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Comment by bstockton | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused, what is the proposed framework supposed to fix, or how is it better? Is the goal really to reduce achievement gaps by limiting the advancement of top students? Surely, that can't be the goal...that's crazy. Furthermore, that has the possibility to exacerbate the problem by forcing advanced students to augment their math education in the private sector, something only available to wealthier families.

Also, the shifted emphasis on data science stuff is a joke. The very courses they're talking about minimizing are the building blocks of data science and there's no shortcut.

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Not sure, from other comments I gather the goal is to de-emphasize the idea that you need to be gifted to be good at math, which studies apparently have shown that this idea tend to discourage other students, often girls or racially disadvantaged boys, which do have the ability to succeed at math, to pursue math or be interested in it.

I don't think anything is changing for truly gifted students, they should still have the ability to be fast-tracked or options to take more advanced topics. It seems more that it's about focusing on students who don't see themselves as gifted or who aren't yet showing signs of it.

This is incorrect. Their explicit goal is to remove fast tracking and options to take more advanced topics for gifted students. The vision is for uniformly paced classes for all same-aged students.

Hum, I don't know, this is what their FAQ says:

> Does the draft Mathematics Framework eliminate middle school mathematics acceleration programs? No. The draft Mathematics Framework does not eliminate middle school mathematics acceleration programs (including programs that offer Integrated Math 1 or Algebra 1 courses to grade eight students). The draft Mathematics Framework emphasizes the importance of following the sequenced progression of topics laid out in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) and considers the latest research on the impact of skipping grades or undermining the sequences progression. Additionally, the CA CCSSM are significantly more rigorous than those from previous grade eight content standards. They address the foundations of algebra and geometry by including content that was previously part of the Algebra I course, including but not limited to a more in-depth study of linear relationships and equations, a more formal treatment of functions, and the exploration of irrational numbers.

>I'm confused, what is the proposed framework supposed to fix, or how is it better? Is the goal really to reduce achievement gaps by limiting the advancement of top students?

Yes, that is the explicitly stated goal. Unfortunately a large number of ideologues believe that all people have the same inherent intelligence, and that disparities in outcome among children are due solely to racism and other forms of discrimination. That's the whole thrust of "equity". "Equity" means equal outcomes. It's proven too difficult for these people to bring up the performance of low achieving students, so they are left to bring down the performance of high achieving students and eliminate all objective metrics (like standardized testing) that can be used to assess student learning.

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