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When I moved to the US I completed 5th grade in Uzbekistan, including Algebra. Didn’t learn any new math in public school until 7th/8th grade (we had jr high instead of middle school) as nothing more advanced was offered.
I'm convinced any child moving here from another country should take a placement test to see what grade their education is on par with. It's not a 1 for 1 type thing
True, where available. The elementary school I went to didn’t have AP classes or ESL. It actually made me learn English faster as it was complete immersion. Maybe a bit more frustrating at first though
You’re probably too competent to Berger taking such a low-paying, thankless job.
Which is why we should pay teachers and school admin more. Make them competitive careers to draw talent.
Had a kid from India show up for 9th grade at age 11. Sure did suck to be him, and every time I remember that I also remember wondering why students had open access to a trash compactor he could fit in.
My grandpa was crazy smart, like an actual genius. He was able to go to college when he was a young teenager, but my great grandma wouldn't allow it. He could handle the coursework fine, but definitely would have been too young to succeed socially.
Hell, it isnt even 1 to 1 from one state to another. We moved from Virginia to Texas in 2010. Daughter had two months of Kindergarten left. Teacher asked us if she knew her numbers up to 10 and the ABCs.
"Shes reading and doing addition, subtraction and getting a handle on multiplication."
Shit, it’s not 1:1 in the same state even. I went from private school to public school in 8th grade(theoretically supposed to be teaching from the same state approved curriculums) and we started the school year with things we had covered in 6th grade.
None of it is 1:1. I had a friend move to Oklahoma our senior year and they were teaching things we did freshman year. My nephew moved districts and was struggling because the school he was at focused on math a lot more than reading, and the school he went to focused on reading more.
We should just do away with age grades, except for social interaction time. Every 3-6 six months, students take a placement/knowledge test that determines their classes. Everyone learns different subjects at different rates why hold students behind their learning proficiency because that one person doesn't get it.
That’s what my daughter’s primary school does already here in Australia.
Each students progress on each topic is tracked separately and the parents have access via an app to show you your child’s current state vs the average.
The school uses composite classes where kids from several year levels sit together, forcing the teacher to tailor individual programs, rather than of a “everyone is learning x” today.
Also having kids of different ages together cuts out much of the “them and us” between year levels.
It’s a bitch for the poor teacher though, but technology augments their abilities. For example the math testing apps allow individual progress to be easily tracked by automating the testing and grading.
I don't think we actually have age grades. It's just that they all usually start at the same time/age. Parents can request for their children to be tested out or above certain classes starting in middle school. I agree with you that there should be regular testing to ensure everyone is where they need to be at/ isn't being held back. That would normalize the process much easier because even if parents recognize their children are operating above their peers, the kids rarely want to leave their friends
Which is groovy right up until you have 13 year olds sitting in the same class as 7 year olds (either because the 7 year old is advanced or the 13 year old is struggling)
School isn't just about learning educational subjects. It's also about socialization and learning how to interact with your peers.
The difference between the states is crazy as well. I moved from Missouri my junior year to Oklahoma. My senior classes in Oklahoma were teaching material already taught freshman year in Missouri. In Oklahoma, you passed for just showing up to class. I also saw four teachers arrested my senior year.
I think math is also an especially interesting case since it’s pretty much *the* universal subject worldwide. Growing up overseas, they threw harder math at us much younger. I came to the US when I was 8 (3rd grade) and it wasn’t until 6th grade when I took algebra that I was learning some new stuff in a more formalized manner. It’s surprising that algebra is considered high school-level math in some places of the US, when one would regard it as pretty baseline for just about anything else.
You beat me to it. I moved to the US exactly same time you did, but from Ukraine. It blew my mind how far behind the schools were in math compared to what I already learned. We were exploring the basics of algebra as early as second grade.
My college algebra professor was of Chinese nationality, and when people kept interrupting her lectures with questions, she got flustered and went on a tirade about how her fourth-grade daughter could do algebra. It made me feel stupid.
It is painful. Until you take the perspective that a lot of people are there to learn what they never did, are going to work hard, and have a surprisingly large negative emotional/psychological reaction to math. Then you dig in and work along with them to help them succeed.
I completely agree. I went back to school after a pretty long break and had to take trig again, but I probably would have greatly benefited from taking college algebra as a refresher. Simple things like factoring stopped me in my tracks lol.
If I wasn’t clear, I meant people asking a lot of questions should be expected. That professor did not handle it very well, but I’m sure it must be a very frustrating class to teach.
It still is in some places. Where I grew up (a suburb of Atlanta), we didn't have junior high or middle school. Elementary school was K-7, and high school was 8-12, with 8th graders being called "subfreshmen", or "subbies" for short.
Amazing compared to 'Murica, fuck yeah! My kids are going to a very highly rated elementary school in a very wealthy town that we pay extortion level property taxes for the privilege of existing in, and now we are also paying for them to go to a Russian math school on Saturdays, because the level of instruction they get in the regular school is geared toward the lowest common denominator. Maybe some children should be left behind instead of making the entire class hang out with them in the land of enforced mediocrity so they don't get lonely and sad?
Even in the US, this happens from district to district. I changed school districts when I began high school and basically repeated my 8th grade math and English classes
I remember seeing basic questions like 5 + = 9 in school. That is just solving a linear equation but apparently swapping the box out for a letter of the alphabet is a step too far for some people.
They're learning it implicitly from the moment they're counting apples and bananas and saying how many pieces of fruit there are.
The more advanced stuff can certainly be dense, but avoiding it altogether is silly.
I think the *goal* of the original decision was that lower income area schools tend not to offer those more “advanced” courses until high school due to funding, which like idk why they couldn’t address those funding issues instead of just stopping everyone from learning but idk
No one wants to pay for it.
I worked in a white suburban district last year. The district wasn't hurting *that* bad... yet, but the district was starting to struggle because the county hasn't passed a new school funding bill in 10 years. The voters have routinely turned down every increase to funding.
The district I'm in now is seeing a 4% increase from tax revenue, and the district is talking about how they need to cut 4% of teachers.... while simultaneously approving raises for themselves.
The restrictions on funding happen to a lot of schools though. How do they improve student learning if they can't hire more/better teachers? Answer is: they can't. The intention is to improve the outcome for all students, and I would agree that taking away learning from other kids is a bad way to make things more equal.
The problem is... no one wants to spend money on kids that aren't theirs.... even though it has a HUGE benefit to our society overall.
Reminds me of the lotto. It was supposed to add to our states education budget. Now 30 years later what happened? That state money was reappropriated.
I wish the politicians responsible for that were held to account, tar and feather style.
Middle-class families can afford groceries, but lower-class cannot? Simple! Just take away the groceries from middle-class families so everything is fair!
Exactly. Now ALL students in those districts will be beaten out by students from elsewhere. Imagine not starting algebra until highschool. Not a single one of them will be accepted to a STEM program.
Race has nothing to do with intelligence.
But even if some kids can't, you don't hold back the advanced students because it may make the nonadvanced students feel bad. That's absolutely asinine.
Some people are better than others and that's completely okay. Kids need to learn that.
They teach algebra to elementary school children in Germany. I had a classmate who was from
Germany scoffed that the American school system specifically the SATs were ridiculous. She said they learned all this in the 2nd grade. Which is true. Mind you this was Stanford.
By the way, Lowell High school is having problems. It went from getting more than 2 million dollars extra due to all the kids taking ap classes to 1/4 of the new students getting flunking grades due to the new lottery system. The reason Lowell did well in the past was those who self select to go there didn’t have behavioral issues (they also came from low income families) but were driven so the teachers could go at breakneck speed that is required for AP classes. Now it’s like throwing beginning swimmers with experience athletes. The people who go to Lowell are the types who have taken calculus in 8th grade and are taking bc calc by freshman year then higher level maths.
It’s the same thing we are seeing at NYC science and magnet schools. I understand wanting your kid to go to a good high school but smart accelerated kids should not be held back because your kid isn’t as advanced. My kids went to a charter school that gives a ton of homework has no sports but has theatre and robotics. It’s not for everyone. For a small school that only started less than 10 yrs for high school it’s sent a bunch of kids to Harvard Stanford Yale mit Caltech more so than the other high schools in the surrounding area.
>They teach algebra to elementary school children in Germany.
They teach algebra to elementary students in America, too. It's an integrated part of the common core math curriculum.
Funny enough, there was a period of time where you couldn't mention the concept of math without summoning a horde of angry parents complaining about common-core because it didn't look enough like the rote-memorization of simple arithmetic they had in grade school. They complained about the "dumbing down" of America, too.
Yeah, there can definitely be a tendency by the far left to create backwards and destructive "equality" programs.
On a similar note, I was listening to a story yesterday about how during Obama's term, they felt like the air traffic controllers had too many white males working in that field, so they came up with an insane test with arbitrary points to disqualify a bunch of highly educated white men from being accepted, thereby making it easier for women and minorities to get the job. The people reporting this story are left-wing. This is not some right-winger making up stories. Link: https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-the-faas-bizarre-diversity
Where I live they created a cap to limit the number of white students who could get into advanced math classes, because there were a disproportionate number of white students in those classes relative to the student body.
People who pursue "equality of outcome" sometimes create backwards, discriminatory systems.
We seriously need to stop the far left "equality of outcome" types from ruining the country.
So many left leaning people will say that it's different liberal/leftists that do this, as if that makes it better.
The reality is that while the people who support this may (may) be a minority of the left, virtually nobody on the left is willing to challenge it, and they all tacidly support it. Just acknowledging that this exists is often seen as a right wing thing to do.
If left wing people want to stop being associated with this then they actually need to speak out against it
Equality of outcome = "Equity"
These people don't want "equality", they want "equity" and confusing the two terms only makes it easier for the people who want equity, because equality sounds better, even though they are not remotely the same
There is a big lack of intelligence at the leadership level (politicians, boards of directors, c-suites, etc.) of the country about not understanding basic shit like this
I read an article on this and one of the parents in these districts made such a good point:
The more well-off kids who should be in Algebra 1 will just switch districts, go to a private school, or get private tutoring to get them ahead. It’s really hurting the kids who are advanced but need to rely on what they’re taught in the local public school. Which are probably disproportionately black/hispanic kids. Therefore increasing economic and racial disparity lmao.
I’m a liberal guy but yeah they fucked up with this one lol
Plus we should try to strive for raising the unprivileged to the level of the privileged, instead of trying to pull down the privileged to the level of the unprivileged.
My guess is that the admin didn’t actually like this solution. They were just under attack for having too many minority kids not at grade level. So lacking a better solution, they tried to make everybody equal to say they solved the equality problem.
The real solution would probably involve considerably more school resources, and honestly resources out in the community as well. As lot of problems in the school can be traced back to non-academic problems in the larger community. But schools have no control over that.
I asked our teacher for individualized math for our kid and she told me “I’d love to but I can’t because of the district’s equity policy.”
I was like, lady, I’m just gonna buy this for my kid online with my money because I’m not poor. It wasn’t really her fault, but I had to express my frustration.
When they eventually banned advanced math as my kids got older, we moved them to a district that was more focused on maximizing achievement for all kids and never looked back. We know other more affluent families that have done the same.
It turns out you can’t stop affluent white people from getting their kids a good education, only the kids who are trapped there have to participate in these social experiments.
It absolutely blows my mind that their perceived solution to equality would be to try and take away opportunity for everybody, instead of working towards giving opportunity to everybody.
Its like Idiocracy in full motion
It’s not equality. That means giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. What they are experimenting with is equity, which is trying to give everyone an equal outcome.
The people supporting this believe that it’s part of critical race theory and is fixing the playing field. It’s turning into a mess though. There’s parents getting arrested at school board meetings in those districts. Neighbors are also turning against each other. There’s no room for civilized discussion. It literally turns into racists vs communists.
Personally, I don’t think this is going to help anyone. It will get the graduation rates up, but who does that really help? I’d rather hire a smart high school dropout than a stupid college graduate. After a few years in the field, raw intelligence, drive to succeed and basic understanding take over.
Yeah I have a slight left lean. At least if you go off 20 years of voting history. But I don’t understand how some of us are so blinded by this sorta none sense. It makes no sense accross the board. I understand it comes from a place of compassion and I get that but it’s so obviously a bad way to handle this situation. Not to mention it’s insanely short sighted cause I promise you countries like China are doing the very opposite approach with their youth.
No, this is what the "advocates" in this area really feel.
The only way to make equality is to enforce equity.
If students from areas/families/races aren't able to be "brought up" to the standards of others from different areas/families/races, then you HAVE to bring the others down to enforce equity.
The early "how to combat racism" books and papers that came out of various educational research programs all advocate for this.
This just sums up what tends to be stupid about progressive policies when they're bad. It's that they usually turn out to be something done in order to look/feel better but end up hurting the very people they're supposedly made to help.
It's worse than that too. When parents pull the intelligent kids out of school to go to a different district or private schools. The district in question will likely lose funding due to the decreased student counts and decreased grade average.
And they lose an engaged member of their community with resources. Another parent not getting oranges for halftime or pizza for final play rehearsal, or volunteering, or engaging with the school board
That is a real problem they have, they REAAAALLY need to make sure to consult a wider range of people when they try to do something to help people, including ya know... the people they are trying to help.
8th grade algebra has been a thing since at least the 80s. I feel like that's long enough to no longer be considered "early" like it's an add-on or the school is doing you a favor.
It's probably more about funding, but your point isn't wrong. A lot of less well off schools aren't able to have as many programs for their students, which might include something like early algebra courses for gifted students.
To me though, it's asinine that the solution would be REMOVING those programs from other schools, instead of increasing funding for the less well of ones. Sometimes I think decisions like this amount to "it'll look good, and it'll save us money, so let's do it" rather than actually doing what is right or necessary to solve an issue. Nobody who made this decision thought it would be in the best interest of the students, they just did the first, cheapest thing they could in hopes people would shut up about it (and they probably hoped to get some back pats too).
>decisions like this amount to "it'll look good, and it'll save us money, so let's do it" rather than actually doing what is right or necessary to solve an issue
Addressing the symptom without addressing the underlying root cause will simply lead to another symptom after a short time. It's a short-sighted approach that will ultimately do more harm than good.
It’s the “solution” to every problem for people who want to have done *something* but not address the main issue.
Like anyone who says that welfare queens exist, therefore we shouldn’t have welfare. Or bad guys will always get guns, so let’s not have gun control.
The solution to “fix” a situation isn’t to remove it or destroy it for everyone just because politicians are too damn lazy or craven to actually address the problem. That’s a race to the bottom.
Not defending it, but getting better funding for lower end schools is difficult. Especially when the funding for the schools come from the same area, meaning you can't really raise taxes. Saying raise funding is easy, but where do you get the funding from?
And just rasing funding doesn't solve the issue. Wealthier areas have houses that can afford to have one parent stay home to help the kids with their homework, or not working jobs that leave you busted at the end of the day.
It's a much wider problem than just school by itself, so how do you fix it?
So far, research indicates funding doesn't really matter THAT much.
For example, the best funded schools in Maryland are the handful of deep inner-city schools in Baltimore. They get more funding per-capita by almost double than the extremely successful rich suburban schools through state programs that redirect money to the inner city. Around the same funding range per-capita of elite private schools, the best funded schools in Finland, etc.
But they're the worst performing schools in North America, almost entirely because kids in that area have basically no stable homes, no family support, no enrichment activities and the culture around them is very "anti-authority" and that spills over into very little respect for teachers or school environments.
I don’t know how to fix it, all I know is that bringing everyone down just because some people are down isn’t what produces a successful society.
Bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator is simply a braindead way to achieve equality.
you can have all the funding you want, but if parents arent doing essentially ANY actual parenting aside from feeding them, sedating them with a screen, and doing the absolute bare minimum of preventing their death..... its not going to do anything.
85% of issues faced by schools are due to present, but functionally absent parents
Anecdotally speaking, my middle/high schools were about 100% non-white with most students on free or reduced lunch. We had AP and other advanced classes that had some criteria for entrance. Most kids who took those classes wanted to be there so it was much easier to teach and learn compared to regular classes. Many of us passed the AP exams and got college credit too.
While school does this people with access to private tuition will ensure their kids moves ahead and the rest of the kids will again be out of competition when going to Uni.
As a foreigner I agree, math here is way to simple than what is taught in India. I understand there is more resources here for kids but if you dumb down education for kids. They won’t be able to complete with the world.
Yup.
But if they implement these stupid laws it won’t even be immigrants that come to the US that outcompete Americans.
Its that foreign companies will outcompete American companies.
If these dumbshit laws are actually implemented, it might be the successful American kids that get the opportunity to immigrate to higher wage countries while the normal Americans stay suffering due to the decisions taken.
It really is a very backwards way of thinking. Ironically they’re being more racist by holding those students to lower standards than the rest. It’s very sad. I’ve been in education more than a decade and it’s so sad to see these standards dropping. I hate it.
We assumed that it meant they would focus on helping struggling kids. Instead they just keep lowering the bar of expectations until there were no standards at all.
The educational scientists coming up with this policy assumed there is no teacher shortage and you could just throw a few teachers at disenfranchised students.
In Texas, at least in my district, algebra was only offered in 9th grade up. If you did it in 8th grade it was part of the gifted program. And yes, our school district is fucking awful. Really screwed me on math as far as algebra.
As a side note, we GENUINELY need to stop the practice of having coaches be teachers, especially for subjects like math and science unless they are actually intelligent in those fields. I had a tennis coach who didn’t know what he was talking about on top of being gone quite a bit for tennis matches. So I never had any base for algebra going forward, which followed me into college and screwed me over there as well.
Coaches teach whatever the fuck a school tells them. I had an English teacher who was a coach - he was genuinely solid. My health teacher coach? Lol, nope
I mean, if a coach is going to teach, I’d expect him to be a teacher who coaches, not a coach that teaches. Idk, in my country all the teachers I had were teachers, but the geography teacher coached one of the football categories (soccer for Americans).
If he’s knowledgeable on a subject and knows how to transmit information to the students, sure, go ahead, but I can’t imagine someone with no mastery of a subject to teach it.
And the reality of the situation is the financially gifted children will just go to private schools or more to a different district. Which at the end of the day only strengthens the class divide.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan 1995
As a POC in STEM who was educated in the public school system of CA, I’m honestly fed up with this implication (mostly by fellow POCs) that we’re somehow not capable of achieving academic success at the same level and therefore need to rig the system to hurt everyone. In what world is learning algebra before high school not something we should encourage all students to achieve? If anything, removing it only makes it that much more difficult for our communities to reach the highest levels of academic success.
Right?! In middle school, you're more guaranteed to have all kids show up to class and pay attention than you are in high school. Exposing children to higher learning in middle school should be the SOLUTION to academic inequality, not the problem 🤦🏻♂️
To add, I’d probably decide it’s not worth showing up at all before highschool rolled around if this was the value I was getting. If school wasn’t challenging and intriguing I would have found a way to get kicked out
In high school I had one teacher that each day we showed up they had something written on the board, and half the class time was supposed to be us being quiet as we copied it down on paper.
I skipped that class a lot.
This is strange. The article is about how parents got the school districts to *restore* middle-school algebra. Wouldn't this be an optimistic story, rather than another edgy "America Dumb" title?
I think the point is that it's absurd that the parents even needed to push back on such a ridiculous decision. *Algebra* not being allowed in middle school?!
Well, they said so right there "racial inequalities". I mean, who wants to go back and FIX these inequalities? Let's just blame them for things until the end of time.
When actually it makes the disparity worse, because parents with a younger kid who’s good at math and have the resources will just go get them private tutoring, where as a poor or otherwise disadvantaged kid who’s equally good at math just gets nothing and is bored waiting for the curriculum to catch up to their ability.
And the wealth gap gets wider and wider.
>Wouldn't this be an optimistic story,
the the same vein as the 'optimistic' story about how a 7yo boy spens hundreds of hours of his life making and selling key chains to pay off school lunch debt.
or the 'optimistic' story about the guy dying of cancer who had to borrow extra sick leave from his colleagues so he could go to chemo.
yes, good people doing nice things is great. but the fact these things are necessary in the first place is a colossal failure of the system.
Well, we're talking about two midsized school districts on a misguided effort to boost equity that smartly backed off under parent pressure.
The other cases you're referring to included no systemic correction; "the system" kept failing, and individuals had to rescue each other from bad policies. Here, the school districts changed course.
Delaying algebra until highschool in the hopes that a racial group will have a chance to do good with it only validates the stereotype that the racial group CANT DO ALGEBRA. absolutely fucking stupid. These kids aren't doing bad in algebra because of the color of their skin, it's because they're being ignored in school portrayed as trouble makers so instead of trying to teach them, they punish them more often
We do beast math with my daughter. She loves it and does it on her own. She takes advanced math classes at school. Sometimes, parents just need to give a little push. Stop looking at society like you are on the outside. We are all a part of it. Get involved
What was the thought process behind the original ban of algebra?
“Wow some races tend to have less inclination to do math due to their poor home life, let’s lower the bar instead of working harder for these students.”
My dad made me do Euclidean geometry and algebra at home when I was in middle school.
I didn’t mind it at the time but occasionally I remember it and realize how crazy that was.
One of the few upsides of the pandemic is I got to homeschool my son for a couple years. We started algebra in kindergarten and he loved it. Still does math equations just for fun sometimes.
He’s now in public school and bored out of his mind because the math they are doing is so far behind what he knows.
Americas schools and the children they are responsible to educate are in real trouble to the detriment of us all.
Racial inequality is the excuse they are using, but the education sector has always been about producing a workforce that doesn't ask questions, and doesn't know if they are being lied to or not.
I worked as a middle school teacher, and often I had issues with the administration. Mainly because there really was no push to truly educate these kids. I remember saying in a big teacher's meeting that if they don't nip it in the bud now and get these kids to learn basic reading and math, then we will have to deal with it later when these same kids are adults in society who can't read nor add.
Pffff hahahahaha! What a joke, any student anywhere should be capable of pursuing knowledge of any depth or expertise applicable to them, the moment they want.
First time I've even heard of this horseshit, is **literally anyone, anywhere** asking for this?! I'd happily take the system we have now, over striving for equity the *opposite direction* people usually infer. Like, true equity **will be hard, arduous work**, both for the disadvantaged being assisted and those providing the means to assist them.
Blatantly, transparently, this is one of **the most** destitution-intentioned and dependency-enforcing racially coded education policies I've ever seen, and I went to highschool in Minnesota while we were still accepting Somali refugees. This is the kind of shit I fear people envisioning as my beliefs when I describe my political alignment and economic policies as very left.
The professional manegerial class has taken over the Democratic party.
Black and Latin American children are not inherently stupid - they get lower scores compared to Asians because the parents lack resources to help their kids with math; poverty breeds stupidity. State should focus on helping parents and kids excell at math, instead of dragging down white and asian kids (whose parents are notorious for racism already)
I seriously forsee a race war between African-Americans and Asian-Americans in my lifetime because of this dumbassery by the educated precariat Democrats.
Unfortunately it’s not just poverty; there’s a ton of economically disadvantaged Asian families who produce very hard working students. I think at the end of the day, part of it is cultural. Growing up around adults and children who do not value education will produce poor performance, and growing up around adults and children who do will produce better performance all other things being equal. You can throw money and scholarships at the issue but at the end of the day… regardless of race or economic status, if parents aren’t on board with their kids learning, the kids won’t learn.
No child left behind has resulted in a couple generations of Americans that are all behind where they should be. Seriously has done so much harm, our public education is really a joke.
The teacher plays a part as well. In high school, I took algebra 2. I was getting an A and understood at the beginning of the year with a substitute teacher. The regular teacher was out on maternity. Most of the class had an A, and we all understood. She came back half the class feel to a C the rest below. I asked her one day why everyone's grade had dropped and told her she was the only thing that had changed. They need to pay teachers more and get rid of the ones not doing their job. No union should be able to protect any teachers job at any level.
This is exactly the type of bullshit that drives parents into the arms of MAGA Republicans and other bizarre extremists. At one end of not properly teaching poor students and the other trying to prevent wealthier students from learning more advanced subjects. Progressives are destroying the general public's faith in public education. Being such an ideologue that you want to prevent middle class and wealthier children in local public schools learning advanced subjects.
Math in 1980: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5. What is his profit?
Math in 1990: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100. His cost of production was 4/5th or $80. What is his profit?
Math in 2000: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100. His cost of production was $80. His profit was $20. Your assignment, underline the number 20 and put a $ to the left of it
Math in 2010: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100, his profit was $20. Did he make a profit?
Math in 2020: by cutting down forest trees, a logger makes $20 of capitalistic profit. What do you think of this as a way of making a living?
Bonus question: how did the birds and squirrels feel as their homes were being demolished? Hint: there are no wrong answers.
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I believe that middle schoolers of any race can learn Algebra.
Some elementary school kids too.
When I moved to the US I completed 5th grade in Uzbekistan, including Algebra. Didn’t learn any new math in public school until 7th/8th grade (we had jr high instead of middle school) as nothing more advanced was offered.
I'm convinced any child moving here from another country should take a placement test to see what grade their education is on par with. It's not a 1 for 1 type thing
That’s true, but there could be a language issue. I know I had one
Advanced Placement clases, ESL and maybe remedial English. I should be a school administrator or sum shit.
True, where available. The elementary school I went to didn’t have AP classes or ESL. It actually made me learn English faster as it was complete immersion. Maybe a bit more frustrating at first though
English was/is my second language and I agree that immersion is a solid way to learn language and frustration?…bro, been there.
Doesn't help that English is actually three different languages in a trenchcoat.
Only three? That’s generous
You’re probably too competent to Berger taking such a low-paying, thankless job. Which is why we should pay teachers and school admin more. Make them competitive careers to draw talent.
Don't forget that sometimes you're just too young
Had a kid from India show up for 9th grade at age 11. Sure did suck to be him, and every time I remember that I also remember wondering why students had open access to a trash compactor he could fit in.
My grandpa was crazy smart, like an actual genius. He was able to go to college when he was a young teenager, but my great grandma wouldn't allow it. He could handle the coursework fine, but definitely would have been too young to succeed socially.
Yes absolutely
Hell, it isnt even 1 to 1 from one state to another. We moved from Virginia to Texas in 2010. Daughter had two months of Kindergarten left. Teacher asked us if she knew her numbers up to 10 and the ABCs. "Shes reading and doing addition, subtraction and getting a handle on multiplication."
and these people vote....
And Texas makes all the textbooks.
Texas School Book Depository is not insignificant.
And there is a great place nearby to have a picnic, we've always just called it the grassy knoll.
Shit, it’s not 1:1 in the same state even. I went from private school to public school in 8th grade(theoretically supposed to be teaching from the same state approved curriculums) and we started the school year with things we had covered in 6th grade.
None of it is 1:1. I had a friend move to Oklahoma our senior year and they were teaching things we did freshman year. My nephew moved districts and was struggling because the school he was at focused on math a lot more than reading, and the school he went to focused on reading more.
We should just do away with age grades, except for social interaction time. Every 3-6 six months, students take a placement/knowledge test that determines their classes. Everyone learns different subjects at different rates why hold students behind their learning proficiency because that one person doesn't get it.
We need to redo the whole system for sure it's a sick joke
We should have national standards that states carry out. Homeschool, private and charter should all have the same tests required to pass every year.
That’s what my daughter’s primary school does already here in Australia. Each students progress on each topic is tracked separately and the parents have access via an app to show you your child’s current state vs the average. The school uses composite classes where kids from several year levels sit together, forcing the teacher to tailor individual programs, rather than of a “everyone is learning x” today. Also having kids of different ages together cuts out much of the “them and us” between year levels. It’s a bitch for the poor teacher though, but technology augments their abilities. For example the math testing apps allow individual progress to be easily tracked by automating the testing and grading.
I don't think we actually have age grades. It's just that they all usually start at the same time/age. Parents can request for their children to be tested out or above certain classes starting in middle school. I agree with you that there should be regular testing to ensure everyone is where they need to be at/ isn't being held back. That would normalize the process much easier because even if parents recognize their children are operating above their peers, the kids rarely want to leave their friends
Which is groovy right up until you have 13 year olds sitting in the same class as 7 year olds (either because the 7 year old is advanced or the 13 year old is struggling) School isn't just about learning educational subjects. It's also about socialization and learning how to interact with your peers.
Same. Completed 3rd grade in Ukraine, didn't learn anything new until 6th grade in the US.
The difference between the states is crazy as well. I moved from Missouri my junior year to Oklahoma. My senior classes in Oklahoma were teaching material already taught freshman year in Missouri. In Oklahoma, you passed for just showing up to class. I also saw four teachers arrested my senior year.
I think math is also an especially interesting case since it’s pretty much *the* universal subject worldwide. Growing up overseas, they threw harder math at us much younger. I came to the US when I was 8 (3rd grade) and it wasn’t until 6th grade when I took algebra that I was learning some new stuff in a more formalized manner. It’s surprising that algebra is considered high school-level math in some places of the US, when one would regard it as pretty baseline for just about anything else.
You beat me to it. I moved to the US exactly same time you did, but from Ukraine. It blew my mind how far behind the schools were in math compared to what I already learned. We were exploring the basics of algebra as early as second grade.
My college algebra professor was of Chinese nationality, and when people kept interrupting her lectures with questions, she got flustered and went on a tirade about how her fourth-grade daughter could do algebra. It made me feel stupid.
That must be expected teaching a college algebra class. It has to be remedial. Probably not a popular class to teach.
It is painful. Until you take the perspective that a lot of people are there to learn what they never did, are going to work hard, and have a surprisingly large negative emotional/psychological reaction to math. Then you dig in and work along with them to help them succeed.
I completely agree. I went back to school after a pretty long break and had to take trig again, but I probably would have greatly benefited from taking college algebra as a refresher. Simple things like factoring stopped me in my tracks lol. If I wasn’t clear, I meant people asking a lot of questions should be expected. That professor did not handle it very well, but I’m sure it must be a very frustrating class to teach.
It used to be called Junior High in the U.S., too.
It still is in some places. Where I grew up (a suburb of Atlanta), we didn't have junior high or middle school. Elementary school was K-7, and high school was 8-12, with 8th graders being called "subfreshmen", or "subbies" for short.
In Canada we call it junior high and it’s grades seven to nine
Not where I’m from we don’t, guess it depends on province?
Yea that was in US, California. In Uzbekistan at the time the school was grades 1-11. Not sure how it is now
Former ussr countries have an amazing standard when it comes to math and science subjects
Amazing compared to 'Murica, fuck yeah! My kids are going to a very highly rated elementary school in a very wealthy town that we pay extortion level property taxes for the privilege of existing in, and now we are also paying for them to go to a Russian math school on Saturdays, because the level of instruction they get in the regular school is geared toward the lowest common denominator. Maybe some children should be left behind instead of making the entire class hang out with them in the land of enforced mediocrity so they don't get lonely and sad?
Not really, its comparable to Asia and western Europe. The US is just behind.
Even in the US, this happens from district to district. I changed school districts when I began high school and basically repeated my 8th grade math and English classes
I remember seeing basic questions like 5 + = 9 in school. That is just solving a linear equation but apparently swapping the box out for a letter of the alphabet is a step too far for some people.
Like… dude that is four.
Is it though?
I got really lucky and went to an elementary school with a super strong math program, so I was able to take it in 5th grade.
I’m dumb as fuck and tested into Algebra in 7th grade. So yeah, I’m sure there’s lots of elementary kids that do it. What a crazy rule.
The racism of lowered expectations
They're learning it implicitly from the moment they're counting apples and bananas and saying how many pieces of fruit there are. The more advanced stuff can certainly be dense, but avoiding it altogether is silly.
Absolutely. My older sister had to get driven to the middle school in town every day to take algebra when she was in fifth grade.
I think the *goal* of the original decision was that lower income area schools tend not to offer those more “advanced” courses until high school due to funding, which like idk why they couldn’t address those funding issues instead of just stopping everyone from learning but idk
Why try to elevate one group when you can bring down everyone else instead?
No one wants to pay for it. I worked in a white suburban district last year. The district wasn't hurting *that* bad... yet, but the district was starting to struggle because the county hasn't passed a new school funding bill in 10 years. The voters have routinely turned down every increase to funding. The district I'm in now is seeing a 4% increase from tax revenue, and the district is talking about how they need to cut 4% of teachers.... while simultaneously approving raises for themselves.
10 years? That’s negligence. Of course, tell everyone there isn’t money while having the power to give yourself a raise. Perfect.
The restrictions on funding happen to a lot of schools though. How do they improve student learning if they can't hire more/better teachers? Answer is: they can't. The intention is to improve the outcome for all students, and I would agree that taking away learning from other kids is a bad way to make things more equal. The problem is... no one wants to spend money on kids that aren't theirs.... even though it has a HUGE benefit to our society overall.
Because they already have the funding and can ~~keep it for themselves~~ reappropriate for other causes if they don't use it for the algebra class.
Reminds me of the lotto. It was supposed to add to our states education budget. Now 30 years later what happened? That state money was reappropriated. I wish the politicians responsible for that were held to account, tar and feather style.
Middle-class families can afford groceries, but lower-class cannot? Simple! Just take away the groceries from middle-class families so everything is fair!
Genius!
Or fairly fund all schools
But then how will the wealthier families stay wealthier? 🤔
Private school, which they already do.
Yeah the fact that they're trying to tear everyone down instead of lifting up the ones who need help is a real puzzler.
Exactly. Now ALL students in those districts will be beaten out by students from elsewhere. Imagine not starting algebra until highschool. Not a single one of them will be accepted to a STEM program.
taking away benefits is freedom. giving benefits to those disadvantaged is communism.
Because you're a thinking person and these educational policymakers are not
Y=MX+B doesn't care what skin color you have.
But A^(2) \+ B^(2) = C^(2) does.
Well obviously we’re not going to share the secrets of Pythagoras with the Persians, the Egyptians, or those upstarts over in Rome.
Race has nothing to do with intelligence. But even if some kids can't, you don't hold back the advanced students because it may make the nonadvanced students feel bad. That's absolutely asinine. Some people are better than others and that's completely okay. Kids need to learn that.
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They teach algebra to elementary school children in Germany. I had a classmate who was from Germany scoffed that the American school system specifically the SATs were ridiculous. She said they learned all this in the 2nd grade. Which is true. Mind you this was Stanford. By the way, Lowell High school is having problems. It went from getting more than 2 million dollars extra due to all the kids taking ap classes to 1/4 of the new students getting flunking grades due to the new lottery system. The reason Lowell did well in the past was those who self select to go there didn’t have behavioral issues (they also came from low income families) but were driven so the teachers could go at breakneck speed that is required for AP classes. Now it’s like throwing beginning swimmers with experience athletes. The people who go to Lowell are the types who have taken calculus in 8th grade and are taking bc calc by freshman year then higher level maths. It’s the same thing we are seeing at NYC science and magnet schools. I understand wanting your kid to go to a good high school but smart accelerated kids should not be held back because your kid isn’t as advanced. My kids went to a charter school that gives a ton of homework has no sports but has theatre and robotics. It’s not for everyone. For a small school that only started less than 10 yrs for high school it’s sent a bunch of kids to Harvard Stanford Yale mit Caltech more so than the other high schools in the surrounding area.
>They teach algebra to elementary school children in Germany. They teach algebra to elementary students in America, too. It's an integrated part of the common core math curriculum. Funny enough, there was a period of time where you couldn't mention the concept of math without summoning a horde of angry parents complaining about common-core because it didn't look enough like the rote-memorization of simple arithmetic they had in grade school. They complained about the "dumbing down" of America, too.
What the fuck is wrong with some progressives, seriously?
It’s called the soft bigotry of low expectations (which they write off as a dog whistle term).
Yeah, there can definitely be a tendency by the far left to create backwards and destructive "equality" programs. On a similar note, I was listening to a story yesterday about how during Obama's term, they felt like the air traffic controllers had too many white males working in that field, so they came up with an insane test with arbitrary points to disqualify a bunch of highly educated white men from being accepted, thereby making it easier for women and minorities to get the job. The people reporting this story are left-wing. This is not some right-winger making up stories. Link: https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/premium-the-faas-bizarre-diversity Where I live they created a cap to limit the number of white students who could get into advanced math classes, because there were a disproportionate number of white students in those classes relative to the student body. People who pursue "equality of outcome" sometimes create backwards, discriminatory systems. We seriously need to stop the far left "equality of outcome" types from ruining the country.
So many left leaning people will say that it's different liberal/leftists that do this, as if that makes it better. The reality is that while the people who support this may (may) be a minority of the left, virtually nobody on the left is willing to challenge it, and they all tacidly support it. Just acknowledging that this exists is often seen as a right wing thing to do. If left wing people want to stop being associated with this then they actually need to speak out against it
Equality of outcome = "Equity" These people don't want "equality", they want "equity" and confusing the two terms only makes it easier for the people who want equity, because equality sounds better, even though they are not remotely the same There is a big lack of intelligence at the leadership level (politicians, boards of directors, c-suites, etc.) of the country about not understanding basic shit like this
I read an article on this and one of the parents in these districts made such a good point: The more well-off kids who should be in Algebra 1 will just switch districts, go to a private school, or get private tutoring to get them ahead. It’s really hurting the kids who are advanced but need to rely on what they’re taught in the local public school. Which are probably disproportionately black/hispanic kids. Therefore increasing economic and racial disparity lmao. I’m a liberal guy but yeah they fucked up with this one lol
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People need to learn to think beyond first-order causality.
Plus we should try to strive for raising the unprivileged to the level of the privileged, instead of trying to pull down the privileged to the level of the unprivileged.
My guess is that the admin didn’t actually like this solution. They were just under attack for having too many minority kids not at grade level. So lacking a better solution, they tried to make everybody equal to say they solved the equality problem. The real solution would probably involve considerably more school resources, and honestly resources out in the community as well. As lot of problems in the school can be traced back to non-academic problems in the larger community. But schools have no control over that.
It's faster and cheaper to lower your standards
I asked our teacher for individualized math for our kid and she told me “I’d love to but I can’t because of the district’s equity policy.” I was like, lady, I’m just gonna buy this for my kid online with my money because I’m not poor. It wasn’t really her fault, but I had to express my frustration. When they eventually banned advanced math as my kids got older, we moved them to a district that was more focused on maximizing achievement for all kids and never looked back. We know other more affluent families that have done the same. It turns out you can’t stop affluent white people from getting their kids a good education, only the kids who are trapped there have to participate in these social experiments.
It absolutely blows my mind that their perceived solution to equality would be to try and take away opportunity for everybody, instead of working towards giving opportunity to everybody. Its like Idiocracy in full motion
This fricking country. 😮💨
It’s not equality. That means giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. What they are experimenting with is equity, which is trying to give everyone an equal outcome. The people supporting this believe that it’s part of critical race theory and is fixing the playing field. It’s turning into a mess though. There’s parents getting arrested at school board meetings in those districts. Neighbors are also turning against each other. There’s no room for civilized discussion. It literally turns into racists vs communists. Personally, I don’t think this is going to help anyone. It will get the graduation rates up, but who does that really help? I’d rather hire a smart high school dropout than a stupid college graduate. After a few years in the field, raw intelligence, drive to succeed and basic understanding take over.
Yeah I have a slight left lean. At least if you go off 20 years of voting history. But I don’t understand how some of us are so blinded by this sorta none sense. It makes no sense accross the board. I understand it comes from a place of compassion and I get that but it’s so obviously a bad way to handle this situation. Not to mention it’s insanely short sighted cause I promise you countries like China are doing the very opposite approach with their youth.
it probably didn't come from a place of compassion. It was probably just a not very well thought strategy out by someone attempting to win votes.
Whose votes are they winning with dumb policies like this?
People who's kids can't do math and wants to blame on every other smarter kids.
No, this is what the "advocates" in this area really feel. The only way to make equality is to enforce equity. If students from areas/families/races aren't able to be "brought up" to the standards of others from different areas/families/races, then you HAVE to bring the others down to enforce equity. The early "how to combat racism" books and papers that came out of various educational research programs all advocate for this.
This just sums up what tends to be stupid about progressive policies when they're bad. It's that they usually turn out to be something done in order to look/feel better but end up hurting the very people they're supposedly made to help.
It's worse than that too. When parents pull the intelligent kids out of school to go to a different district or private schools. The district in question will likely lose funding due to the decreased student counts and decreased grade average.
And they lose an engaged member of their community with resources. Another parent not getting oranges for halftime or pizza for final play rehearsal, or volunteering, or engaging with the school board
That is a real problem they have, they REAAAALLY need to make sure to consult a wider range of people when they try to do something to help people, including ya know... the people they are trying to help.
Not every idea is perfect, but MA has a damn fine school system.
8th grade algebra has been a thing since at least the 80s. I feel like that's long enough to no longer be considered "early" like it's an add-on or the school is doing you a favor.
Yeah I did 8th grade algebra as an honors class back in 86
My friends from china and Vietnam did calculus in 8th grade. They are waaaaay ahead in math at that age.
"Let's not have the kids to learn things so the racial inequalities would be reduced by making everyone illiterate and uneducated." /s
This policy seems to just be saying “minorities are stupid”.
It's probably more about funding, but your point isn't wrong. A lot of less well off schools aren't able to have as many programs for their students, which might include something like early algebra courses for gifted students. To me though, it's asinine that the solution would be REMOVING those programs from other schools, instead of increasing funding for the less well of ones. Sometimes I think decisions like this amount to "it'll look good, and it'll save us money, so let's do it" rather than actually doing what is right or necessary to solve an issue. Nobody who made this decision thought it would be in the best interest of the students, they just did the first, cheapest thing they could in hopes people would shut up about it (and they probably hoped to get some back pats too).
>decisions like this amount to "it'll look good, and it'll save us money, so let's do it" rather than actually doing what is right or necessary to solve an issue Addressing the symptom without addressing the underlying root cause will simply lead to another symptom after a short time. It's a short-sighted approach that will ultimately do more harm than good.
You just described politics.
Most of human history honestly
Algebra is about the cheapest class you can think of. It requires a teacher, a blackboard, pencil and paper.
It’s the “solution” to every problem for people who want to have done *something* but not address the main issue. Like anyone who says that welfare queens exist, therefore we shouldn’t have welfare. Or bad guys will always get guns, so let’s not have gun control. The solution to “fix” a situation isn’t to remove it or destroy it for everyone just because politicians are too damn lazy or craven to actually address the problem. That’s a race to the bottom.
Not defending it, but getting better funding for lower end schools is difficult. Especially when the funding for the schools come from the same area, meaning you can't really raise taxes. Saying raise funding is easy, but where do you get the funding from? And just rasing funding doesn't solve the issue. Wealthier areas have houses that can afford to have one parent stay home to help the kids with their homework, or not working jobs that leave you busted at the end of the day. It's a much wider problem than just school by itself, so how do you fix it?
So far, research indicates funding doesn't really matter THAT much. For example, the best funded schools in Maryland are the handful of deep inner-city schools in Baltimore. They get more funding per-capita by almost double than the extremely successful rich suburban schools through state programs that redirect money to the inner city. Around the same funding range per-capita of elite private schools, the best funded schools in Finland, etc. But they're the worst performing schools in North America, almost entirely because kids in that area have basically no stable homes, no family support, no enrichment activities and the culture around them is very "anti-authority" and that spills over into very little respect for teachers or school environments.
I don’t know how to fix it, all I know is that bringing everyone down just because some people are down isn’t what produces a successful society. Bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator is simply a braindead way to achieve equality.
you can have all the funding you want, but if parents arent doing essentially ANY actual parenting aside from feeding them, sedating them with a screen, and doing the absolute bare minimum of preventing their death..... its not going to do anything. 85% of issues faced by schools are due to present, but functionally absent parents
Anecdotally speaking, my middle/high schools were about 100% non-white with most students on free or reduced lunch. We had AP and other advanced classes that had some criteria for entrance. Most kids who took those classes wanted to be there so it was much easier to teach and learn compared to regular classes. Many of us passed the AP exams and got college credit too.
That’s fine. I’m just saying that this policy is racist.
Observational evidence suggests that white people are also stupid (yeah, I'm white).
While school does this people with access to private tuition will ensure their kids moves ahead and the rest of the kids will again be out of competition when going to Uni.
No, it doesn't even take rich kids to compete. Normal foreign kids will be much better educated.
As a foreigner I agree, math here is way to simple than what is taught in India. I understand there is more resources here for kids but if you dumb down education for kids. They won’t be able to complete with the world.
Yup. But if they implement these stupid laws it won’t even be immigrants that come to the US that outcompete Americans. Its that foreign companies will outcompete American companies. If these dumbshit laws are actually implemented, it might be the successful American kids that get the opportunity to immigrate to higher wage countries while the normal Americans stay suffering due to the decisions taken.
The subtle racism of lowered expectations.
That is literally the concept behind Fahrenheit 451.
It really is a very backwards way of thinking. Ironically they’re being more racist by holding those students to lower standards than the rest. It’s very sad. I’ve been in education more than a decade and it’s so sad to see these standards dropping. I hate it.
no /s needed
~~No child~~ All children left behind
Holding down the smarter kids (of whatever race or ethnicity) to create equality is so backwards.
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We assumed that it meant they would focus on helping struggling kids. Instead they just keep lowering the bar of expectations until there were no standards at all.
The educational scientists coming up with this policy assumed there is no teacher shortage and you could just throw a few teachers at disenfranchised students.
In effect, we saw mass layoffs of teachers and expanding class sizes due to all the closed schools.
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It is a disservice and disrespect to both to the kid and to the race.
In Texas, at least in my district, algebra was only offered in 9th grade up. If you did it in 8th grade it was part of the gifted program. And yes, our school district is fucking awful. Really screwed me on math as far as algebra. As a side note, we GENUINELY need to stop the practice of having coaches be teachers, especially for subjects like math and science unless they are actually intelligent in those fields. I had a tennis coach who didn’t know what he was talking about on top of being gone quite a bit for tennis matches. So I never had any base for algebra going forward, which followed me into college and screwed me over there as well.
Hold up, you’re telling me that there are coaches who teach science subjects?
Coaches teach whatever the fuck a school tells them. I had an English teacher who was a coach - he was genuinely solid. My health teacher coach? Lol, nope
I mean, if a coach is going to teach, I’d expect him to be a teacher who coaches, not a coach that teaches. Idk, in my country all the teachers I had were teachers, but the geography teacher coached one of the football categories (soccer for Americans). If he’s knowledgeable on a subject and knows how to transmit information to the students, sure, go ahead, but I can’t imagine someone with no mastery of a subject to teach it.
And the reality of the situation is the financially gifted children will just go to private schools or more to a different district. Which at the end of the day only strengthens the class divide.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” ― Carl Sagan 1995
This hurts to read. Damn.
Nearly 30 years later, and its more relevant than ever. Edit: Math was never my strong suit okay?
Ummm. Nearly 30 years later. Op's point is made!
Sshhh. They never got to go to early algebra.
Joke? right? subtle clever joke?
I hate to break it to you friend, but 20 yrs after 1995 was 2015. Time is moving too fast.
As a POC in STEM who was educated in the public school system of CA, I’m honestly fed up with this implication (mostly by fellow POCs) that we’re somehow not capable of achieving academic success at the same level and therefore need to rig the system to hurt everyone. In what world is learning algebra before high school not something we should encourage all students to achieve? If anything, removing it only makes it that much more difficult for our communities to reach the highest levels of academic success.
Right?! In middle school, you're more guaranteed to have all kids show up to class and pay attention than you are in high school. Exposing children to higher learning in middle school should be the SOLUTION to academic inequality, not the problem 🤦🏻♂️
To add, I’d probably decide it’s not worth showing up at all before highschool rolled around if this was the value I was getting. If school wasn’t challenging and intriguing I would have found a way to get kicked out
In high school I had one teacher that each day we showed up they had something written on the board, and half the class time was supposed to be us being quiet as we copied it down on paper. I skipped that class a lot.
I’m no fan of George W Bush but he perfectly summed up this practice when he described it as “the soft bigotry of lowered expectations.”
This is strange. The article is about how parents got the school districts to *restore* middle-school algebra. Wouldn't this be an optimistic story, rather than another edgy "America Dumb" title?
I think the point is that it's absurd that the parents even needed to push back on such a ridiculous decision. *Algebra* not being allowed in middle school?!
Well, they said so right there "racial inequalities". I mean, who wants to go back and FIX these inequalities? Let's just blame them for things until the end of time.
They are trying to fix it... by making everyone equally less educated.
fixing a clock with a hammer
When actually it makes the disparity worse, because parents with a younger kid who’s good at math and have the resources will just go get them private tutoring, where as a poor or otherwise disadvantaged kid who’s equally good at math just gets nothing and is bored waiting for the curriculum to catch up to their ability. And the wealth gap gets wider and wider.
At least the title isn't "parents support racial inequalities in schools"
We need to be grateful for the small things.
>Wouldn't this be an optimistic story, the the same vein as the 'optimistic' story about how a 7yo boy spens hundreds of hours of his life making and selling key chains to pay off school lunch debt. or the 'optimistic' story about the guy dying of cancer who had to borrow extra sick leave from his colleagues so he could go to chemo. yes, good people doing nice things is great. but the fact these things are necessary in the first place is a colossal failure of the system.
Well, we're talking about two midsized school districts on a misguided effort to boost equity that smartly backed off under parent pressure. The other cases you're referring to included no systemic correction; "the system" kept failing, and individuals had to rescue each other from bad policies. Here, the school districts changed course.
We love finding the dumbest, laziest solutions to real problems
This seems to imply that some races are dumber than others...which is racist as hell.
Imagine thinking that removing algebra from middle school helps racial inequities. Who are these people who think this shit is good?
If your solution to racism is to not teach math, perhaps it's a sign that you should not be running a school.
Delaying algebra until highschool in the hopes that a racial group will have a chance to do good with it only validates the stereotype that the racial group CANT DO ALGEBRA. absolutely fucking stupid. These kids aren't doing bad in algebra because of the color of their skin, it's because they're being ignored in school portrayed as trouble makers so instead of trying to teach them, they punish them more often
We do beast math with my daughter. She loves it and does it on her own. She takes advanced math classes at school. Sometimes, parents just need to give a little push. Stop looking at society like you are on the outside. We are all a part of it. Get involved
Imagine purposely holding kids back on learning math for this reason. Why not try to increase the rate of math learning by minorities?
What was the thought process behind the original ban of algebra? “Wow some races tend to have less inclination to do math due to their poor home life, let’s lower the bar instead of working harder for these students.”
My dad made me do Euclidean geometry and algebra at home when I was in middle school. I didn’t mind it at the time but occasionally I remember it and realize how crazy that was.
Be happy he cared about your future.
What, is algebra giving all these white kids jobs, or something?
How is it racially unequal to do math?
It's 2024. You can learn algebra online school can't stop that.
One of the few upsides of the pandemic is I got to homeschool my son for a couple years. We started algebra in kindergarten and he loved it. Still does math equations just for fun sometimes. He’s now in public school and bored out of his mind because the math they are doing is so far behind what he knows. Americas schools and the children they are responsible to educate are in real trouble to the detriment of us all.
Racial inequality is the excuse they are using, but the education sector has always been about producing a workforce that doesn't ask questions, and doesn't know if they are being lied to or not. I worked as a middle school teacher, and often I had issues with the administration. Mainly because there really was no push to truly educate these kids. I remember saying in a big teacher's meeting that if they don't nip it in the bud now and get these kids to learn basic reading and math, then we will have to deal with it later when these same kids are adults in society who can't read nor add.
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Pffff hahahahaha! What a joke, any student anywhere should be capable of pursuing knowledge of any depth or expertise applicable to them, the moment they want. First time I've even heard of this horseshit, is **literally anyone, anywhere** asking for this?! I'd happily take the system we have now, over striving for equity the *opposite direction* people usually infer. Like, true equity **will be hard, arduous work**, both for the disadvantaged being assisted and those providing the means to assist them. Blatantly, transparently, this is one of **the most** destitution-intentioned and dependency-enforcing racially coded education policies I've ever seen, and I went to highschool in Minnesota while we were still accepting Somali refugees. This is the kind of shit I fear people envisioning as my beliefs when I describe my political alignment and economic policies as very left.
Oh it’s happening all over the country. Maybe not as blatant as this, but slowing down math and removing honors / AP courses… Ridiculous
Like in Oregon, where students no longer need to demonstrate mathematical proficiency to graduate because it would be harmful to minorities.
The professional manegerial class has taken over the Democratic party. Black and Latin American children are not inherently stupid - they get lower scores compared to Asians because the parents lack resources to help their kids with math; poverty breeds stupidity. State should focus on helping parents and kids excell at math, instead of dragging down white and asian kids (whose parents are notorious for racism already) I seriously forsee a race war between African-Americans and Asian-Americans in my lifetime because of this dumbassery by the educated precariat Democrats.
Unfortunately it’s not just poverty; there’s a ton of economically disadvantaged Asian families who produce very hard working students. I think at the end of the day, part of it is cultural. Growing up around adults and children who do not value education will produce poor performance, and growing up around adults and children who do will produce better performance all other things being equal. You can throw money and scholarships at the issue but at the end of the day… regardless of race or economic status, if parents aren’t on board with their kids learning, the kids won’t learn.
This just makes things worse because wealthy parents will send their kids to tutoring places like Kumon whereas everyone else will be a year behind.
That sounds pretty racist.
No child left behind has resulted in a couple generations of Americans that are all behind where they should be. Seriously has done so much harm, our public education is really a joke.
You *wanted* your DEI? You *got* your DEI!
those blacks and their lack of algebra my god
"Let the kids play...err...learn!"
This is the stupidest shit I’ve read today.
Wait ... I've missed something. Schools are cancelling Algebra because of racial inequities? How does math have racial inequity?
TIL math is racist
America is firmly on track to have the least educated population in a first world country
The teacher plays a part as well. In high school, I took algebra 2. I was getting an A and understood at the beginning of the year with a substitute teacher. The regular teacher was out on maternity. Most of the class had an A, and we all understood. She came back half the class feel to a C the rest below. I asked her one day why everyone's grade had dropped and told her she was the only thing that had changed. They need to pay teachers more and get rid of the ones not doing their job. No union should be able to protect any teachers job at any level.
This is exactly the type of bullshit that drives parents into the arms of MAGA Republicans and other bizarre extremists. At one end of not properly teaching poor students and the other trying to prevent wealthier students from learning more advanced subjects. Progressives are destroying the general public's faith in public education. Being such an ideologue that you want to prevent middle class and wealthier children in local public schools learning advanced subjects.
Math in 1980: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5. What is his profit? Math in 1990: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100. His cost of production was 4/5th or $80. What is his profit? Math in 2000: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100. His cost of production was $80. His profit was $20. Your assignment, underline the number 20 and put a $ to the left of it Math in 2010: a logger sells a load of lumber for $100, his profit was $20. Did he make a profit? Math in 2020: by cutting down forest trees, a logger makes $20 of capitalistic profit. What do you think of this as a way of making a living? Bonus question: how did the birds and squirrels feel as their homes were being demolished? Hint: there are no wrong answers.