Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? | Hacker News Reader

Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School?

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13 pointshintymad7 comments

> "While SFUSD insists that its new approach does not compromise the rigor of its education, but ensures that all students enter high school with the same mathematical foundation, many parents see the district’s new standards as a dumbing down of the curriculum."

So to ensure equality is to lower the bar? Isn't this going to create more inequality? We know that economically-challenged families would not, statistically speaking, be able to afford tutoring, so they depend even more on public school teachers to teach their kids. Yet the answer of the SFUSD was to push students less in school. Guess who will eventually suffer?

I find it insulting and outrageous.

Is it really a bad thing to not know algebra at the 8th grade?

I understand what you are saying, but I cannot reach the same conclusion as you that they are lowering the bar.

Even if at the moment a lot of people are exposed to algebra at a very young age, a very few people understand the maths behind, they use it as a set of rules to apply, which is very far away from how maths works..and then, leads to a bad use/generalization in unknown problem.

I didn't follow precisely the common core thing, but if I remember correctly, the idea behind is to teach to the child's to 'think' instead of having a rule based system. Ultimately leading to understanding algebra better and faster at a later stage, when it becomes only a corollary to one's thought.

When you can think more deeply and more abstractly at a young age, this may lead to better thoughts power, better logic, and ultimately better skills at math and in life. At least, I think this is the true idea behind the core, please if there is an expert on math education here correct me if I'm mistaken.

Of course, this is often difficult to accept for adults, as we want our child's to have 'at least' the same education of ourselves. But it is not obvious that the way we larned math, is a good way. If it is: why so many people do not like/understand maths? Isn't it a good thing to try newer teaching methods that we think are better?

I may be doing a big shortcut here: but from what I remember the core was worked out by very capable mathematicians in both mathematics and education and they were inspired by Korean/Japanese math systems that encourage the child's to think. If someone has references to this I would be interested as well :)

> Is it really a bad thing to not know algebra at the 8th grade?

Knowing it is a better thing

I agree. I did not do well in algebra in 7th grade. I went on to be a math major in college and further graduate math study. There's plenty of time in high school to learn more abstract mathematics.

The left has abandoned the pursuit of equality (equality of opportunity) for the pursuit of equity (equality of outcome), but now the left is changing the definition of "equality" to mean the definition of equity. It's an Orwellian game of doublespeak and they're good at it.

Where have I seen this before? No algebra in 8th grade, try to get the students to develop an intuition for math...ah, yes, I remember: my own 8th grade, in 1967. It was called The New Math, and we got a smattering of set theory (enough to distinguish intersection from union), trivial geometry (nothing about axioms and theorems, afair), and number base systems. Ostensibly this was to make us think about the basics of math; afair, it did nothing of the sort.

My Junior High went the New Math route, but some of the other Junior High schools that fed into the same High School did not. The result was that I, and all the other freshmen from my school, were a year behind the freshmen from these other schools. (The New Math helped us not at all.)

I did well enough in math over the next few years that one of the High School's math teachers persuaded me to take Algebra II and Trig both in my junior year (everyone else who was in to math took them in sequential years). That allowed me to take calculus in my senior year, along with a dozen or so students from the Junior Highs that had not dabbled in New Math. The rest of the students from my Junior High were not so lucky.

The excuse that not teaching algebra in 8th grade "ensures that all students enter high school with the same mathematical foundation" sounds like something someone who felt threatened by math must have come up with.

BTW, I did not become a mathematician, but it did prepare me for other STEM disciplines. Geometry in particular was a revelation in a way of thinking that for me bled over into many other disciplines.

SFUSD's defense: http://www.sfusdmath.org/secondary-course-sequence.html

It basically says that they are including more stuff in 8th grade curriculum so Algebra 1 gets pushed out to 9th grade.

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