes sense - the prosperity is there by default, and
| those at the top get most of it, so why not put everyone on the
| same rung of society.
|
| There's another school of thought a step closer to the centre
| which holds that competence exists, but has no innate component
| and is purely environmental. This leads to the conclusion that
| if you put everyone in the same environment, you'll get the
| same outcomes.
| robotnikman wrote:
| >someone with a sinister agenda
|
| If I were a country trying to subtly sabotage the future growth
| of another country, I would target the educational systems. Not
| to say that is that case with what is going on here, Hanlon's
| razor and all that. But it does make you think.
|
| Either way, I worry for what the future will be like with
| current educational policies.
| mynegation wrote:
| I was going for "batshit insane" but I absolutely love your use
| of the word "sinister".
| misterbishop wrote:
| This just is a total misunderstanding of what's being proposed,
| and a hamfisted excuse to dress up reactionary stupidity as a
| defense of "Math". The changes aren't "refusing to teach kids
| math", they are a better approach to math. Modern approaches
| emphasize number sense (aka actual understanding) over formulas.
| Algebra has historically been a kind of gatekeeping in middle
| school between kids who plug in the formulas vs the kids who
| "arent good at math". Neither of these outcomes are positive for
| learning.
|
| In general we need deeper foundational knowledge beyond
| memorization of notation. True math understanding enables
| students to independently discover common formulas rather than
| deploy them from rote.
|
| Noahpinion doesn't begin to speak to this, and is in fact a
| moron.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _changes aren 't "refusing to teach kids math", they are a
| better approach to math_
|
| Every mathematician disagrees. The Stanford professor pushing
| this policy has no math education. (She _does_ have consulting
| gigs with school districts where they trade a teacher 's annual
| salary for a few hours of Zoom calls [1].)
|
| I grew up in Cupertino and am flying back to the Bay Area.
| Every friend who is a parent is planning on circumventing this
| policy by enrolling their kids in more tutoring.
|
| California is dumbing down its poor to sate a private education
| and education-consulting industry.
|
| [1] https://google.com/search?hl=en&q=jo%20boaler%20consulting
| eitally wrote:
| Every mathematician disagrees because their focus isn't
| learning or teaching children foundational number sense and
| math concepts that will help them lead successful lives.
|
| You guys are talking past each other, and the guidelines in
| question are aimed at the kids in primary math education, not
| academic and applied math, where your statement applies
| better.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _their focus isn 't learning or teaching children
| foundational number sense and math concepts that will help
| them lead successful lives_
|
| They teach undergrads. They are saying a student graduating
| from this framework, without outside tutoring, would not
| have the skills necessary to learn entry-level
| undergraduate math.
|
| The data-science component, additionally, seems entirely
| designed to support a private consulting complex. That time
| would be better returned to students, given the content's
| outright inaccuracies.
| [deleted]
| pessimizer wrote:
| > In general we need deeper foundational knowledge beyond
| memorization of notation.
|
| This sounds like you're advocating for more memorization of
| notation, earlier, so children will have the time to be taught
| the deeper "foundational" knowledge that requires that
| notation. Otherwise, I don't know what you're talking about.
|
| > Algebra has historically been a kind of gatekeeping in middle
| school between kids who plug in the formulas vs the kids who
| "arent good at math."
|
| Any child can be good at math. A lot of children are
| traumatized by the unforgiving nature of quantitative
| reasoning, get discouraged, and are told by innumerate or
| condescending adults that it's alright to quit because they
| don't have a math brain, or that the equationa are just
| military-corporate imperialism used to distract people from
| their deeper, innate, _math-senses._
| misterbishop wrote:
| Here's a program with the goals I'm talking about:
| https://www.gse.upenn.edu/academics/research/responsive-
| math...
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| It's moronic. Source: I'm a university math professor with a
| hell of a lot more experience teaching math well than you have.
| tru1ock wrote:
| Don't breathe the air, said the fish to the bird.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The Dallas experiment is interesting, and it's not surprising at
| all that the students actually learned more than if they had been
| in less-advanced classes.
|
| The question I have is what the grades look like for the kids who
| were somewhat involuntarily included in the class. In junior
| high, grades don't matter all that much, but come high school it
| could be worse to have lower grades in more challenging courses,
| depending on how hard the GPA hit is.
| gwoplock wrote:
| >but come high school it could be worse to have lower grades in
| more challenging courses, depending on how hard the GPA hit is.
|
| At least when I was in high school, the regular, pre-AP and the
| AP classes each had a different grade scale. Core classes were
| a 1.0(70%)-4.0(100%), pre-AP were +1 (1-5) and AP were +2
| (2-6). So in theory they were taking into account how difficult
| the classes were. Since this was in the DFW area, I'd expect
| something similar in Dallas.
| distortionfield wrote:
| What is the Dallas experiment? I haven't heard of this before.
| rozap wrote:
| He describes it in the article. Honors math became opt-out
| rather than opt-in.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gizmo686 wrote:
| This is only realy relevent for college admissions. Having a
| high school degree is a credential that matters, but few people
| will look at the GPA on it.
|
| For college admissions, the admissions offices aren't stupid.
| They generally don't look at "GPA", but compute it themselves.
| A small private school might need to worry about how colleges
| interpret their transcripts. But a system as large as
| California? Colleges will learn very quickly how to weight
| grades from different levels of classes. They already need to
| deal with grades being wildly inconsistent between schools.
| They also get other signals such as the SAT, which provides a
| consistent measure independent of class level.
| bluGill wrote:
| Last I checked was decades ago, but even then colleges were
| looking at class rank as GPA could not be compared between
| schools. SAT scores can be compared, but even then only to
| others taken the same year (realistically the yearly test
| changes are small enough that you can safely compare over a
| few years and be close enough)
| timerol wrote:
| I understand that grades matter for getting into college, but
| this mindset is viscerally horrifying to me. It almost reads to
| me as: "What if people were appropriately challenged and
| learned more? Wouldn't that be horrible?" Grade inflation is a
| terrible thing, even if it is likely an intractable problem
| because of the incentives that go into it.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Most people are at school because their parents need daycare,
| not to learn. Schools perform the important social function
| of sorting and ranking by academic ability and what students
| learn isn't all that relevant to the sorting and ranking. One
| sixth of students in US high schools are bored in every
| class, every day and two thirds are bored every
| day[Highschool Study of Student Engagement].
|
| Most people aren't at school for learning.
| hdctambien wrote:
| Grades are a score that parents can use to compare their
| children to other children.
|
| It doesn't take too many parent-teacher conferences to figure
| out that the parents that ask for parent-teacher conferences
| want to see "the line go up" and aren't necessarily concerned
| with their children being challenged or learning much of
| anything.
|
| The squeekiest of those wheels move from parent-teacher
| conferences to parent-administrator conferences (and
| sometimes parent-lawyer-administrator conferences) and you
| end up with school-wide policies like failure quotas where
| you are not allowed to have more than 5% of your students
| fail your class (ie the responsibility of the students grade
| falls on the teacher, not the student). And that is how
| grades stop being a measure of a student's understanding of
| the material.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The pathology about grades is caused by colleges giving far
| too great a weight to high school GPA. If it falls below a
| 3.5, your chances of getting into the kind of school that
| people who give a shit about their or their child's
| education are gunning for drops precipitously.
|
| Meanwhile, universities don't take the time to seriously
| consider what courses a student took, save for a few APs.
| That leads to a situation where it may well be in the
| student's best interest to coast through an easy A rather
| than get a B or C in a more challenging course. An example
| I can think of immediately was a friend who got an offer
| rescinded from a UC because they failed Discrete
| Mathematics as a senior, despite the fact that taking the
| class at all was completely optional for him.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I wouldn't advocate for grade inflation, and there's no
| indication here that's what happened. I would advocate for
| analyzing which types of students were well-served by the
| change, taking into account their learning and the effect on
| their GPA.
|
| I would expect that it wouldn't be that difficult to select
| kids (perhaps based on prior performance in math classes, or
| overall GPA) to opt them into the class. This would be more
| fine-grained than simply shunting all kids into an advanced
| class.
| hdctambien wrote:
| > select kids (perhaps based on prior performance in math
| classes, or overall GPA) to opt them into the class.
|
| That's how it works now, pretty much everywhere. Your 7th
| grade teacher recommends you to take the 8th grade algebra
| class based on your performance (or, at least, their
| interpretation of your performance)
|
| The question is, where do you draw the line that qualifies
| someone to take 8th grade algebra? Who do you let in when
| there is 1 seat left and 3 eligible students to fill that
| seat? How do you make sure that the grades you are using to
| determine who makes the cut are accurately measuring
| mathematical ability of the students and not biased in some
| other way?
|
| I'm not advocating for either the California or the Dallas
| solution to this problem, but both those school districts
| have identified that letting the 7th grade teachers make
| this placement decisions _is_ a problem.
| mydriasis wrote:
| > Guess what? Children are educable. If you invest the resources
| of the state in poor kids and underrepresented minorities, they
| will learn.
|
| It is shocking to me that this has to be said. What in the
| world...
| avisser wrote:
| Ironically, "educable" is tough for me to get out. It's a very
| mouth-full-of-marbles word.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Teachable seems like the more common word that would be used
| here.
| pessimizer wrote:
| "Teachable" has been a bit debased in business-
| speak/wokespeak. It now refers to a mistake or accident
| that can be learned from.
| veave wrote:
| It's not exactly like that. Average IQ is very different
| between races. That explains many discrepancies. And it also
| explains these policies that revolve around cutting down the
| tall poppies.
| feoren wrote:
| > Average IQ is very different between races
|
| Wow, I thought we left this nonsense back in the 1960s. Study
| after study shows that every additional confounding factor
| you account for lessens this supposed difference. Nutrition,
| health, environment, socioeconomic status, cultural attitudes
| toward learning, implicit bias in the IQ tests themselves,
| blood lead levels, iodine levels; race is confounded with
| _hundreds_ of variables. The more of those you hold constant,
| the less you see any difference in racial averages. I suspect
| people who still spout this nonsense know this, and /or don't
| care.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| It probably needs to be said because of situations like that in
| Baltimore, Maryland. The city spends more than 97% of what
| other major school districts spend, and yet it's students are
| on average some of the worst performers:
| https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/baltimore-ci...
| eitally wrote:
| The answer is simple, though. When you invest the money
| exclusively in the schools and what happens in the schools,
| your reach is _extremely_ limited.
|
| In Baltimore, and everywhere else, raising the minimum wage,
| offering free daycare & preschool, and improving the social
| services that prevent many low income kids from learning
| _outside_ of the school (and parents from supporting them) is
| what will make the real difference. But, at least half of
| this country is opposed to spending money on those sorts of
| things because the "I got mine" attitude is more pervasive
| than "What's good for my neighbor is what's good for me".
| gotoeleven wrote:
| You know they tried all this stuff right?
| autoexec wrote:
| Baltimore has free day care? You'd think that'd drive
| down the average cost of daycare there (which is like
| $900 a month)
| pessimizer wrote:
| Baltimore is a segregated, poverty-ridden, drug-addicted
| city. Try performing at or even caring in the slightest about
| schoolwork if your parents are uneducated junkies and you
| haven't eaten for a day or two.
| localplume wrote:
| [dead]
| themitigating wrote:
| You are only taking into account one factor. Is the money
| being spent well? Do you need more money because of external
| situations that may affect a child's learning?
|
| For example in a poor area with more crime a child may need
| after school programs, which cost more money, to keep kids
| out of trouble.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The big thing is usually old building stock.
|
| Urban school districts in the US are disproportionately in
| old buildings that have high maintenance costs, low
| efficiency for utilities, and have all sorts of problems
| that need remediation, like lead or asbestos. There is
| generally no capex money to replace these buildings, and
| even if there was, finding a suitable property in an urban
| area is pretty difficult, since schools are big.
| goodpoint wrote:
| It does not need to be said. The article is just extremely
| biased.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I mean... It's not entirely "true"
|
| Some kids are educatable. Some are not. (and this also depends
| on subject and other factors)
|
| That's true across all races, classes etc.
|
| I say this because I actually think the biggest issue in
| education is that we waste resources on kids who are not
| educable and hold back whole classes for the one kid who
| refuses. This, and 101 other issues stem from that policy. A
| big part of what parents get at private schools or schools in
| nicer neighbourhoods is fewer kids holding the class up.
|
| We should be assessing schools on how many kids get As and go
| to college. Instead we assess schools on how many kids pass or
| attend. So schools spend their time and energy dragging truants
| into classes and turning Ds into Cs. Anyone trying hard is just
| ignored, there is no news story, reward etc for getting a B kid
| to get an A etc...
| eitally wrote:
| Citation needed.
|
| From everything I've read, it's nearly entirely the case that
| low income and ESL students do the worst (and there's a large
| overlap between those groups) and it has almost nothing to do
| with the kids' educability or intelligence. They are in a
| difficult spot due to no fault of their own and require more
| support than what a typical teacher in a typical school in a
| typical city can provide without meaningful investments in
| broad social services Americans don't seem to have much
| appetite to invest in.
| themitigating wrote:
| "We should be assessing schools on how many kids get As"
|
| Then based on your logic schools would just pad grades.
|
| Also the rest of your comment is a pile of right wing garbage
| outworlder wrote:
| > Some kids are educatable. Some are not.
|
| Citation needed. Why wouldn't they be, unless there's a
| disability?
|
| I have seen good teachers do wonders for 'problem' kids.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Because they don't want to learn.
| csa wrote:
| > Citation needed. Why wouldn't they be, unless there's a
| disability?
|
| They come from a sub-culture (mostly based on social-
| economic status) that is aggressively anti-intellectualism.
|
| Being bullied, shunned, etc. for being able to do things
| like read, do "basic" math, and/or speak anything outside
| of the local vernacular (e.g., something like a more
| neutral sounding "TV English") is a thing.
|
| This type of research is abundant in the education
| literature. That said, it is not always presented as
| straightforwardly as one might expect since it doesn't
| match up with certain agendas in the education research and
| policy worlds.
| feoren wrote:
| So if a kid is being bullied for learning to read, the
| answer is to stop teaching them to read? Is that really
| your suggestion?
|
| And by the way, the statement "Some kids are educatable.
| Some are not." also comes from a sub-culture that is
| aggressively anti-intellectual.
| csa wrote:
| > So if a kid is being bullied for learning to read, the
| answer is to stop teaching them to read? Is that really
| your suggestion?
|
| Definitely not. Quite the contrary, actually.
|
| My point is that folks shouldn't be surprised that some
| kids in these types of environments have low or negative
| motivation to learn.
|
| > And by the way, the statement "Some kids are
| educatable. Some are not." also comes from a sub-culture
| that is aggressively anti-intellectual.
|
| All kids are _able_ to learn -- in fact, they are
| sponges.
|
| The issue at hand is what do they learn and in what
| contexts.
|
| Formal school-based learning is a tough sell in some
| contexts.
|
| People continue to be shocked that throwing money at low
| SES students doesn't meaningfully improve education
| outcomes, despite decades of data showing that it
| doesn't.
|
| The interventions that have been shown to work over and
| over again are:
|
| 1. Early interventions like the (old?) Head Start.
|
| 2. Increasing engagement at the community level,
| specifically with parental buy in. This is very hard to
| do, but can be done.
|
| Once a community has embraced anti-intellectualism, all
| the school can really do is create a safe space in at
| least part of the school for those who want to learn.
|
| You seem to be offended by my ideas. The ideas I present
| here are based on actual research. I encourage you to
| look into the literature and (if possible) talk to
| researchers and practitioners in environments that you
| are not native to (low SES rural, urban, and non-native
| speaker communities are good places to start).
| 10g1k wrote:
| Equity is nonsense. Leftism (as demonstrated by California) is a
| race to the bottom. But life is competition to reach the top.
| Your kids are competing with others. Available resources are
| finite, population is increasing, therefore competition is
| required. And competition/adversity breeds development. Teach
| your kids to do better than other kids. Give them every tool you
| can to help them succeed and do better than their peers.
| currymj wrote:
| You can imagine the following perspective:
|
| - Most people don't need to learn calculus at all, and it's fine
| if the few weird students who do start when they get to college
| (maybe the advanced students can learn single-variable calculus
| in high school).
|
| - For pure signaling reasons, taking calculus in high school has
| become very important for college admissions.
|
| - In order to take calculus in high school, you need to at least
| take algebra I (and hopefully geometry) in middle school.
| Wealthier parents understand they are playing the college
| admissions game early on, so they make sure in elementary school
| that their kids will be able to get on the algebra track in
| middle school.
|
| - Getting on the algebra track is thus the first really
| consequential part of the college admissions game, it happens
| much earlier than the rest, and takes real scheming by parents to
| make sure their young kids are prepared. [actually true]
|
| - If you could just make this impossible, it will even the
| playing field in a huge way and knock down one of the biggest
| hurdles in college admissions for people from lower-SES
| backgrounds. [also probably true]
|
| - The only downside is that students will no longer have time to
| cover calculus in high school, which doesn't matter anyway
| because it's only a small number of unusual people who need to
| learn calculus (very advanced math!), and they can just learn it
| in college.
|
| This is my best guess about the line of thinking that motivates
| these "no advanced math" policies. It has elements of truth to it
| which are worth paying attention to. The problem is just that
| actually, it's really useful and important to learn calculus in
| high school, and more people need this opportunity.
|
| edit: I thought it was clear that I think a lot more high school
| students should be learning calculus as early as possible, and
| that "no advanced math" is a terrible policy, but I guess not...
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| You've gotten a whole lot of replies that seem to miss your
| point, but I'd say that I've experienced that exact thing - to
| get to Calc in your senior year you needed to have gotten on a
| very specific track of math courses back in middle school, and
| likely your parents needed to know about it to make sure you
| got in. Otherwise, what appeared to be a very inconsequential
| choice at middle school actually decided your entire math
| track. Getting back on the track after you get off basically
| doesn't happen.
|
| I definitely think we should teach more advanced math (and
| other) courses, but that particular way of doing it is just not
| very good - plenty of people who probably could have managed
| Calc just fine didn't get to take it, due to choices made for
| them years past probably by parents who didn't understand the
| significance. The structure and order of classes needs to be
| redone, which is hard.
|
| I will say though I find it funny how much people are coming to
| Calc's defense. I'm in software development and it's a pretty
| common joke how virtually inapplicable calc is to us. I'm still
| happy I learned it but for software development it's definitely
| less useful than the other advanced math you'll learn.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| I like to call it "the math ladder" for this reason. Math is
| uniquely cumulative, so being shoved off the ladder
| prematurely precludes future advancement in a way that gaps
| in knowledge of the US Civil War have minimal impact on
| learning East Asian history.
| feoren wrote:
| > it's a pretty common joke how virtually inapplicable calc
| is to us
|
| If you think calculus is not important to software
| development than you are not bothering to look. Just a few
| examples:
|
| - Calculus was the first math class I took that gave a clear
| definition of what a "function" really is. Do you use
| functions?
|
| - Analyzing the properties of functions to see what
| operations made sense to do or not (e.g. continuous vs
| discontinuous).
|
| - The concept of taking a function at various points and
| adding a small value to it to see how it changes is extremely
| important in sensitivity analysis and optimization.
|
| - Anything involving non-uniform probability distributions,
| like sampling a random number from various distributions,
| requires understanding the relationship of PDFs and CDFs,
| which is one of derivative/definite integral. This means any
| form of realistic simulation, any estimations of time to
| failure, performance of anything, etc.
|
| - Gradient descent and backpropagation in neural networks are
| completely opaque if you don't understand derivatives.
|
| - Most games or simulations deal with rates of change.
|
| - The concept of infinitesimals applies to finding tangents
| to curves, showing up in vector graphics all the time.
|
| - Anything involving elevation in GIS, analysis of water
| flow, even topographic maps
|
| I'm honestly sick and tired of seeing these crazy anti-
| learning comments like "I'm in software development and I
| literally never use calculus / linear algebra / type theory /
| lambda calculus / algorithms and data structures / boolean
| logic / binary trees / linked lists / stacks / queues /
| geometry / algebra / arithmetic" <-- then you're artificially
| limiting yourself and you're a much worse software developer
| than the ones who actually _do_ use those things. What do you
| do all day, copy code from StackOverflow and hope it works?
| Don 't discourage other people from learning just because you
| were too lazy: in fact that's literally what this entire post
| is about. You're part of the problem.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| > Do you use functions?
|
| Unless you're using Haskell or something similar,
| mathematical functions and what most programming languages
| call "functions" are very different and are better referred
| to as procedures. Mathematical functions don't have any
| concept of some basic constructs like variables (state in
| general), I/O, or even sequential computation. Pure
| functional languages have to use things like monads to
| model procedures.
| dgb23 wrote:
| I definitely benefit from knowing calculus. But I always
| disliked it, it was taught in such a mechanical fashion.
|
| I only really started to get math when I learned about
| linear algebra, combinatorics, proofs, A&D, algebraic
| structures, mathematical logic etc. And quite frankly those
| topics helped me much, much more than calculus.
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| > I'm honestly sick and tired of seeing these crazy anti-
| learning comments
|
| I don't know why you're mad at me, I _literally said_ "I'm
| still happy I learned it", along with saying we should be
| teaching more advanced math. I said it was a common _joke_,
| not that we literally never use it. I went on to say it was
| "less useful" than other math you'll learn, not "not useful
| at all". Perhaps you should read the whole comment before
| getting so angry.
|
| And no, just because I don't use calculus all day doesn't
| mean I "copy code from StackOverflow", I honestly don't
| know how you could come to such a silly conclusion (or how
| you think knowledge of calculus is necessary to understand
| most data structures). Do you think self-taught developers
| who never learned calculus are just incapable of learning
| or using data structures and algorithms, and don't know
| what functions are? I can tell you quite confidently that
| they can and do, because I know many of them.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| As someone who did all of it and ended up majoring in
| engineering, in my opinion calc is the least practical of the
| senior high school math courses-- geometry and data management
| (stats/probability) are both much more likely to be useful to
| normal people doing their taxes, understanding elections,
| fitting furniture into rooms, whatever.
|
| That said, I think calculus is helpful in the way that learning
| a niche programming language is helpful: it teaches you about
| new kinds of abstractions, how to think in a different way, and
| gives particular language with which to talk about that kind of
| thing.
| pwthornton wrote:
| There is a way to have time to cover Calculus in high school
| while still taking it slower: Block scheduling.
|
| My high school shifted to it. It's like a college day where you
| have four longer classes instead of eight shorter ones. Courses
| are semester-long, not year-long. This means you can take two
| math classes in one year (algebra in the fall and geometry in
| the spring).
|
| This also enabled my high school to offer AP Calculus B, which
| is part-two of AP Calculus.
|
| The other advantage of this type of schedule is that it is also
| easier to offer other kinds of math that may be more critical
| to most students, such as a dedicated class on statistics.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| My Toronto high school was like this, back in the early
| 2000s.
| anthomtb wrote:
| My Colorado high school was also like this, same time
| frame.
| yardie wrote:
| My HS one of the first to have block scheduling. I would say
| the only negative about it was the AP/IB exams were held in
| early May. The high school year ended early June. So, there
| was a mad scramble to cram for the AP classes you took in the
| fall and a scramble to cover topics in 4 months instead of 5
| (80% of a normal semester) for the spring semester.
|
| If I could do it again I probably would have focused on
| getting the required classes out the way in the fall and
| focus on the AP in the spring to prepare for the exam in May.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Eight different classes in one day? How can that work?
| gwoplock wrote:
| When I was in high school, IIRC we did 55 minute classes
| with 5 minutes between classes, 4 core classes 2 or 3
| electives + lunch. It doesn't work, by time you start, the
| class settles, late arrivals show up, homework is
| collected, questions asked and whatnot, there's probably
| only 30 mins of real instruction. Class would boil down to
| either teaching or worksheets but not both.
| pwthornton wrote:
| Yes, this is the rub, it's not very efficient. For deeper
| activities, block scheduling is radically superior. Hell
| gym is way better too!
| kneebonian wrote:
| So my school did block schedule of 90 minutes classes on
| alternating days. But I am wondering if 30 minutes of
| instruction is about right?
|
| I mean a lot of evidence point to people having
| difficulty focusing on a single thing or learning for
| more than 20 minutes at a time? 30 minute bite-sized
| lessons might be perfect.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Not well.
| bityard wrote:
| Our school district has a program where teenagers can elect
| to go to high school at a local community college. Depending
| on their aptitude going on, the program starts them off on
| high-school level classes and moves them up to college-level
| classes as the semesters go on, and all of this happens on a
| real college campus with a real college workload and
| schedule. The idea is that the kids aim to graduate with at
| least an associates degree.
|
| Poor grades and trouble-making will get you kicked out of the
| program, so the only kids that are there are the ones who
| WANT to be there, which is a drastic contrast to actual high
| school.
|
| Our daughter will be attending this school in the fall, we
| are all very excited about it.
| kingrazor wrote:
| That's what my high school did. 4 block periods per day. We
| had "A" days and "B" days. A days were 1st, 3, 5th, and 7th
| period. B days were 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th period. I never
| had two math classes in the same semester though.
| cbeach wrote:
| Algebra is fundamental to problem solving.
|
| Learning to code would have been much harder if I hadn't
| grasped algebra.
|
| Calculus is important for understanding science (especially
| physics) and statistics.
|
| These are not niche subjects for "the few weird students." They
| are really important to grasp for many roles in the knowledge
| economy. Your kids will enter a world of robotics and
| automation. They're going to need to use their brains if they
| want to succeed.
|
| I'm 100% against a dumbing down of the education system to
| achieve ideological leftwing aims.
| AlanYx wrote:
| >This is my best guess about the line of thinking that
| motivates these "no advanced math" policies.
|
| You've explained the thought process of the "reformers" fairly
| well, but there is another additional element that's important
| as well: a sizeable contingent of people believe that advanced
| math itself is intrinsically bad or negative. Usually this is
| either because math is fundamentally exclusionary in some core
| way, or because it's somehow inextricably tied to ways in which
| equity-seeking populations are oppressed, or used as a tool of
| oppression.
|
| O'Neill's _Weapons of Math Destruction_ is so popular in
| academic circles partly because it plays to this mindset.
|
| This viewpoint dovetails with some of the points you've
| highlighted, for example many believe that everyone is equally
| capable, but the reason they're not all getting competitive
| scores with good shots at college is because advanced math
| (being intrinsically negative/evil) is ruining it. So in their
| view it is rational to get rid of it, replacing it with
| something (the data science course) that's not advanced math.
|
| For these people, the goal is not to improve equity by getting
| everyone up to speed in advanced math. It's to bypass it.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| At it's very foundation liberal ideology cracks pretty badly
| if "Everyone is born equally capable" is false.
| candiodari wrote:
| But the only way to make people equal is to sabotage,
| sabotage and sabotage. And, of course, if parents have the
| means, this won't work. This is just robbing _a lot_ of
| lower class kids from any chance of getting higher, just
| because not everyone will make it.
|
| That's stupid.
|
| Of course sabotaging kids is also slightly _cheaper_ , and
| creates the need for more administrators, the ones making
| these decisions, to decide exactly what is "equitable".
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I suspect that 'liberals believe "Everyone is born equally
| capable"' is a strawman. I hang out with pretty liberal
| people and no one actually believes anything like this.
| Interestingly, the article actually lists out a more
| nuanced, realistic version of this idea (with a link to
| research):
|
| > But whatever you think about the morality of this idea,
| it simply will not work. The reason is that the strong
| hereditarian hypothesis is wrong; practically all kids are
| educable, with the proper investment of resources.
|
| And we're talking about high school educational attainment
| here, not world-class achievement. To use a fitness
| analogy, not everyone has the anatomy to be a world-class
| deadlifter. But pretty much everybody can get to
| deadlifting 1x/1.5x their (healthy) bodyweight with some
| training.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The entire point of liberal ideology is to gather a variety
| of viewpoints because we accept that everyone is not born
| equal. That doesn't make some people better than others,
| they just bring different skills to the table.
| feoren wrote:
| > the reason they're not all getting competitive scores with
| good shots at college is because advanced math (being
| intrinsically negative/evil) is ruining it
|
| I ... I don't understand. This is literally the craziest
| conspiracy theory I've ever heard. Here's the thing: if a
| shadow cabal of lizard-people were _actually_ using space
| lasers to mind control everyone into thinking the Earth is
| round so we never discover their hidden evil lairs at the
| edges of the flat Earth, or what have you ... if any those
| wacko theories were _actually true_ , it would actually
| represent a terrible evil that humanity should fight to
| overcome. Such a plot might even make a decent movie. But
| this? Advanced math? What? _Math_ is conspiring against
| humanity? I cannot even fathom a B-movie plotline where that
| holds together at all. No suspension of disbelief makes this
| make any sense. _Math_!?
| dsign wrote:
| I don't know. I have met plenty of people during my life
| who didn't like math. Would they vote to remove Calculus
| from high school curriculums, if they believed it would
| level the playing field? Yes, and without blinking.
|
| >> Such a plot may even make a decent movie.
|
| A "plausible" one, yes. Incidentally, have you noted how
| movies don't ever have any actual hard science, and they
| never require mathematical thinking on their viewership?
| The same can be said about fiction in general. I bet our
| culture-makers would vote in-masse to suppress math from
| whatever curriculum they could.
| feoren wrote:
| > movies don't ever have any actual hard science, and
| they never require mathematical thinking on their
| viewership
|
| Um, no, I haven't noticed that. In fact I've seen "this
| movie is based on hard science!" as being a generally
| positive selling point for movies, especially sci-fi. I
| also don't really understand your point: movies and pop
| novels generally do well when they require very little
| thinking of any kind. They don't require musical thinking
| or spatio-temporal thinking or logical thinking or
| kinesthetic thinking or intrapersonal thinking either.
| Nor do most of our passtimes. That does not make them
| anti-intellectual.
|
| > our culture-makers
|
| _Who?_
| AlanYx wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the
| objections are not typically phrased in the type of
| language you're using.
|
| A typical example is something like this, from Louie
| (J.Res.Math.Ed. 2017):
|
| >Through the lens of the culture of exclusion, students who
| appear mathematically gifted are viewed as intelligent,
| whereas others are myopically perceived as "slow,"
| "remedial," and "special needs." These perceived
| differences are used to justify stratification such that
| the culture of exclusion in mathematics education shapes
| access to intellectually stimulating learning
| opportunities, prestigious educational programs, lucrative
| careers, and high-status identities. Furthermore, because
| ability categories are mapped onto other socially
| constructed categories, the culture of exclusion is both a
| product of and a tool for the maintenance of racial,
| gender, linguistic, economic, and other hierarchies.
|
| It is at its core a form of anti-intellectualism, that is
| true, but often emanating from other intellectual ideas
| from the academy.
| feoren wrote:
| Okay, have these guys seen how people who are really good
| at football are treated? And all those guys who are great
| at guitar keep getting all the chicks, goddammit!
|
| There's no reason to think that mathematics has any more
| of a "culture of exclusion" than any other field of
| study, vocation, or sport.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Sounds like a classic case of bullying tactics in picking
| soft targets.
| sergiogjr wrote:
| Well, haven't you noticed how the DIE cult is already all
| over entertainment? Sports teams kneeling down because of
| "oppression" and pop culture being absolutely dominated
| by sex and violence propaganda? Specially those being
| produced targeting the "minorities".
|
| It's a brave new world.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| The problem is that this point of view ignores reality:
| motivated parents will just have their children learn calculus
| in outside classes.
|
| The reality is for these students, "standard" middle and high
| school math is mind-numbingly boring.
|
| The best outcome would be that the best schools and teachers
| use the surplus time to teach stuff that's off-curriculum like
| logic, discrete math, stats, programming, etc.
| lotu wrote:
| Maybe true but that won't get them a calculus credit on their
| transcript.
|
| > The reality is for these students, "standard" middle and
| high school math is mind-numbingly boring. >The best outcome
| would be that the best schools and teachers use the surplus
| time to teach stuff that's off-curriculum like logic,
| discrete math, stats, programming, etc.
|
| This is also true I was one of these students. My middle
| school did almost exactly this. They had a per algebra class
| that explored all sorts of random topics. We did things like
| clock math, and observed how these other mathematical systems
| did or did not observe things like the associative property.
| It was amazing because it made math more than just doing
| calculations. This class is still one of my fondest
| educational memories.
| guidoism wrote:
| As far as I can tell you don't need an official transcript
| from an accredited school to get into college. We are
| homeschooling our kids and what I've read is that
| homeschoolers write their own transcript, the kids
| themselves write it, and they describe what they've
| accomplished and learned during their schooling career and
| admission depts in colleges tend to favor these kids over
| traditionally schooled kids.
|
| I'm guessing that a traditionally schooled kid could just
| do the same. Especially since there's so much that they are
| probably learning outside of school. It would be a shame to
| ignore all of those skills and knowledge just because they
| weren't taught during the hours of 8 and 3, M-F.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'd be interested to learn more about this. Where can I
| find data on how admissions depts view homeschooled kids
| versus other kids?
| mcphage wrote:
| > This is also true I was one of these students. My middle
| school did almost exactly this. They had a per algebra
| class that explored all sorts of random topics.
|
| What textbook / textbooks did your class use for this?
| fooker wrote:
| Students from the rest of the world learn calculus when they
| 15-18.
|
| It's interesting to see how quickly America is being dumbed
| down by stupid policies.
|
| College level science and engineering education doesn't make
| sense without a understanding of at least basic calculus.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Not really.
|
| Students in other countries in the world (for this assumption
| India, China, Canada, UK, Germany given my experience with
| the following) are tracked and/or calculus is optional.
|
| We've traditionally had tracking within the US system (hence
| why AP and Honors classes matter) which helped filter
| students accordingly.
|
| The issue is our "Hail Mary" pipeline - community colleges -
| are unnecessarily viewed as negatively, even though they help
| students remediate any knowledge gaps they might have.
| fooker wrote:
| 'Tracked' is doing some heavy lifting here. A vast majority
| of students in these countries end up learning calculus in
| school to keep college options open.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Most students in these countries don't end up college
| track.
|
| 1. College Matriculation rates are low. Only 36% of
| Germans aged 25-46 have attended Tertiary Education
| (University as well as Vocational School) [0]. This is a
| similar story in the UK and Canada as well.
|
| 2. In countries like Germany and UK, college track HS
| admissions are competitive. Attending a Gymnasium or a
| uni track independent school or public school requires
| having a mix of high scores in grades 6-8 or competitive
| exams.
|
| 3. Calculus is not in the default curriculum. For
| example, in Canada Advanced Functions only teaches a bit
| of Calculus for a semester. The course is optional, only
| allowed at Grade 12, and sometimes isn't offered in HS.
| This is a similar case in the UK with "Further Maths" as
| an optional A-level and Germany with the Maths curriculum
| in Realschules.
|
| [0] - https://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primar
| yCountry=...
| fooker wrote:
| I see India and China missing from your rebuttal, that is
| close to half of the worlds population and likely more
| than 2/3rds of all students who go to college.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Because for this conversation, I felt like talking about
| comparable first world countries and explaining the
| Chinese and Indian education system to a (fellow)
| American is annoying and tiring.
|
| Points 1-3 are the same for India and China as well.
|
| In China, Gaokao (college admissions exam) is only
| allowed to those who attend College Track high schools
| (Sr Secondary School).
|
| To enter a Sr Secondary School (10-12) in China, you need
| to pass the Zhongkao, which is de facto limited to the
| top 40% scorers of the exam.
|
| Zhongkao is not mandatory btw, and a number of (often
| rural or migrant) students end up failing to take the
| exam.
|
| If you don't pass the Zhongkao, your options are either
| expensive private schools or going to a vocational school
| which will technically count as a tertiary program by
| giving a diploma and an extra year, but doesn't include
| as rigorous STEM classes as the Sr Secondary Schools.
|
| This is similar to India as well, where Calculus isn't
| introduced in the CBSE or a number of State Board Exams.
| ICSE introduces Calculus at Grade 12, but ICSE is limited
| to elite private schools and elite/competitive public
| schools.
|
| In both India and China, Tertiary education is low (it's
| difficult to get exact statistics as both countries have
| now begun obfuscating tertiary level with vocational
| programs). That said, given the Gaokao filtering, it
| probably doesn't exceed 30% in China, and India is most
| likely half of that given the 15-20 year head start China
| had on India.
| tzs wrote:
| > College level science and engineering education doesn't
| make sense without a understanding of at least basic
| calculus.
|
| That doesn't actually mean that you need to cover calculus in
| high school. The calculus needed for the first year of
| college science and engineering can be easily taught early in
| the first year in the classes that need it.
|
| That's how it worked at Caltech when I was a student (late
| '70s and early '80s). Around 75% of an incoming class had no
| calculus. It only took a lecture or two in Phys 1 to cover
| all the calculus that would be needed for the rest of first
| year science and engineering.
|
| That calculus taught in Phys 1 wasn't rigorous and proof
| based, but high school calculus usually isn't either. By
| second year everyone had a year of Ma 1, which was rigorous
| and proof based calculus.
| guidoism wrote:
| I'm curious as to how calculus is used in those fields. I
| got a degree in CS and we had to take a bunch of calculus
| classes but never used it in any of our CS classes and in
| my 20+ years of programming jobs I've never had to use it.
| Any time in my professional career that I needed math I
| didn't know I learned just enough of it to solve my problem
| and promptly forgot it. I absolutely could not tell you how
| to mechanically do stuff to derivatives and integrals.
|
| This question is relevant to me because we are deciding
| what to teach our kids and I haven't yet been able to come
| up with a good argument for why to spend time gaining the
| skill of pen and paper mechanical calculus algorithms.
|
| Are there professional scientists or engineers out there
| that do calculus on paper?
| fooker wrote:
| You need some time for the insights from new topics to
| become ingrained.
|
| For computer science, imagine learning about logic gates
| and VLSI in the same year.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's only a small number of unusual people who need to
| learn calculus_
|
| Any STEM career. Finance and economics. Data science--the
| component they're replacing middle-school algebra with, the
| CMF's authors know as much about data science as about math.
|
| Californians whose parents can't afford tutors have been
| effective gated from these careers.
| chociej wrote:
| It also depends heavily on how you define "need". Calculus
| changed the way I view many, many concepts and phenomena. I
| think we present things like calculus as dryly as possible,
| and only to those blessed few who we perceive as able to
| understand it, and in doing so, we deprive so many people of
| a useful new way of considering problems. Whether it ends up
| being critical to their chosen career seems like a really
| narrow and poor criterion.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > I think we present things like calculus as dryly as
| possible
|
| A lot of this is because the hiring pipeline has dried up.
| I went to a top hs here in the Bay Area and had teachers
| who were very knowledgeable and invested in STEM education.
|
| Because of extremely low salaries when factoring in CoL, a
| replacement pipeline hasn't formed. I had 4-5 of my
| classmates in HS end up majoring in STEM and minoring in
| Education at the big 3 UCs, but all of them decided to
| become Data Analysts or SWEs instead because they would be
| provided a living wage without having to go get a masters
| for an additional $30-40k and/or a formal teaching
| credential for an additonal $12-15k. They were looking at a
| $150k bill just to earn $70-80k starting AT BEST in Silicon
| Valley.
| cmh89 wrote:
| I have friends who are/were teachers. I can't imagine why
| anyone would subject themselves to that. Low pay, spoiled
| out of control children, their evn worse parents, active
| shooter drills/real active shooters, fucking TikTok.
|
| I wouldn't do that job if it paid double what I make now.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Hot take, but parents don't parent anymore.
|
| I've seen antisocial behavior rise in both kids from well
| off backgrounds as well as from kids from less well off
| backgrounds. In both cases, the parents aren't an active
| participant in their kid's lives.
|
| The kids (both rich and poor) with present parents always
| ended up well established and this was irrespective of
| race.
|
| The only benefit that money had was it could open some
| doors if the kid f**ed up.
|
| One of my acquaintance's HS going kid has an active drug
| problem and has ended up in in the drunk tank a couple
| times, but because my acquaintance is a white collar
| professional who can afford to live in a well off
| neighborhood, they can afford the legal fees. If this was
| some black kid in West Oakland or a Latino kid in East
| San Jose or a Vietnamese kid in Newark, they would have
| ended up in Jail/Juvie, lost critical learning time, and
| have no real options or safety net to fall on.
| cmh89 wrote:
| I know that older people complaining about younger people
| is literally ancient, but I can't help but feel that cell
| phones + social media is doing some real damage. It hurts
| adults, I can't imagine experiencing it with a developing
| mind.
| somethoughts wrote:
| I like this effort to understand/summary of the other side in
| good faith (even though one can believe math education is
| important).
|
| I think way of rationalizing it is that there are some parents
| that feel that orchestra, art exploration, debate, sports or
| <insert subject/extracurricular of choice> at the collegiate
| level. After all, many students excel at these and could get
| into an Ivy league/Big 10 college based on their performance in
| these subjects. At one point a district may decide to offer
| collegiate level coursework to students.
|
| Then funding dries up and cuts need to be made. Which courses
| should be kept and which should be cut and how should resources
| be allocated is a real question.
|
| Perhaps competitive math courses or multivariate calculus
| should be considered an "after school extracurricular" similar
| to the many after school extracurricular sports programs and
| schools should just focus on providing basic "PE level
| equivalent" math.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| This is a good analysis, but you're missing another angle:
| quite a few kids are not developmentally ready[0] for algebra
| in 8th grade but most _are_ ready in 9th grade. By forcing kids
| who are not developmentally ready into algebra you generally do
| more harm then good (most of those kids will hate math for the
| rest of their lives). This problem also occurs earlier in
| school life with fractions. When I was in education I saw
| pushing students too early like this do a _lot_ of damage that
| had to be cleaned up by tutors at a later date and was totally
| unnecessary.
|
| I even think Calculus could still be achieved by the end of
| high school with the right curriculum choices - you can teach a
| lot of calculus concepts to grace schoolers if you elide the
| actual mechanics of computation. Anecdotally, students who were
| pushed through that sort of curriculum earlier in middle school
| tended to breeze through high school calc.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27s_theory_of_cognitive...
| ghaff wrote:
| (A) problem is that, if you're going to start getting very
| specific about what math kids _need_ to learn if they 're not
| going into STEM, you end up with a pretty short list and you
| end up, in practice, with not really learning math or
| developing numerical intuition at all. (And let's ignore the
| fact that I directly used very little of what I learned in
| university engineering either.)
|
| When was the last time I did a geometry proof? Used trig? OK, I
| use some algebra now and then though probably not simultaneous
| equations. Not calc.
|
| But I'm pretty sure the path is not to make numerical literacy
| basically optional. Why know how to multiply in a world with
| calculators? Well... Though I wouldn't argue with more emphasis
| on things like basic stats and probability early on.
| jonfromsf wrote:
| Everyone needs to understand probability and statistics maybe
| 10X better than they currently do. That should be the focus!
| guidoism wrote:
| Yes, this!
|
| It's crazy that we spend a decade of a person's life
| forcing them to learn a skill that is so completely
| irrelevant to their lives and yet we ignore skills that
| could help them from being manipulated or forced into debt
| slavery.
|
| I need to come up with a better analogy, but it's like we
| were still forcing our children to manipulate a cotton gin
| and know the ins and outs of maintaining and repairing one.
| I mean, I'm sure it's interesting and now I want to look up
| a YouTube video about cotton gins, but do we really need to
| force this upon everyone? And then we decide that if you
| didn't memorize how to change out the plumbus in the cotton
| gin perfectly then you aren't allowed to do further study
| in marine biology.
|
| If I believed in conspiracy theories then I would think
| that Big Scary Corporations are in cahoots with The
| Government to keep the public from knowing how not to be
| manipulated and forcing them to work for low wages for
| their entire lives. But I don't believe this because I
| think the reality is a lot more mundane and stupid. I think
| it's just like the story you hear about why your mom
| learned to cook the ham by cutting off the end and finding
| out after some investigation that the only reason was
| because her grandmother had a small pan and we all just
| tend to continue doing what has sorta kinda worked without
| thinking about it. But in this case we can't just make
| individual decisions to do something different because
| we've decided that the API between secondary school and
| college is an admissions test that includes certain
| irrelevant things that we can't change because of history
| and the API between college and a job is something
| completely different.
| eftychis wrote:
| With that kind of thinking though we can reach logical results
| like:
|
| - writing prose and composition is unnecessary, as at best one
| will write on slack and social media;
|
| - doing pushups, calisthenics, or running is unnecessary: few
| jobs require that;
|
| - learning about how the government works, civics or sociology
| or psychology should be skipped: all these are taken care by
| the employer that is not going to let you go vote anyways
| (still don't understand how/why it is not a mandatory holiday,
| but what do I know);
|
| - debates should be banned: promotes arguing against cops and
| employers both having detrimental outcomes;
|
| - art is for the rich and private schools: poor populous should
| not be dreaming;
|
| I suggest -- my 2 humble cents -- the writers of this
| abomination take a class in logic. Unfortunately, that is math
| and requires fundamentals they don't want covered.
|
| P.S. My grad school anecdote: our perception and experiences as
| "international" grad students of the math understanding of
| incoming undergrads was abysmal to put it lightly. I don't want
| to be in any future TA shoes.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| This is one of the many reasons we decided to homeschool, despite
| having a pretty good experience with public education.
|
| It's like a super power to be able to tailor education for your
| own children. You know their strengths and weaknesses better than
| anybody.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Just curious, how can we homeschool if we are not teachers
| ourselves. I understand the Math that's for sure, but I don't
| have the confidence to serve as a good Math teacher. How do you
| proceed if you are in the same shoes?
| candiodari wrote:
| Something like Khan Academy can help with both problems. Just
| do the exercises, obviously they'll go wrong, explain until
| they go better. 1:1 feedback is much better than even great
| teachers.
|
| This solves both how to teach and the bigger problem, what to
| teach so your kid passes the SATs.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are lots of home school resources and programs. Things
| range from sitting your kid in front of a video lecture to
| being the teacher yourself. Some programs are great some are
| just enough to satisfy the law that your kids are getting
| education. Frankly if you don't already know the above then
| you are not ready to wade through the mine field of
| homeschool. You need to figure out which programs are good
| and which are just marketing.
|
| In the end though, while many homeschooled kids do well on
| tests, they all show the narrow mindedness that comes from
| never meeting someone who is different (religion, and
| political background are big ones here)
| declan_roberts wrote:
| First of all understand it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing.
| Many homeschooling parents enroll in a part-time education
| co-op with other likeminded parents. I guarantee there's one
| near you right now. In these groups you essentially take
| turns teaching. There's almost always a parent there who is
| competent in an area where you lack expertise. It really just
| works out.
|
| The late-game strategy that I see is enrolling in community
| college for advanced classes in math, physics, science, etc.
| In Washington state you can start this your junior year in a
| program called "Running Start" and it's free. At this point
| your homeschooling with that child is essentially over and
| they're taking college classes for college credit.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| I really appreciate some of the comments in the blog post talking
| about how most people don't need algebra or anything beyond basic
| maths for anything in their lives. How those people have done
| just fine without understanding anything beyond addition and
| subtraction.
|
| It's finally explained something I never really understood. How
| do so many people fall for pyramid schemes. How are there so many
| Americans that don't understand the difference between their net
| worth and their credit limit.
|
| If you haven't built a basic intuition for abstraction, which one
| pretty much learns only through algebra in K-12, all these things
| will be extremely difficult for you.
| rafaelero wrote:
| > But whatever you think about the morality of this idea, it
| simply will not work. The reason is that the strong hereditarian
| hypothesis is wrong; practically all kids are educable, with the
| proper investment of resources.
|
| Yes, they are. But they won't be equally educable, and that's
| what matters to critics.
| tapatio wrote:
| Just get rid of GPAs and grading altogether.
|
| If a kid wants to learn algebra, support them. Why does
| everything have to be dumbed down to the lowest common
| denominator?
| xxpor wrote:
| How do you know who's doing well then? Seems like eliminating
| quantitative measurements will only make things worse.
| tapatio wrote:
| A kid takes a French class. Can he speak French afterwards?
| Can he read/write in French? I guess that's how you'd know if
| he learned it. Is that a test? I guess so but I'd like to see
| grades take a backseat to actual learning. Maybe that's a bad
| position to take.
| xxpor wrote:
| I think we have the same idea: stupid grades that don't
| measure actual results are bad.
|
| Not that I'm salty, but I always had poor grades because I
| rarely if ever did homework. But I aced the tests, so why
| bother?
| tapatio wrote:
| Yup. There should be fast tracks and slow tracks. If I
| already know the material, I get to advance. No need to
| hold everyone back.
| xxpor wrote:
| It's too bad I didn't have the language to debate
| consequentialist vs deontological ethics with my 6th
| grade math teacher.
| threatofrain wrote:
| But now nobody can say whether any curriculum is better.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Language curricula are not any more effective (i.e.
| pretty terrible) at teaching language than they ever have
| been. So since these data-driven improvements haven't
| shown up yet, we shouldn't be worried about risking them.
| threatofrain wrote:
| How about eliminate grades but only have standardized exams?
| Standardized exams are less susceptible to the grade
| fiddling.
| vuln wrote:
| Then they spend the whole year "studying" for the
| standardized test and learn nothing. That's how it
| currently is and I don't see that changing. Standardized
| exam scores are utilized for funding.
| mr-wendel wrote:
| Additional food for thought from a educator's perspective: "I
| wanted to be a teacher but they made me a cop"
|
| https://www.experimental-history.com/p/i-wanted-to-be-a-teac...
| alexb_ wrote:
| >So if people need some extrinsic motivation to engage in my
| class, one of two things might be happening. Maybe they're
| just not interested in what I have to offer. That's fine!
| They should take a different class. More likely, though, the
| problem is me: I'm somehow subverting people's natural
| curiosity. Maybe I'm doing that by inflicting evaluation on
| my students--rules! points! policies!--instead of just
| showing them what they came to see.
|
| This paragraph shows the difference between college and other
| education. This applies to college because everyone there
| paid to learn. This does not apply to public schools,
| ESPECIALLY if it's in an area where the culture is _bad for
| education_. There are a ton of kids who absolutely do not
| care at all about anything you have to say if there are no
| consequences for being apathetic.
| tapatio wrote:
| Why do we all need to be impacted by the "bad for
| education" areas?
|
| Maybe kids that are ready can just start going to college
| earlier or even skip high school altogether. Yes, they'll
| have to pay but a community college will suffice. They
| could probably just take the GED test and pass at 14 years
| old. I can only imagine how dumbed down that test is.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I have a thought that GPA as KPI are for teachers and schools,
| not kids.
| jedmeyers wrote:
| A lot of people in positions of power are currently obsessed
| with achieving equality of outcomes (aka equity) and dumbing
| down to the lowest common denominator is an only working way to
| achieve that goal for large groups of people.
| tapatio wrote:
| We practice equal opportunity in the USA. They should move to
| Russia or some other commie country to practice equal
| outcome.
| pessimizer wrote:
| We don't practice equal opportunity in the USA.
| tapatio wrote:
| What do we practice then? In this country if you work
| harder/smarter, you are more successful.
| wolpoli wrote:
| Are we going to see a transition to a pure pass/fail grading
| system then?
| avereveard wrote:
| In many ways we're already at an always pass system.
| tapatio wrote:
| That might not be a bad idea. But it still doesn't solve
| the problem of some people learning/advancing quicker than
| others.
| goatlover wrote:
| Why is that inherently a problem? Some people will always
| learn/advance quicker than others in just about any are
| of life for a variety of reasons. The only way to "solve"
| that problem generally would be some very dystopian form
| of social control.
| tapatio wrote:
| I fully support kids being able to advance as quickly as
| they can or want to. The current system does not support
| that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Has anyone tried giving kids a vote in school-board elections?
|
| Teachers' unions are increasingly compromised. Electeds use kids
| as pawns to appeal to radicals to promote random social causes.
| And parents seem to focus on grades going up at the expense of an
| actual education.
|
| Maybe they'll just vote themselves candy. But in my experience,
| kids understand--at least as well as the median adult voter--what
| they need to succeed. Enfranchising them in their own educations
| seems worth exploring.
|
| California, in particular, has high-school only school districts.
| We don't have to start with whether the kindergarten block is
| aligned with less nap time.
| gnicholas wrote:
| A year ago, a kid in our district made a presentation to the
| board asking for homework to be eliminated. The district is now
| undergoing a review of the homework policy, with equity-focused
| board members/administrators pushing for all homework to be
| eliminated, or at least reduced. One board member literally
| made the argument that "we don't actually know if homework
| increases learning, do we?".
| imagineerschool wrote:
| Granting student children rights would be a disaster for career
| administrators and bureaucrats, undermining the entire
| institution and all of its conceits.
|
| If you want to see how well it works, look at the Sudbury
| Valley School model. (It works extremely well.)
| nancyhn wrote:
| Remove the monopolitic control of those unions with school
| choice. Once they have to compete it will resolve the problem
| post haste.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Yeah, as best I can tell, this article is making stuff up.
| Referencing the article he cites and fails to link to, it's clear
| that no one is refusing to teach kids math.
|
| The headline and the rhetoric used in the article are
| misinformation at best if I assume the author is simply ignorant.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| It's honestly nonsense. The way he frames the other side of
| this argument as "dumbing down" the education system in the
| name of racial equality. If this doesn't immediately set off
| your BS detector you need it tuned up.
| slothtrop wrote:
| You can dress it up any way you like, but that's effectively
| what it comes down to.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| You could argue that, but it's not a given. Not a starting
| point. What makes algebra so much better than data science?
| It's certainly less practical.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| So they are dumbing people down to make them more equal?
| b800h wrote:
| Yes, as per Harrison Bergeron, as mentioned elsewhere in these
| comments.
| scythe wrote:
| This blog post treats a tired subject. At least a dozen front-
| page HN pieces have lamented cuts to algebra.
|
| But what makes it worthwhile is Noah's coverage of the Dallas
| experiment. That is a much less-told story. If you came directly
| to the comments, it's very much worth clicking on the link and
| scrolling down to the second half to see the data from Texas.
| dealuromanet wrote:
| If someone is blocking a child from learning more and moving
| faster than others because of "equity"...then some school
| districts need to start firing some bureaucrats. Take away
| teaching licenses if someone is unwilling to uphold an oath to do
| their best with each student even if it means some students are
| smarter and faster than others. You cannot escape reality. You
| will not stunt the brightest in the name of this false god you
| call equity. Harrison Bergeron is a dystopia, not a training
| manual.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I was told that it was written as a satire of what
| conservatives believed, mocking what they would believe about
| affirmative action. If this is true, it's even more bitterly
| ironic.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> Harrison Bergeron is a dystopia, not a training manual_
|
| There are people, many people, who disagree with you. In good
| faith. They want the best for everyone, and they see inequality
| as the source of much suffering, and does it not make sense to
| address the core of the problem?
|
| The problem with such people is that they lack the imagination
| and humility to understand the _downsides_ to their proposed
| "solution". They choose to ignore the old addage about "the
| cure is worse than the disease". Ultimately the sin is hubris.
| They will read Harrison Bergeron and call it propaganda,
| hyperbole, designed to derail right-thinking, good people from
| pursuing utopia.
|
| What then?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dealuromanet wrote:
| I think a good solution is universal basic income that
| increases in size as automation unlocks more for everyone.
| Then over time, everyone becomes increasingly empowered to
| self-actualize at their localized maximum learning velocity
| without needing to stunt someone brighter. Sam Altman has a
| correct understanding on how automation will reduce the
| marginal cost of doing business so much so that universal
| basic income becomes not only feasible but logical. People
| are not equal learners - some are smarter than others and
| some learn faster than others. Ignoring this reality does not
| change it. What you can do instead is allocate resources more
| efficiently by leaning into the disruption of AI and other
| efficiency gains to give people an equal gift that respects
| individuals - namely, a universal basic income that creates a
| society of people who are always learning and getting smarter
| at their best possible speed. The reason this won't be
| fronted as often is because distributing cash directly to
| people is too simple a solution to hide ideologue-bureacrats-
| in-the-middle.
| fwungy wrote:
| Asians outscore all other ethnic groups in school.
|
| The schools are under government order to equalize educational
| outcomes, but because Asians dominate in educational performance
| the only feasible way to get outcomes is to crush the top, i.e.
| it's easier to make everyone dumber than make everyone smarter.
|
| It's not OK to harm Asians to elevate other groups when Asians
| have been victims of racism in America for hundreds of years.
| rand1239 wrote:
| [flagged]
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