A decade ago San Francisco banned 8th grade algebra in an attempt to improve math outcomes for students of color. The Wall Street Journal reports:
A study by Stanford University researchers released in March 2023 found that San Francisco’s policy largely failed in its equity goals, with the proportion of Black and Latino students enrolling in Advanced Placement math courses hardly moving.
Then there's this from later in the story:
In the late 1990s [California] became one of the first states to push an “algebra for all” approach that strongly encouraged eighth-grade algebra.... Achievement on a 10th-grade high school exit exam didn’t improve after a majority of California students took algebra in eighth grade. In some cases, the research showed achievement declines.
So requiring 8th-grade algebra had no effect, and banning 8th-grade algebra had no effect. It's almost as if different kids have different abilities no matter what.
Nah. Couldn't be.
Please tell me I am reading this wrong, but this sounds like you are throwing out some Bell Curve stuff here.
Yeah, what the fuck, Kevin? Are you suggesting that kids who aren't white just don't have it in them to learn algebra?
Your imagination is really running wild today.
So, what you're saying is everybody has completely equal abilities? Always? Nice thought!
What?
How?
The kids are probably less supported at home and in the community. It's just straight up poverty mostly.
Some different abilities is obviously genetic (if not we could not evolve greater intelligence which is clearly incorrect) but culture, home environment, etc are also going to have a big impact.
For example, cracking down on school discipline and expelling students unwilling or unable to learn would probably have a bigger impact than mandating or banning algebra and would disproportionately benefit poor andminority children. I doubt schools in 90210 zip code have much violence in the halls or class disruptions. Can you say the same for Compton?
Yes, that's how it read to me too. Very disturbing coming from Kevin.
Obviously there are *individual* differences in ability that are partly genetic, but there are no *racial* differenes in ability that are genetic. Because there is no such genetic thing as race.
eg: suppose there were two brothers in 19th century Italy. One emigrated to the US, the other to Mexico. Descendants of the Mexican brother later come to the US and enroll in the same school as their distant cousin. One is "white", the other is "Latino". The Latino is likely to do less well in math. But his genetics are the same as the "white".
Can you explain this a bit more?
Presumably the Italian and his descendants intermarry with other Mexicans so your hypothetical Latino is genetically Latino so, if correct, your hypothetical says nothing about whether intelligence is genetic.
On the other hand, if the Italian emigrant to Mexico has descendants who are pure Italian then he is presumably living in an Italian enclave and his descendants will also be culturally mostly Italian. It is then hard to see why you would expect them to have lower math scores - something in the water perhaps?
I know this is probably a religious issue to you and thus not possible to investigate using the scientific method, but do you have any evidence for your claim? For example, information on correlation between percentage of European ancestry and math scores among Latinos?
You want scientific evidence that white people aren't an inherently superior "race?"
If you have to ask such a question, I highly doubt any such evidence will sway you at this point. The brain worms have devoured too much of your mind to save you now.
You will have to explain what you mean by "superior race" - I was talking about math ability.
Teasing apart the influence of environment and genetics on complex polygenic traits is very difficult because genetics and culture (a big part of environment) are strongly correlated. In addition, a genetic trait (ie. opposition to authority) can have opposite impact in different environments - for example, in the 1950s American South, a black person who opposed authority might be motivated to become a scholar like MLK. In the 2020s he might be motivated to become a truant, a criminal, and a gangsta rapper. Opposite results for educational attainment.
That said, it would be absolutely amazing (and likely an act of divine providence) if the genes for math ability / intelligence (it is unclear to what extent these are separate genetically) are equally distributed among every ethnic group. For a comparison with another polygenic trait that has less dependence on environment and is much easier to measure, consider height. There are huge variations of height between ethnic groups. For example, look at the Dutch, whose men tower over most Europeans (average height over six feet) vs. Spanish men at five foot eight. That difference is not because the Dutch ate their Wheaties as kids. In African there is even more variation - for example, Tutsis are tall while Hutus are short despite living for centuries in the same region of Africa.
I see no reason to believe that the distribution of the genes for math ability / intelligence is not similarly varied and complex.
People learn what they want to learn. It is not possible to generalize what makes people want to learn specific things; but we do know what makes people not want to learn, and it is the sadistic degradation of the school experience. Only the very strongest can overcome it.
This illustrates one key thing about education, which is rarely framed. “Eighth grade algebra” isn’t just a class, the whole ballgame is really “do you identify kids who can handle starting algebra in 8th grade so that they can take calculus by senior year”. with the point being that getting to calculus by senior year not only helps your resume generally, but means you have an essential STEM foundation, that other kids don’t have.
That’s what the “everybody takes algebra v. no one takes algebra “ was about / are schools there to educate everyone or are they there to identify kids who prove they can handle difficult work?
Anyone who has kids knows the answer- schools simple switch over, in middle school, to identifying and tracking. Works fine for the top 25%, not so much for the bottom 25%
BTW, is there any profession where high school calculus is an asset?
Or do they still have to tell those kids in college to forget all that nonsense, this is what you need to know in your field?
Every profession algebra is an asset. It is the language of basic statistics and computers and retail.
oh poop. I was in IT for close to 40 years and I never needed to use algebra. It has nothing to do with programming.
"oh poop. I was in IT for close to 40 years and I never needed to use algebra. It has nothing to do with programming."
I don't know what sort of programming you did but when I do programming I write stuff like
a=b+c
a lot. This is an assignment (add the value assigned to variable b to the value assigned to variable c and assign the result to variable a) not an equation. Still if you have trouble with algebra I don't think this sort of programming will be any easier.
I fell in love with R the moment I saw its assignment operator was <=.
Shrug... depends what you are programming.
For example, game programming, image processing, and AI all depend on large amounts of math including calculus.
I'm in software development, and I have to use a fair amount of algebra and some geometry. I find having pretty solid math skills extremely helpful.
I don't think I've ever used calculus. Understanding it occasionally helps me visualize things a bit better, but I've never come close to actually using it. (Although I am sure there are people who do.)
Certainly. All my college math and science classes built on the basics of calculus that I learned in high school.
That in turn was essential for my careers in engineering and finance.
If you give the bottom 25% appropriate classes and stop pretending they are on college track you can benefit them too. Why don't high schools have Voc Ed any more?
Even after reading the article, I can't fathom what the thinking was behind actually *banning* algebra before high school. Something about not "tracking" kids too early? Wouldn't it actually help to start giving kids math skills *earlier* -- especially the more at-risk ones -- rather than later if you want them to succeed?
I also noted that what the underlying issue here appears to be is the fact that certain parents, particularly more affluent white and Asian ones, push their kids to do more advanced math, while Latino and (esp) Black parents do not. It seems what is needed more than anything is a community outreach program to explain to these parents why they should talk to their schools' teachers and principals about putting their kids in algebra earlier and how it could benefit them.
I certainly made my kids do the math early - they needed to be ready for calculus by 11th grade so that they could take it when they did running start (college in high school). It was clear in 7th grade that my youngest daughter was going to go science/engineering, My son was less mathematical and ended up going business, but he too needed the calc when he would have been in 11th grade (stat, finance). Since my daughter skipped 8th grade, I had her do geometry and pre-calc over the summer by correspondence. The school didn't give her credit, but did give her placement. She did calc in 10th grade and dropped out to go to the university via early admissions. She graduated in civil engineering - structures.
If the schools don't offer the classes, the educated parents will work around it. My eldest daughter switched her kids to private school in Atlanta this year because the school system dropped the advanced classes.
When I was a teenager, we moved out of DC ~55 years ago when the school system dropped the advanced classes in the name of equity.
By the way, they didn't call it equity then - the official excuse was that the extra costs (essentially none by the way, as they had a full class so there was no extra teaching load - and the teachers wanted to teach the advanced class, the kids were well behaved and interested in learning it) could be devoted to the less advanced students. The effect was to move middle class kids out of the school system, either into private schools, or moving to other school disctricts. And the bright poor kids got a worse education.
Pretty simple. Kids taking 8th grade algebra were disproportionately white and Asian.
Maybe if teachers were regarded with a bit more respect and had a bit more authority this would follow as a consequence.
Long, long, LONG ago, back when Wisconsin was liberal and a beacon of progressivism (yes, I'm old), my high school had different levels of math classes. Ditto for English. There was the standard one for nearly everybody and an advanced class for students who were able and willing to handle it.
(Back in those days, the entire educational establishment didn't revolve around placing the very "slowest" students in with everybody else. I guess we were elitists. I should also mention that in my home town, everybody was white.)
I no longer know how schools do it now, but it seems as if having different levels of difficulty that catered to different groups of students could have been a good idea. Thpse who could learn faster could be given more to learn. Those who learned slower or not at all didn't have to be a drag on the rest of the class, or shamed for not keeping up.
Of course, all this would cost money, and if there's one thing Americans are agreed upon, their "priceless children" who must be protected at all costs aren't worth spending anything on.
What this does is mean kids who start behind, never catch up.
Tracking is quite common in schools, even schools which say they don't.
It is very hard to catch up when other people in the race start running before you.
That does not justify slowing down the kids who are ready for more advanced math at a younger age.
Math classes beyond the most basic are effectively worthless for almost everyone. The small percentage who are actually good at it seem incapable of understanding this.
Focusing on math as the measure of success in learning alienates virtually everyone at once from any academic interest.
Another serious issue that will never be addressed.
Except Algebra is the language of business, statistics, science, computers.
I'd say that math is that language. I got a college degree in statistics, and I can assure you that calculus is much is far more its language than algebra is.
"Focusing on math as the measure of success in learning alienates virtually everyone at once from any academic interest."
Not focusing on math isn't going to change the fact that some kids are more academically talented than others. And you shouldn't be pushing kids onto academic tracks they aren't suited for.
Math is certainly NOT worthless. Yes, very few will ever use calculus, but I have a theory (based on a sample size of n=me) that adults retain the math skills one level below whatever they learned in school. I had a year and a half of college calculus and can effectively now do none of it. But since I had to have mastered algebra to even take those Calc classes I still retain a pretty good working ability of basic algebra. Therefore if we want people to have just the basic math they need to understand simple percentages or statistics in the news we should make sure they learn algebra.
And beyond that I think we should aspire to have everyone in the country comfortable with basic math skills. When I see grown, professional adults pull out a tip card to figure out how much 15% of their bill is I’m embarrassed for them. Yet people unselfconsciously joke “Oh I just can’t do math.” We should no more accept that as a standard than if we had to tell them what’s on the menu. “Oh I just can’t read.”
I had a multi-decade career teaching middle and high school math. I’d say your retention theory is very good, only I’d put it at 2 years behind the last math course taken, rather than one. But I’m quibbling…you’ve got exactly the right idea!
CAM-WA thank you for the validation via larger sample size. Your two year figure might be right as well. I like to THINK I still know my high school algebra, but I don’t doubt if I were actually tested I might score a grade or two lower than I suspect.
Math is taught by people who can do math and they proceed at about twice, or even 3x, the rate at which the average person could profit from it.
If the courses were slowed down by that much a far greater percentage of people would retain far more of it and they wouldn't be missing out on anything they wouldn't have learned in any event.
And the exclusive focus on math as the singular priority reduces every other interest to trivia so students who have capacity for those areas feel discouraged and marginalized.
I tend to go with Heinlein's opinion on this.
If you cannot learn calculus you are not a human being. You are a house broken monkey.
I think the Heinlein quote you’re looking for is “Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.“
I don’t think Lazarus Long was implying everyone should know calculus or higher level math, though. But I do think basic numeracy is as important as basic literacy. One need not read Joyce or Faulkner to be literate.
Ah, this explains much about how you present yourself online in a "Well, there's your problem" sort of way.
You can guess my reaction by my commenter name, right?
I won't bother responding to your main point, since the people who replied before me have done an excellent job already. But as to the subsidiary points:
> The small percentage who are actually good at it seem incapable of understanding this.
I'm quite capable of understanding the point. I just think it's incorrect.
> Focusing on math as the measure of success in learning...
I don't think I've ever encountered a situation in which math was considered the only measure of success in learning, or even the most important one. Heck, math classes only accounted for about a third of my GPA in college.
Usually starting in 8th or 9th grade, foreign language and math courses effectively sort students into those who are tracked for competitive colleges and those who are not. Any savvy parent knows this, but many parents arent' savvy. Mine, for instance, long ago, failed to insist that I be given the chance to take challenging courses, so I took only one honors course, despite earning among the top five SAT scores in my school. School administrators saw me as an outsider and potential troublemaker. My 8th grade English teacher advocated for me to take 9th grade honors English, which I did, much to her colleague's consternation. I was smart, coult think and read a lot, but I was not always very compliant. Tracking is as much about social control as anything else, I think.
THIS. You really need good math instruction leading up to the pivotal 8th grade algebra or not question. I was pretty good at math but had a rough stretch when a bad teacher simply read from the textbook and my parents had me switch schools to a more rigorous school but curiously one that tracked students yet no 8th grade algebra and it was of a more "traditionalist bent" girls were to be teachers or nuns UGH. I too was pigeonholed yet my test scores spoke otherwise so it was funny when the nun/principal handing out the first quarter report cards saw mind and admitted without admitting she had me all wrong.
The tony prep-school I went to HS for was not a good fit for me, too much emphasis on stupid stuff and I was going to locked out of honors/AP courses due to my English grades which were actually only due to my spelling/handwriting struggles hahaha. I really do think not having strong math instruction and better support for what I now see as form of dyslexia, I would have been able to take calculus in HS and be better off when faced with the weed out math/science classes I attempted in college.
How many kids are not reaching their full potential? Isn't that the 64,000 question.
Actual teacher here... right now American public education can't figure out whether kids are the same or different. That's at the center of a lot of weirdness, including this issue. "Choice" is a big deal, but you also can't say, "Actually, this was not the right choice" once a student is in a given school, program, track, etc.
This is both because of concerns about discrimination, racism, etc., but also to a larger extent than usually realized because accountability measures comparing schools and programs exert a pull toward not moving students around in the interest in fair comparability between programs (not that it is fair anyhow).
The bottom line is that you cannot run a good educational system in a low-trust environment, and that's what we've got.
I used to do GED classes, and the math test included Algebra I. I found that the usual Math texts seemed to be written by Math teachers for Math teachers. I was not a Math teacher, and I found myself translating the lessons into English.
I myself in middle school had the devil's own time until I comprehended that x was another way to say "a number I don't know", and so on. But most Math instruction then dived right to "x - 6 is 10. What is x?" without any kind of introduction to the practical meaning of the thing.
Is that what it's like now? Do the "slow" ones get the time to understand the concept? Are they still teaching 'slope of a line'? Has anyone ever used that in real life?
"Are they still teaching 'slope of a line'? Has anyone ever used that in real life?"
"Slope of a line" is the rate of change. That's a rather important concept, so I hope they are still teaching it.
Honestly, watching all the innumerate idiocy about the "crisis" at the border ("Oh noes--*thousands* of people! However will the US, with its 330+ *million* residents and $23 *trillion* economy confront this crisis!") should give people reason to reject the "der, nobody uses math in real life" argument for sidelining math education in high/middle school.
That's what Algebra I is supposed to tell you.
Honestly, kids should be taught this super-early.
Slope of the line? Number go up. Duh, of course we use it all the time.
As an attorney I’ve never once in my professional life needed to figure the slope of a line. Nevertheless I still remember y=mx+b from over 40 years ago. If I ever DO need to I’m ready!
Eighth grade is too late. I have come to believe that the teaching of math in the early years tends to result in a kid learning that he is either good at math or not. Those who self identify in the "not" group will stop even trying to comprehend concepts beyond add/subtract, multiply/divide and maybe fractions. Instead of trying to start making future mathematicians in elementary school wouldn't it make more sense to teach practical skills like learning to use simple spreadsheets? Today we have tech to do the computations. Teach kids simple and useful ways to use it, and they won't spend the rest of their lives telling themselves they are "not good at math" whenever confronted with a few numbers.
The problem is that you're saying it's 'mathematicians' when every profession in the modern world uses algebra. Carpenters use it to calculate supplies and orders.
Retail clerks use it when getting stuff for customers' orders. Doctors use it, nurses use it, programmers use it. And of course scientists use it.
You should use it when cooking or shopping.
Shopping is a good example. It is pathetic how many adults have no idea how to calculate the price per ounce of a bottle of ketchup. If you start from the false premise that you are bad at math you won't even try.
A point I was trying to make is that too many kids get left behind on learning some important advanced math concepts for use later in life because they stumble in the early years and quit trying.
We teach math very badly in early grades. The emphasis is on just giving students arithmetic problems and various tricks for how to solve them. The underlying theory of what is going on when you perform arithmetic, which includes set theory, combinatorics, and a number of other concepts get ignored.
This has two deleterious effects. One is that the students don't really understand what they are doing, so, as they advance to other mathematical subjects, they don't grasp the fundamentals of the subject and get easily confused. The second is that this approach makes math nothing but rote rule following and sucks all of the interesting parts out of it. Of course kids hate math, because we're determined to teach it wrong.
We teach math very badly in elementary school because the people we ask to teach it are, overwhelmingly, people who are afraid of math and think of themselves as very bad at it.
Contrast that with the people we ask to teach reading. Ever met an elementary school teacher who didn’t just love children’s literature? I have not.
You obviously do not have kids.
You do not teach a 5 year old set theory and combinatorics. You teach him basic addition.
And if you want to teach them well, then you use teaching methods that slip in the underlying theories along the way. You don't have to do so explicitly. There are books out there that explain how to do this.
Unless, of course, you want kids to be confused by and hate math. In which case, we'll use your approach.
Shrug.... worked well for me, worked well for my kids.
You start with coins or marbles or something. They figure out pretty quickly that 5 + 7 = 12 and such.
Then you get them used to symbolic math using single digit numbers.
Then comes the exciting thing - adding two digit numbers and learning to carry!
Then the magic... the same rules work for 3, 4, and even 10 digit numbers!
In a pretty short time you have a kid who demands to know when it stops working and gets very excited when you tell him "It NEVER stops working even if the number of digits is more than you can count!"
Subtraction, multiplication, etc. all work similarly... with no no discussion of sets or combinatorics. My kids learned combinatorics a few years ago... using the tools of arithmetic. I am damned if I see how you can teach it any other way without totally confusing them.
Does anyone here use in real life the Shakespeare they read in school? European history? PE? French?
The purpose of education isn't primarily to teach you useful things, except for one: HOW to learn things, ideally whatever one might need to learn in the decades after you leave school.
𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭? 𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺? 𝘗𝘌? 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘩?
I certainly do.
The Shakespeare is used in conversation occasionally. It is something that validates me to those I work with and do business with as an educated and cultured person that they want to be associated with. This is a common culture that is shared not just by the US and UK but also by Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Pakistan, much of the Arab world, etc. If you talk with an educated Saudi you will find that he is just as well read in English classics as an educated American.
The European history gives me knowledge about the places I visit in Europe. If you do not have a reasonable overview of that history, most Europeans will view you as at best an ignorant American - someone to be tolerated for his money to the extent necessary.
PE didn't actually teach me anything beyond how to do a proper push up. But I am in my 50s and I still run and bike and do pushups. I don't want to be a fat lazy slob.
French is what gave me the ability to pick up Spanish in a few months when I started doing projects in Latin America. Because of my high school French I can battle my way through Spanish and Portuguese business documents despite never having had any formal study in either language. In general, I believe learning languages helps you understand other cultures. "What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Two languages? Bilingual. One language? American." Do you really want to be that kind of American?
It depends on the play. I don’t often think about Taming of the Shrew but Julius Caesar comes up all the time when I think about politics. Every political speech writer should know the different ways Brutus and Anthony addressed and excited the crowd, and why they ultimately sided with Anthony.
And every time someone is mistakenly singled out for the crimes of another (think Sikh men in turbans being attacked after 9/11) I quote the scene of the mob killing Cina the poet tho he was not Cina the conspirator.
I often think I could explain 80% of modern politics simply with references to Julius Caesar, Monty Python, and Star Trek.
Yes, all the time. Assuming you want to understand cultural references throughout your life and at least appear educated.
I use my education to sprinkle in comparisons and references that get folk's attention, it's a running gag on my team that I'm the endless fount of "useless" information. European History? I'm always joking that my boss is a Benevolent Despot and cringe when breifings and news clippings make reference of DOD agencies outside the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force are called the Fourth Estate, the Fourth Estate is media!!!!
My grandfather did a lot of finish carpentry. He used quite a bit of algebra and geometry to figure out what he was doing.
I think a big difference is in how much math parents do with their kids when they are very young. College-educated and math-loving people often play a lot of informal math games with their kids, just like they play rhyming games or read lots of books. My mother liked to look at home plans with me as a kid and critique them. I ended up being really good at spacial relations. Maybe it's part genetics, but I would bet it's largely about practice.
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
I forgot all about that story.
I always thought our species success would come about because of diversity, not just genetic diversity but diversity of POV that would allow us to succeed in nearly every situation.
I like leaders who survey points of view before making decisions, allowing, in essence, the maximum understanding of the "lay of the land" before making a decision..
I attended a Calculus class in 8th grade, with a teacher, a person who ran the steam powered train around Disneyland on weekends. Our group included a person accepted at CalTech, attended the last five days of his first semester with a 4.2 GPA, was offered a full ride and went into a Latin American country where he was killed defending nuns by orders from Oliver North (I never knew him to be "religious").
To deny our kids tools ASAP like Algebra is pathetic. It is just another way to solve problems, by yourself, instead of paying a third party to do it for you.
This, of course, is a slander of Oliver North.
I challenge you to document the incident you describe and any connection between Oliver North and that incident.
Oliver North is what is known as a libel proof plaintiff. He was a total scum bag and I wouldn’t doubt any accusation against him.
Ah... so Oliver North goes into your bedroom window nightly and the two of you giggle over child porn movies.
It's an accusation against North, and you will not doubt it, correct?
Ollie North is a very weird hill to die on, MF. The man was a jerk and a gun runner. Which is bad enough, but he also did so with the stolen imprimatur of the US Government.
So he's a bizarre person for you to leap to the defense of against an anonymous internet commentor, MF.
Every high official in the Reagan administration has the nun's blood on their hands. Oliver North as jambo notes is libel proof - he was corrupt as F, he lived on a Great Falls estate yet wasn't making a Great Falls estate salary at the time and spending big bucks to rehab the estate. His excuses as to where he go the money to afford his lifestyle fell flat. I remember this well as my mom was the office manager for a non-profit in Fairfax County and one of the co-workers/volunteers was Oliver North's neighbor, the neighbor didn't need to work for a living but was a believer in the mission of the non-profit. So we knew where North lived at the time and no way no how could he afford it on his government salary and no evidence whatsoever of any legit sources of other family income.
Focusing so much on math in schools also avoids a lot of conflict because it's almost impossible to politicize.
Oh, how naïve you are! Math pedagogy has been politicized for decades. Just ask anyone who teaches elementary or middle school math.
In what way?
See https://theconversation.com/yes-mathematics-can-be-decolonised-heres-how-to-begin-65963
While everyone is lamenting the state and standards of mathematics instruction, I will lament the standards of classical education, because it was not until the 30th comment that anyone mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA
That’s funny. I clearly learned new math as his description of how it used to be done made no sense to me. Tho rewatching it I mostly figured out what they were doing in the before times. The new math seems much more logical.
Curriculum changes hardly seem like the issue. This is rough reasoning.