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Education Math

California Moves To Recommend Delaying Algebra To 9th Grade Statewide (sfstandard.com) 639

California is in the process of approving new guidelines for math education in public schools that "pushes Algebra 1 back to 9th grade, de-emphasizes calculus, and applies social justice principles to math lessons," writes Joe Hong via the San Francisco Standard. The new approach would have been approved earlier this month but has been delayed due to the attention and controversy it has received. Here's an excerpt from the report: When Rebecca Pariso agreed to join a team of educators tasked in late 2019 with California's new mathematics framework, she said she expected some controversy. But she didn't expect her work would be in the national spotlight. [...] Every eight years (PDF), a group of educators comes together to update the state's math curriculum framework. This particular update has attracted extra attention, and controversy, because of perceived changes it makes to how "gifted" students progress -- and because it pushes Algebra 1 back to 9th grade, de-emphasizes calculus, and applies social justice principles to math lessons. San Francisco pioneered key aspects of the new approach, opting in 2014 to delay algebra instruction until 9th grade and to push advanced mathematics courses until at least after 10th grade as a means of promoting equity.

San Francisco Unified School District touted the effort as a success, asserting that algebra failure rates fell and the number of students taking advanced math rose as a result of the change. The California Department of Education cited those results in drafting the statewide framework. But critics have accused the district of using cherry-picked and misleading assertions to bolster the case for the changes. The intent of the state mathematics framework, its designers say, is to maintain rigor while also helping remedy California's achievement gaps for Black, Latino and low-income students, which remain some of the largest in the nation. At the heart of the wrangling lies a broad agreement about at least one thing: The way California public schools teach math isn't working. On national standardized tests, California ranks in the bottom quartile among all states and U.S. territories for 8th grade math scores.

Yet for all the sound and fury, the proposed framework, about 800-pages long, is little more than a set of suggestions. Its designers are revising it now and will subject it to 60 more days of public review. Once it's approved in July, districts may adopt as much or as little of the framework as they choose -- and can disregard it completely without any penalty. "It's not mandated that you use the framework," said framework team member Dianne Wilson, a program specialist at Elk Grove Unified. "There's a concern that it will be implemented unequally."

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California Moves To Recommend Delaying Algebra To 9th Grade Statewide

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  • by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:10PM (#62015357)
    Ha Ha!
    • by Anonymous Coward

      I remember being taught Algebra in 4th grade, and thinking it was a very dumbed down version of something similar to what I was learning at home with the BASIC programming language on my TRS-80.

      Now they're pushing algebra to 9th grade and giving math lessons a "social justice" slant? Public education sucks.

  • by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:12PM (#62015361)

    The last thing you need is pushing down people on purpose to get more "equality".
    If anything, you should be working harder to prop up the ones behind more, because you need the biggest number of smart kids you can muster, or someone else will get em and you will be trampled.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2021 @07:06AM (#62016507)

      That's actually the first thing. They follow the pre-Stakhanovite Soviet Communist model, where they found that it's much easier to bring everyone down to the level of the weakest than to lift the weakest to the level of the strongest to achieve equality of outcome.

      And equity is a typical goal in declarations across education now. So equality of outcome regardless of ability and effort is starting to get mandated in reality, as speeches are now saturated with it.

    • The last thing you need is pushing down people on purpose to get more "equality".

      This is "equity" not "equality".

      The left has be slyly slipping this subtle but meaningful change into the conversation.

  • by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:12PM (#62015363)

    It is, however, taught to the people who run the schools. And these people conclude that it is the measurment of the racial disparity that conjures it into being. Stop the measurement...and the disparity goes away* so yay antiracism.

    *What they really mean is that the schools stop taking the heat for the racial disparity. Black kids on average will still suck at math, but there won't be the test scores and GPAs to point to, so the lack of black kids in higher paying engineering and tech jobs will be magically the fault of racist hiring managers instead of piss-poor public schools that fail to educate them. After all, if there's no longer any *evidence* of racial disparity in the schools, you can't blame the schools for it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jimtheowl ( 4200185 )
      You think that sucking at math has anything to do with skin color?

      If you had a point it was overshadowed by display of ignorance.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        You think that sucking at math has anything to do with skin color?

        There is a strong correlation, but it is not linear.

        • You think that sucking at math has anything to do with skin color?

          There is a strong correlation, but it is not linear.

          And how, pray tell, would you quantize skin color? Let us know that, and then you /begin/ to claim correlations---strong or not---with anything.

    • by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @10:14PM (#62015569)

      Black kids on average will still suck at math, but there won't be the test scores and GPAs to point to, so the lack of black kids in higher paying engineering and tech jobs will be magically the fault of racist hiring managers instead of piss-poor public schools that fail to educate them. After all, if there's no longer any *evidence* of racial disparity in the schools, you can't blame the schools for it.

      All kids on average will now suck at math, but there won't be the test scores and GPAs to point to, and the lack of any kids capable of filling higher paying engineering and tech jobs will cripple progress and innovation for at least a decade while doing absolutely nothing to address class- and race-based disparities.

      FTFY. And by the way, racial disparity in schools isn't an educational phenomenon. It's a societal problem; but if I were to point to one institution in particular it would be the unholy trinity of law enforcement, the (in)justice system, and the for-profit prison system that turns convictions into cash. Oh, and let's not forget a history of oppression and abuse that's still causing inter-generational, multi-generational trauma and dysfunction.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      Seriously, the parent poster is a disgusting racist. Are there really that many racists on Slashdot now that they're getting modded up?

  • Better idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:13PM (#62015365) Journal

    A better idea is to focus on improving math education, pushing algebra lower and lower. We know third graders can handle algebra concepts, so we should try to figure out how to make that accessible to all third graders, instead of lowering standards.

    Improve education, don't lower standards.

    • We essentially have proof that 8th grade teachers are failing to effectively teach algebra in California. I agree with you in spirit, but realistically the problem with your suggestion is it would require much better teachers that we have also proven we are not willing to pay for.
      • KhanAcademy is effective at teaching algebra.

        An obvious solution is to use KA for students who learn effectively online, use the competent teachers to help struggling students, and fire the incompetent teachers.

      • Arguably the solution is to teach the teachers to teach better. Most likely the problem is the teachers can't teach people to enjoy math because they don't enjoy math.

        • Re:Better idea (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @10:34PM (#62015617) Homepage Journal

          Arguably the solution is to teach the teachers to teach better. Most likely the problem is the teachers can't teach people to enjoy math because they don't enjoy math.

          Most likely, the problem is that we've been underpaying teachers so badly for so long that the people who are good enough at math to calculate their after-tax salary don't go into education anymore. Double teacher salaries across the board, and watch how quickly the quality of education improves. :-)

      • An excellent point. It prompts me to wonder - are the teachers bad at what they do because they themselves never learned the subject adequately, or because they don't care to put in the effort because the pay is poor, or because their efforts are undercut by administrative politics and power games, or because their hands are tied by shitty curricula? Probably several or all of the above.

        John Taylor Gatto's "Underground History of American Education" is a very worthwhile read for anyone seriously interested

    • Re:Better idea (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @10:31PM (#62015607) Homepage Journal

      Yeah, agreed. This is the most baffling thing I ever heard of. Some kids can't succeed at Calculus, so don't offer it? What the heck? It makes no sense to lower the standards so that everyone is equally incapable of competing intellectually on the world stage. We're talking about delaying algebra until even later, while other countries are teaching it in middle school, and teaching what we would consider college-level statistics by high school. This, right here, is how the U.S. becomes the laughingstock of the free world.

      This is not the way any sane person approaches equity. This is like taking the classic equality versus equity cartoon, and instead of giving the shortest box to the tallest person, they break the other taller people's legs so that they can't see over the fence any better than the shortest person. It makes absolutely no sense. Teaching algebra even later to the smartest kids means that you're wasting most of their potential. At that point, it's no longer about giving people what they need to succeed, but about handicapping the best and the brightest to such an extent that they get bored and drop out of the system entirely. And I've seen that happen to a lot of smart people over the years, so when I see people heading further down that rathole, I can only ask, "What the f*** are you thinking?"

      The only way to achieve equity is by addressing the actual causes of the educational disparity between the "haves" and the "have-nots" head-on. The root cause of that disparity is that some parents are able to do more towards teaching their own kids. Some of those differences are caused by differences in parents' education levels, the number of hours that the parents spend outside the home (one job versus three), whether both parents are actively involved in raising the children, whether the kids have access to technology at a young age and can start learning how to use it, and so on.

      Almost all of these problems are financial in nature at their core, and solving them in a non-financial way is challenging, if not impossible, so the best way to solve the problem, IMO, is to massively raise the minimum wage (optionally through government subsidies), thus pushing the standard of living way up for people who can barely make ends meet.

      But short of doing that, the only way you can really fix these problems is by ensuring that schools make up for what the parents ideally should be teaching their kids, but don't or can't. This means exposing them to all sorts of mental stimulation as early as possible. The precursors to abstract thinking should be taught starting in first grade, a little bit more each time, so that by the time they get to the actual algebra, it's easy.

      We waste an incredible amount of time on rote memorization that does absolutely no good whatsoever. If I were running a school system, multiplication tables wouldn't even be taught. You have a calculator for that. Maybe you'll pick it up a bit over time. Even in the 1980s, when teachers said, "You won't always have a calculator," I knew they were mistaken, because I already had one on my wrist. The entire approach to teaching math is fundamentally broken as a result of emphasis on rote memorization instead of comprehension, and we will never truly get everyone to love learning as long as learning is drudgery.

      And science is the same way. Why aren't kids learning about science by going out in the garden and studying the leaf patterns — learning to identify plants and animals in the real world instead of sitting in a classroom reading about them? Why aren't they learning the basics of chemistry in fifth grade by mixing stuff up to see what happens? The fact that all the interesting and fun stuff doesn't even begin to get taught until 9th grade means we've basically wasted nine years of everyone's time.

      History, too. Instead of talking about what year a war ended or which battle was the turning point of a given war, we should be teaching why those wars mattered. It's the "why" that mat

  • Alternative math (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nbritton ( 823086 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:14PM (#62015371)

    So in other words, they're just going to teach them simple arithmetic and entirely withhold development of critical thinking skills. Yeah, that checks...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • So you don't know what critical thinking is, but you know it must be Virtuous, and since it is hard you associate it with math.

      And so to prove how much of a deep thinker you are, you link to a video that does your thinking for you? Wow. These new users slashdot has been getting lately are really low quality.

      Ever thought of looking up the word "nerd" to see what it means?

  • Keep the current curricula but set the pass mark to 25% -- problem solved
  • what about teaching the math of the student loan?

  • by stevent1965 ( 4521547 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:16PM (#62015377)
    California is doing its absolute BEST to emulate the ideals portrayed in the move "Idiocracy". I absolutely support its secession from the Union.
    • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:32PM (#62015441)

      California is doing its absolute BEST to emulate the ideals portrayed in the move "Idiocracy". I absolutely support its secession from the Union.

      While I can't disagree with your first sentence after reading this summary, be careful what you wish for with the 2nd. They pay a lot more federal tax revenue than your state does....a lot more than they take in. So yeah, if you're in a red state with low taxes, like NH, for example, it's because the blues states, especially California, are picking up your slack and funding your bills for that social security, strong military, and infrastructure you like so much.

      • I'm in a blue state with high taxes.
        • I'm in a blue state with high taxes.

          If California secedes, your taxes will be even higher.

          California does a lot of stupid stuff, be we do it at our own expense. You aren't paying for it.

      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        They pay a lot more federal tax revenue than your state does....a lot more than they take in.

        They're not worth the trouble. We'll manage to get by without them or their money.

  • Needed effort (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dsgrntlxmply ( 610492 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:20PM (#62015385)
    I know one of the people interviewed for the article. I trust his commitment to trying to improve outcomes. In my time, Algebra was grade 9, Geometry was grade 10, Trigonometry was grade 11, and grade 12 for university track students was Algebra 2 and an introduction to the derivative, followed by a semester elective (Probability and Statistics for me). At the interviewee's university, the 2006 first year chem class had a drop or fail rate of around 43%, and most of this was around poor algebra skills. The school instituted a pre-qualification exam and skills review courses. The wasted seats were thwarting prospective majors in all sciences and health fields.
  • by siouxgeonz ( 1589541 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:21PM (#62015389)
    Not everybody is behind this shiny friendlliness... https://www.familiesforsanfran... [familiesfo...ncisco.com] from that article: "Goal 1: Reduce the number of students forced to retake Algebra 1, Geometry, or Algebra 2 by 50% from numbers recorded for 6/2013 Claims: In a September 2017 press release SFUSD claims a "dramatic increase in student comprehension" and a drop in Algebra 1 repeaters from 40% to 7%. The press release states that this was found through a “longitudinal data” review of the last class of high school graduates who completed Algebra 1 in 8th grade (Class of 2018) and the first class of high school graduates who were prohibited from that option (Class of 2019). A 2019 case study also attributes the reduction of repeat rate to detracking. Rating: Misleading Facts: The grade distribution we received from SFUSD showed no improvement at all in Algebra 1 grades. The repeat rate did come down, but only because in 2015 SFUSD eliminated the requirement to pass the Algebra 1 California Standards Test (CST) exit exam as a condition of progressing. The effect of this change was later partially acknowledged by the Math department in the speaker's notes in one of their presentation slides in 2020: "The drop from 40% of students repeating Algebra 1 to 8% of students repeating Algebra 1, we saw as a one-time major drop due to both the change in course sequence and the change in placement policy." Finally, in conducting our review of SFUSD’s claims, we were unable to obtain any such “longitudinal data” they refer to nor could we replicate the repeat rate numbers quoted by SFUSD using data obtained via a CPRA request. We have deep concerns that SFUSD is claiming credit for student achievement that is either untrue or unsubstantiated by the data or both."
  • by Alascom ( 95042 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:28PM (#62015411)

    We have a desperate need for STEM grads across the board in job openings.
    You canâ(TM)t succeed in STEM without advanced mathematics.
    Advanced Calculus is critical for work in AI/ML, chemical engineers, aerospace engineering, and other STEM fields.

    This doesnâ(TM)t create equity - it just cripples those with potential.
    Cripple them young and they will be crippled for life.

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      Cripple them young and they will be crippled for life.

      But they'll all be equal.

  • by Raisey-raison ( 850922 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:28PM (#62015413)

    California is in the process ... "pushes Algebra 1 back to 9th grade, de-emphasizes calculus, and applies social justice principles to math lessons,"

    This is how Argentina went from being one of the richest countries in the world in 1900 to a backward upper income developing country in 2021. Their education system was a huge failure. And without education, you can't have functioning democratic institutions, a market economy, or reasonable infrastructure.

    Basic literacy and numeracy is such a necessity. Our prosperity is built on it.

    We are giving up on talented youth. We should be nurturing their abilities, not suffocating them. The US has actually regresssed in math since 2000. We introduced "new methods" which were worse than the old ones from the 1990s.

    And now they want to get rid of grades in high school based on exams too. California is moving away from traditional point-driven grading systems. Los Angeles and San Diego Unified have recently directed teachers to base academic grades on whether students have learned what was expected of them during a course — and not penalize them for behavior, work habits and missed deadlines.

    Has it occurred to anyone that instead of dragging down the top 50% to the bottom, that we nurture each child so they reach their potential. We could raise standards for teachers not lower them as was done recently in New York State. We fail almost all students otherwise.

    We are headed to Brazilian style educational failure along with the society they have over there.

    I hope the someone has the courage to fight this decay.

  • by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:28PM (#62015419) Homepage

    Now, rather than help people achieve it, they simply stop expecting it.

    Just because someone isn't white doesn't mean they're stupid. But, if you treat them as stupid and incapable of excelling, you get what you expect. This is the true "institutional racism", and it's being pushed by people claiming to be fighting racism.

    Mathematics doesn't know color. "Right" and "wrong" answers don't change by who solves for them.

    • That something as inherently un-racist as math has become such a target for people who claim to be trying to fight racial inequality is rather suspicious then, no? They've really gone out of their way trying to find reasons to call math racist, as they have with anything objective. This makes no sense whatsoever if their goals and intentions are what they claim, but plenty of sense if they are covering up far more sinister motives.
  • ...does this sounds stupid? Yeah, the way they describe it, it certainly does. However, this proposal is being made by people from Stanford in conjunction with experts in the Silicon Valley area. A FUCK TON of engineers in that area, who have an interest in getting their kids a good education, go to public school.

    So 1 of 2 things:

    1. This is poorly worded and not as abysmally shitty as it sounds...

    or

    2. This won't last long....5 years, tops.

    The thing about education is you can prove or disp
  • Hein? (Score:5, Informative)

    by belg4mit ( 152620 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:32PM (#62015439) Homepage

    Wasn't it already a freshman course? When I was in public school in California in the 90's algebra was available in the 8th grade as an honor's course. The standard course was 9th Algebra, 10th Geometry, 11th Algebra II, 12th Trigonometry, and if one started a year early, Calculus was available in the senior year.

    In any event, I think algebra is more important/useful than almost any non-arithmetic field taught in school, and needs to be covered well. Calculus forms the foundation of many sciences, but generally seems to be introduced pretty poorly, with too much emphasis on rote integration and differentiation of formulae that can be looked up in tables, rather than ensuring a proper understanding of the core concepts.

  • by crow ( 16139 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:34PM (#62015449) Homepage Journal

    The corollary to No Child Left Behind is No Child Gets Ahead. That's a horrible model. Every child needs to be challenged to the level of their ability. Maybe 50% of the kids will be fine with "average" curriculum. Say 30% have special needs and require extra support and may take longer (perhaps years longer) to master some skills. But perhaps 20% will be bored and wasting their time in the mainstream courses, so they need to be pushed with more challenging material and pushed to learn faster. (I made up the numbers, but the idea is valid.)

    From the summary, the problem is that minority and low income students aren't keeping up. They're trying to keep them in the main group through changing the curriculum to where they aren't falling behind. That's going to push more kids into the gifted or "bored with the slow standard pace" group.

    I have no doubt that it's a real problem, but I question whether they're using the right tool to solve it. This doesn't sound like a curriculum problem, but a support problem. What do they need to do to give these kids the ability to succeed? Maybe some just need more time to process the curriculum, but maybe they need breakfast. Or maybe they need preschool. I don't know the answer, but I think we all agree that pulling down the other kids isn't the answer.

    • The corollary to No Child Left Behind is No Child Gets Ahead.

      The difference is whether you focus on improving peoples skills, or reducing people's skills.

  • So I googled a bit (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @09:40PM (#62015467)
    because the articles that actually describe why they're doing this are paywalled. Here's the article minus the paywall [kqed.org].

    What it comes down to is this:

    a. They have a *lot* of non English speakers in their districts, like 42% are still taking classes to learn English. Waiting until 9th grade means they're fluent enough for the teachers to actually teach. This gets called "social justice" because the people who want to help those kids learn don't have access to focus groups and haven't learned that phrase is brand poison now.

    b. There're also a *lot* of poor kids, and they're nowhere near ready to take algebra. Another year or two helps a lot, if only because their brains have had 2 more years to develop. Also older kids need less attention from their parents, and poor kids aren't getting much of that as their parents are either working or ignoring them. (this last part came from other google searches I did on the topic)

    c. Finally, when the kids who aren't ready inevitably fail they give up on math and education entirely. It takes very, very little to discourage a child, especially one from a borked family that gets little or no positive reinforcement at home. As much as everyone hates it, this is where "everybody gets a star" comes from. /.ers, who are a rag tag bunch of misfits who, like me, probably had a rough upbringing, should be able to relate to this...

    Basically it's the difference between 2 approaches to education: The China one where the strong survive and the weak are fodder and one that is trying to achieve better overall outcomes.

    The objection is going to be that we shouldn't force the rich, well loved kids to stay behind (and somebody is inevitably going to bring up that old Kurt Vonnegut Story). But that's not what's happening here. These are recommendations meant to provide a framework for districts that don't have those kind of kids (they don't last long if they are in those districts, their parents move them, fast, or at least find a magnet school).

    But this will be a useful tool for creating outrage, because nuance is dead. And nobody googles. Something, something, something failed education system...
    • "The China one where the strong survive and the weak are fodder and one that is trying to achieve better overall outcomes."
      Well the former one is the one that built successful dominant countries.

      • China looks tough because they have a lot of people, but modern weapons make that a moot point, and they don't have a navy. None of this matters though. In the era of billionaires and possibly trillionaires that countries even matter? Do you honestly think somebody with 1/3 a trillion dollars in the bank thinks of themselves as either "Chinese" or "American"?

        I remember Pakistan basically let a bunch of terrorists attack a major building in India. Everyone expected war. But war was bad for business. Ind
    • by Beeftopia ( 1846720 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @10:51PM (#62015655)

      a. They have a *lot* of non English speakers in their districts, like 42% are still taking classes to learn English. Waiting until 9th grade means they're fluent enough for the teachers to actually teach. This gets called "social justice" because the people who want to help those kids learn don't have access to focus groups and haven't learned that phrase is brand poison now.

      The article states this is a statewide initiative. This applies to kids around Stanford and in Orange County, as well as to the barrios and ghettos. It helps the disadvantaged but harms the typical and more talented kids.

      Society benefits from technological progress. Things like antibiotics, vaccines, smartphones and offworld exploration. Achievement then should be encouraged at every level, not suppressed, for egalitarian outcomes that please some groups.

      And you are absolutely correct about the Kurt Vonnegut story, "Harrison Bergeron." [archive.org] He wrote that in 1961. [google.com] The first paragraph is:

      THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal
      before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter
      than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was
      stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the
      211th, 212th, and 213 th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing
      vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."

      • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @11:16PM (#62015725)
        and you'd know that if you finished my comment. This is a recommendation, not a requirement. The well to do and magnet schools can continue to teach Algebra in 7th and 8th grade to the kids that can handle it. What this does is prevent kids from getting crushed by a bad experience that follows them their entire academic career.

        It does exactly what you want, encourage achievement. This is especially important because, thanks to machines and automation, the world doesn't need ditch diggers.

        Education is complicated and nuanced. This is why we should leave it up to experts, and when those experts speak take time to read up on their reasons for doing things before we oppose them outright.
  • Enjoy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2021 @10:40PM (#62015631) Journal

    This is what you voted for ... this is what you wanted. Whether you knew it or not. (Although you should have known it.)

    When you get on a train, it is going to eventually get to the next station. Well, here we are.

    (But hey, no more mean tweets, amiright?)

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