<story><title>An alarming trend in K-12 math education: a guest post and an open letter</title><url>https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6146</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>syki</author><text>I teach math at a community college.  It is all about removing complexity.  The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal.  Therefore the racial achievement gap in mathematics is due to racism.  The solution is to change things.  Too many POC students aren’t placing into college level math therefore get rid of placement test and get rid of remedial courses.  Create new college algebra with just in time tutoring and voila, no more racial achievement gap.  If you dumb things down enough everyone passes and we can pat ourselves on the back and claim to have solved the racial achievement gap.&lt;p&gt;My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed.  This has long term negative effects.  My own anecdotal experience is that what used to be a C is now an A or a B in my classes and I’m passing people who don’t know anything.  I’m judged by the passing rate so I’m maximizing that metric.  These reforms are just doing what I’m doing but in a less forthright way.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>I had originally assumed the criticisms were exaggerated, but the more I read about the new curriculum the less comfortable I am.&lt;p&gt;It seems every defense is built around hedges like this one:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; although they are cutting geometry a bit, which doesn&amp;#x27;t make as much sense today as it did 100 years ago when far more people grew up to be farmers or ranchers&lt;p&gt;Which suggests to me that they really &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; trying to walk back the complexity of the education, perhaps as part of a goal to force the variance of educational progress into a narrower range within classes.&lt;p&gt;The language is so vague that it&amp;#x27;s hard to understand exactly what they&amp;#x27;re trying to do, which I think is their point. If they wanted to emphasize advanced education topics it would have been front and center in the plan. Instead, it seems like a footnote that we&amp;#x27;re supposed to assume will get taken care of in some future iteration of this integrative math program.</text></item><item><author>humanistbot</author><text>The manufactured outrage over the California math recommendations keep getting posted on HN. Read the actual text of the plans here [1]. The FAQ is at [2] and directly responds to these characterizations. They are not banning gifted &amp;amp; talented programs or advanced students taking accelerated courses. They are not taking algebra out of the curriculum, although they are cutting geometry a bit, which doesn&amp;#x27;t make as much sense today as it did 100 years ago when far more people grew up to be farmers or ranchers. They are adding more statistics and probability, which I think are crucial in today&amp;#x27;s society.&lt;p&gt;What they are fundamentally doing is breaking up the classic U.S. staged path where you learn algebra for a year, then geometry for a year, then back to algebra &amp;#x2F; pre-calc for a year, then maybe take statistics or calculus as an elective, etc. Instead, all branches of math will be taught in an integrated approach focused around applied problems.&lt;p&gt;This is how a lot of European math courses are taught. In fact, I think HN would appreciate the shift from focusing on pure numbers and classic formulas to more applied uses of math, including algorithms, probability, data collected and analyzed in charts, etc. Students also forget a lot of algebra when they do a year of geometry by itself, then have to go back to algebra &amp;#x2F; pre-calc.&lt;p&gt;It also does mean that in the transition, it will be harder for students to &amp;quot;test out&amp;quot; of the classic algebra I&amp;#x2F;II, geometry, pre-calc sequence, because it will just be &amp;quot;year X integrated math.&amp;quot; But the framework does not forbid gifted and talented programs or anything like that. There will just be a few awkward years while the curriculum shifts.&lt;p&gt;Now, there are some on the left who advocated for the elimination of gifted and talented programs altogether, for equity reasons. They did not get what they wanted in the new California framework. That hasn&amp;#x27;t stopped a lot of people from looking at what California is doing and imagining it is actually some kind of Harrison Bergeron dystopia, when that is absolutely not the case.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;mathfwfaqs.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;mathfwfaqs.asp&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>csee</author><text>&amp;gt;  My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed.&lt;p&gt;The root cause is well outside of the scope of schools to address. Perhaps they can help to a small extent through things like lunchtime meals. But curriculum reform itself will never narrow the gap more than a tiny amount.&lt;p&gt;Childhood nutrition, single parent households, health of mother during pregnancy, culture&amp;#x2F;respect towards education as a virtue in the community and household, education level of parents and the time they have to play and talk with their kids.&lt;p&gt;All these things are going to impact the capabilities of young school children and feed into outcome gaps between various groups (Black vs White, poor vs rich).&lt;p&gt;I believe most proponents of &amp;quot;math equity&amp;quot; actually know all this, and are just maliciously virtue signalling either because they&amp;#x27;re jealous that their own kids aren&amp;#x27;t doing well, or for social credit.</text></comment>
<story><title>An alarming trend in K-12 math education: a guest post and an open letter</title><url>https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6146</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>syki</author><text>I teach math at a community college.  It is all about removing complexity.  The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal.  Therefore the racial achievement gap in mathematics is due to racism.  The solution is to change things.  Too many POC students aren’t placing into college level math therefore get rid of placement test and get rid of remedial courses.  Create new college algebra with just in time tutoring and voila, no more racial achievement gap.  If you dumb things down enough everyone passes and we can pat ourselves on the back and claim to have solved the racial achievement gap.&lt;p&gt;My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed.  This has long term negative effects.  My own anecdotal experience is that what used to be a C is now an A or a B in my classes and I’m passing people who don’t know anything.  I’m judged by the passing rate so I’m maximizing that metric.  These reforms are just doing what I’m doing but in a less forthright way.</text></item><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>I had originally assumed the criticisms were exaggerated, but the more I read about the new curriculum the less comfortable I am.&lt;p&gt;It seems every defense is built around hedges like this one:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; although they are cutting geometry a bit, which doesn&amp;#x27;t make as much sense today as it did 100 years ago when far more people grew up to be farmers or ranchers&lt;p&gt;Which suggests to me that they really &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; trying to walk back the complexity of the education, perhaps as part of a goal to force the variance of educational progress into a narrower range within classes.&lt;p&gt;The language is so vague that it&amp;#x27;s hard to understand exactly what they&amp;#x27;re trying to do, which I think is their point. If they wanted to emphasize advanced education topics it would have been front and center in the plan. Instead, it seems like a footnote that we&amp;#x27;re supposed to assume will get taken care of in some future iteration of this integrative math program.</text></item><item><author>humanistbot</author><text>The manufactured outrage over the California math recommendations keep getting posted on HN. Read the actual text of the plans here [1]. The FAQ is at [2] and directly responds to these characterizations. They are not banning gifted &amp;amp; talented programs or advanced students taking accelerated courses. They are not taking algebra out of the curriculum, although they are cutting geometry a bit, which doesn&amp;#x27;t make as much sense today as it did 100 years ago when far more people grew up to be farmers or ranchers. They are adding more statistics and probability, which I think are crucial in today&amp;#x27;s society.&lt;p&gt;What they are fundamentally doing is breaking up the classic U.S. staged path where you learn algebra for a year, then geometry for a year, then back to algebra &amp;#x2F; pre-calc for a year, then maybe take statistics or calculus as an elective, etc. Instead, all branches of math will be taught in an integrated approach focused around applied problems.&lt;p&gt;This is how a lot of European math courses are taught. In fact, I think HN would appreciate the shift from focusing on pure numbers and classic formulas to more applied uses of math, including algorithms, probability, data collected and analyzed in charts, etc. Students also forget a lot of algebra when they do a year of geometry by itself, then have to go back to algebra &amp;#x2F; pre-calc.&lt;p&gt;It also does mean that in the transition, it will be harder for students to &amp;quot;test out&amp;quot; of the classic algebra I&amp;#x2F;II, geometry, pre-calc sequence, because it will just be &amp;quot;year X integrated math.&amp;quot; But the framework does not forbid gifted and talented programs or anything like that. There will just be a few awkward years while the curriculum shifts.&lt;p&gt;Now, there are some on the left who advocated for the elimination of gifted and talented programs altogether, for equity reasons. They did not get what they wanted in the new California framework. That hasn&amp;#x27;t stopped a lot of people from looking at what California is doing and imagining it is actually some kind of Harrison Bergeron dystopia, when that is absolutely not the case.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;mathfwfaqs.asp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cde.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;ci&amp;#x2F;ma&amp;#x2F;cf&amp;#x2F;mathfwfaqs.asp&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cm2187</author><text>And the irony of course is that these anti-racism policies that are based on the assumption that minority students aren’t smart enough to pass the tests and therefore the tests need to dumbed down to achieve social justice, are fundamentally racist.</text></comment>