[HN Gopher] California's math misadventure is about to go national
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California's math misadventure is about to go national
Author : fortran77
Score : 59 points
Date : 2023-10-02 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| kazinator wrote:
| Algebra is incredibly important, because it teaches students to
| manipulate truths using symbols. It is a tool which improves
| thought.
| bmitc wrote:
| And at the basic level, it almost isn't even mathematics. It's
| basically more applied logic. The whole "I'm bad at
| mathematics" schtick oft repeated at the high school level and
| below can be translated into "I'm bad at basic logic and
| reasoning", which makes the gap much more real and apparent.
|
| Mathematics is not some magical piece of knowledge that needs
| all sorts machinations to teach. Like any subject, it should be
| moved away from rote teaching and into projects and
| applications rather than mindnumbing exercises.
| kazinator wrote:
| It's only because of the mindnumbing exercises that you can
| sit down with a pen and paper, and use algebra to solve
| something, when you're 45 years old. :)
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| You mean if there's no internet connection for
| wolframalpha? I half-kid, obviously if you don't understand
| what you're asking for the best software in the world won't
| give you the right answer, but I also don't find myself
| solving equations with a pen very often as an adult...
| robot_no_421 wrote:
| It's way, way more than just a tool that improves thought. It's
| a necessary tool to organize your life. How can you even budget
| or use a credit card responsibly if you don't know algebra? You
| need algebra to know how long a paycheck can last you.
|
| My dad didn't graduate high school and even he knew enough
| algebra to work out how much money he needed a month for
| cigarettes (until he eventually quit once he really thought
| about the numbers).
| kazinator wrote:
| That's a good question. Historic human societies without
| algebra somehow had working bean counting.
|
| Using a credit card isn't very abstract.
|
| You only have to use the concrete specific values in your
| situation, and not solve some generality.
|
| Moreover, I don't think I had to ever square anything, let
| alone, cube, when reckoning over credit card transactions. Or
| find the roots of a polynomial, or do anything with
| polynomials.
|
| I'm not saying that the intuitions gained from algebra are
| not relevant, mind you.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| I cant be the only one who thinks it sad that in the US that it
| takes six school years (K-5) to teach basic atrithmetic,
| fractions, decimals, and simple 2D geometry. Parents run, dont
| walk, to Kumon or AOPS or something similar. Our children got 5
| on AP Calc in 9th grade. Note dont share with the school you are
| supplementing, most, not all, teachers resent it and your child
| will become the teachers assistant.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231002153731/https://www.theat...
| Dig1t wrote:
| >Sometimes, as I pored over the CMF, I could scarcely believe
| what I was reading. The document cited research that hadn't been
| peer-reviewed; justified sweeping generalizations by referencing
| small, tightly focused studies or even unrelated research; and
| described some papers as reaching nearly the opposite conclusions
| from what they actually say.
|
| >The document tried hard to convince readers that it was based on
| a serious reading of neuroscience research. The first chapter,
| for example, cited two articles to claim that "the highest
| achieving people have more interconnected brains," implying that
| this has something to do with learning math. But neither paper
| says anything about math education.
|
| Yikes.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Kids who have wealthy/involved parents that push them will always
| outperform kids who don't. The government can do whatever they
| want to try to equalize that (except encouraging parents to do
| better), I just hope they waste as little money as possible and
| don't interfere with gifted kids.
|
| FWIW my 14 year old is doing pre-algebra now, she struggles with
| math and the way they are teaching it seems insane. Real
| understanding of concepts has been replaced with step by step
| methods that allow you to arrive at a solution without needing to
| understand what you are doing. That probably results in
| relatively equal outcomes but she has no clue how to do things
| that fall outside of the frameworks they established.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I've only seen articles about the idiot bougie hippy math-hating
| socialistas and their conspiracy to stop children from learning
| how to do long division. Does anybody have any links to
| descriptions of the policies and their aims from the people that
| proposed/implemented them that doesn't read like a post-
| apocalyptic retrospective written by the few remaining survivors
| of San Francisco Politics?
| akprasad wrote:
| See my comment here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37745319
|
| > For those interested, a link to the CA proposal:
|
| > https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/
| pinewurst wrote:
| https://archive.ph/OuKIa
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| The article offers two examples from "Not California" and neither
| of them are too scary sounding to me.
|
| Is there any real danger that this "is about to go national"?
|
| I'm out here in middle America with an 8th grader taking geometry
| and a 6th grader taking pre-algebra. And I certainly haven't
| heard anything about reducing math opportunities. Quite the
| opposite, really - they're talking about expanding a program
| where the school system will pay half the tuition for advanced
| math classes at the local community college if you end up beyond
| what they teach at the high school.
| matheweis wrote:
| Lengthy discussion from a few months ago: "'Algebra for none'
| fails in San Francisco":
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35595026
| akprasad wrote:
| For those interested, a link to the CA proposal:
|
| https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| And here [1] is a mathematician commenting on the framework,
| which careens from misrepresenting citations to math errors in
| the examples.
|
| [1]
| https://sites.google.com/view/publiccommentsonthecmf/#h.ns5n...
| robot_no_421 wrote:
| The CMF was designed by people who don't like math and prioritize
| the "human experience" over physical reality. When you read
| through the CMF, you begin to see all sorts of hints that their
| ideology is inspired by Continental philosophies such as Marxism,
| Existentialism, and all of the other ways of thinking that find
| "facts" and "reality" offensive. For example, I lost count of how
| many times they mentioned the word "authenticity" in the CMF.
|
| To sum up the whole CMF in my words, it's Critical Theory applied
| without critical thinking used. Proponents saw that minorities
| were struggling in math class, so they proposed a solution to
| handicap math classes. That's literally what CMF is. Proponents
| would rather see everyone fail than some people succeed.
| Especially if those some successful people are not minorities.
|
| Why we should learn math from people who clearly have no respect
| for facts and reality in the first place is beyond me. Bertrand
| Russell, one of the founders of set theory, would have outright
| rejected most of the philosophy that inspired the CMF.
| ng12 wrote:
| > Unfortunately, not every state has a critical mass of academic
| experts and private-sector tech practitioners to push back when
| school systems try to rebrand an inferior math education as
| something new and innovative.
|
| To be fair not every state is a circus run by the clowns, either.
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| That's not very fair on clowns!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _circus run by the clowns_
|
| The main proponent of California's framework is (a) not a
| mathematician and (b) likely committing fraud [1]. (When the
| author of a standard is billing poor school districts $50k to
| explain to them her new framework over eight hours, it looks
| more like corruption than clownishness.)
|
| [1] https://stanfordreview.org/review-investigation-jo-boaler-
| is...
| xeonmc wrote:
| I am immediately reminded of the opening of Lockhart's essay "A
| Mathematician's Lament"[0]:
|
| > A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream he
| finds himself in a society where music education has been made
| mandatory. "We are helping our students become more competitive
| in an increasingly sound-filled world." Educators, school
| systems, and the state are put in charge of this vital project.
| Studies are commissioned, committees are formed, and decisions
| are made-- all without the advice or participation of a single
| working musician or composer.
|
| > Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form
| of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must
| constitute the "language of music." It is imperative that
| students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any
| degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to
| expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without
| having a thorough grounding in music notation and theory. Playing
| and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece,
| are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off
| until college, and more often graduate school...
|
| [0] http://worrydream.com/refs/Lockhart-MathematiciansLament.pdf
| lfmunoz4 wrote:
| Hilarious that the people that are the problem think they can
| solve the problems. But that is impossible since they don't
| realize they are the problem. Education can easily be fixed by
| giving students vouchers and let them decide where they get the
| best education,i.e, probably Khan Academy. The market knows best.
|
| Isn't the California cost per student per year is like 20k or
| something ridiculous where each kid can get a private tutor?
| jmye wrote:
| This is nuts. You don't "easily" fix education by telling over-
| burdened parents that now they have to both evaluate every
| school they can find, hope that the voucher covers the
| education and that the act of providing it doesn't shut down
| every neighborhood school, figure out how they're going to get
| their child to it, and require them to do that _every single
| year for 14-17 years_.
|
| Especially given competing education standards, especially
| given the insanity of trying to find childcare at all.
|
| And advocating online-only education is a great way to ensure
| another generation grows up incapable of interacting with
| anyone.
|
| But this kind of thinking is what happens when we let people
| who know literally nothing whatsoever about education feel like
| their opinion matters as much as an expert's.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Not _all_ parents have to be unburdened enough to motivate
| public schools to improve.
|
| Even if there's only a tiny minority of parents who are able
| to research and move their kids to a better school, their
| experience will motivate others, word will spread and the
| public schools will feel the pressure to improve their
| environment and outcomes. Even the _threat_ of competition
| can be motivating.
|
| I dare to believe that the _majority_ of parents across the
| US do care about their kids and _are_ willing to drive their
| kids to a different school if doing so means they 'll achieve
| significantly better success in life.
| jmye wrote:
| But if I have no idea which school to pick, I'm left with
| the choice of either my now-failing public school, or a
| random pick of for-profit schools that may or may not
| educate my child.
|
| You're giving poor families appalling choices for no net
| benefit.
|
| And again, you're assuming all parents _can_ drive their
| child across town to that one school that took them with no
| additional fees and had space leftover. That's just not
| reality for a lot of people in this country who depend on
| the country at least _trying_ to provide equitable
| education instead of finding new ways to lower the income
| burden on rich people.
|
| When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect
| information, then sure, let's talk about vouchers. Until
| then the only reason to advocate for them is to facilitate
| and speed up the creation of a permanent societal
| underclass.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > my now-failing public school
|
| You're asserting vouchers would bankrupt public schools.
| How do you figure that? At the end of the day, a great
| education really only depends on a good curriculum and
| good teachers. Pay for that, let the good teachers teach,
| and the kids will do well. I'm not suggesting we reduce
| the money per student that goes to public schools.
|
| > When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect
| information, let's talk about vouchers.
|
| Your goalposts are unreasonable. Of course access and
| information will never be perfect. But they don't need to
| be.
|
| When I started school, my parents were very poor. When
| they went on a date, they split a Taco Bell bean burrito
| (seriously). They had to sell a lot of stuff on the front
| lawn one month to make ends meet. My dad had to ride the
| bus to work for a while, and had to borrow money from his
| brother. But they still somehow managed to send me to
| private school (probably with tuition assistance),
| because they believed doing so was the right thing.
|
| I understand a lot has changed since then; minimum wage
| is not a living wage anymore; many parents depend on free
| meals from public schools to make ends meet. But that
| doesn't mean the _availability_ of other options is a bad
| thing or would be harmful.
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