Ontario Court Declares the Ontario Math Proficiency Test Unconstitutional | Hacker News Reader

Ontario Court Declares the Ontario Math Proficiency Test Unconstitutional

otffeo.on.ca

138 pointsMelchizedek342 comments

Leonid Sirota a Canadian law professor at the University of Auckland, has a good dissection of the decision: https://doubleaspect.blog/2021/12/20/the-law-of-bonkerstown/

From a Canadian legal perspective, the notion that a test could be discriminatory and so unconstitutional is not note-worthy in itself. It all follows standard case law there. The legally interesting bit, is the card seemingly dropped in the shuffling, where the court recommends a less intrusive alternative policy that was also considered by the government:

> There is a plethora of evidence in the record highlighting the disproportionate impacts of standardized testing based on race … In contrast, there is no evidence to suggest that these negative diversity impacts would exist in the context of a mandatory math course …

Of course, no evidence exists because no one has looked for it yet. This reliance on single-example small studies to suggest possible less intrusive remedies is probably a path to much legal madness. This will likely be appealed. Politically this is a bit heated as both Quebec and Ontario's governments have recently rubbed up against the limits of the Charter in different areas.

> In contrast, there is no evidence to suggest that these negative diversity impacts would exist in the context of a mandatory math course (i.e. that racialized teacher candidates might disproportionately fail these math courses), and we do not think such an inference can be made on the basis of logic or common sense.

Uh... what? Performance outcomes differ between racial groups in mandatory classes all the time. If the argument really is that "disproportionate impact" in classroom outcomes is enough to render a policy unconstitutional, then your only option is not to measure outcomes at all, because every educational measure shows differences between races.

I edited the quote above to contain the court's entire statement from the finding, because it's even more damning and removes the possibility of a less absurd reading. Apparently the justices know absolutely nothing about education and race because they don't know that "racialized teacher candidates might disproportionately fail these math courses" is exactly what we should expect, because that's exactly what we find in every other educational context.

When a court says that there is no evidence for something, they mean that no evidence was presented to them by the plaintiff (or defendant). It is not the job of the court to be an expert on every subject, it is the job of the plaintiff to present whatever evidence is necessary to support their case. The role of the judge is to weigh the evidence presented to them instead of seeking out evidence of their own to support or refute a claim.

It is a matter of ethics that the decision of a judge is based on evidence presented on the record in open court, and that is available to all the parties.

You are right, but judge should make use of common sense. The quote is explicitly "we do not think such an inference can be made on the basis of logic or common sense", which is completely ridiculous.

Edit: In other words, is this judge willing to bet? If not why not?

You're ignoring the second half of the quote:

> > In contrast, there is no evidence to suggest that these negative diversity impacts would exist in the context of a mandatory math course (i.e. that racialized teacher candidates might disproportionately fail these math courses), and we do not think such an inference can be made on the basis of logic or common sense.

I'm not ignoring it, you can not deduce an empirical phenomenon on the basis of logic. Whether racialized teachers disproportionately fail these math courses is an empirical finding that must be presented as evidence, not a logical conclusion that one can deduce.

You can deduce empirical phenomenon from common sense, but the idea that it would be remotely appropriate or responsible for a judge to rule on a matter involving the relationship between race, standardized testing, and the ability to teach on the basis of common sense is patently absurd. A judge is not some random commenter arguing on the Internet their personal biases with nothing at stake; a judge is a highly trained professional who is required by long standing ethical standards to be very careful about their decision making.

> you can not deduce an empirical phenomenon on the basis of logic.

Fish are unable fly. Let us set up a flight training course comprised of all different sorts of birds and fish. The ability to fly is required to pass the course. We may logically conclude that the fish would disproportionately fail this course.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The judge said that they think its reasonable to expect teachers could pass a math training course, regardless of race. Do you disagree?

Your comment is the epitome of what makes discussing nuanced legal issues an absolute farce on this site.

Is a judge crossing ethical boundaries when they have their clerks research into technical, medical, historical, policy and scientific matters, or even case law from another nation? I believe this happens all the time.

Aren't judges also free to consider or disregard information from friends of the court?

A judge crosses ethnical boundaries when they research questions of fact, they are not crossing ethical boundaries when they research questions of law. The scope of a law clerk's research is restricted to legal questions such as legislative matters, case law (as you point out), etc... It would not only be crossing ethical boundaries for a clerk to research a scientific finding and use that finding to advocate for or against a position, a judgement that is made on the basis of independent research is grounds for reversal by an appellate court. Here are some additional sources you can review on this matter:

An article from an official provincial court's website about whether judges can use their own subject matter knowledge to make a decision:

https://www.provincialcourt.bc.ca/enews/enews-16-02-2016

The ABA's position on the issue, although it focuses mostly on using the Internet for research, it also touches on researching subject matter facts more generally:

https://www.abajournal.com/images/main_images/FO_478_FINAL_1...

A much more formal and comprehensive treatment of the subject, that goes into details about the difference between researching questions of law vs. questions of fact:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_201

Appellate court reversing a trial court's decision over the judge's independent research, even when that research was correct/valid:

https://www.wiggin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/36113_ri20...

"The Divisional Court found that the Math Proficiency Test had an adverse impact on entry to the teaching profession for racialized teacher candidates and other reasonable alternatives should have been implemented."

Ontario.

Also Ontario:

"Haha teachers of color too dumb to pass a simple math test"

The real question here is: who's going to suffer from subpar teachers?

Rich people who can run away from bad schools (through private schools or private mentoring or any other means) or poor students?

It is a real question and not a factor for the government’s involvement.

Yes, the parallel private system will attract the people that can access it. If that is money based then the private system can attract better teaching talent and screen them however they want.

Not sure what answer you wanted to read. Its not a factor for the state.

The state is the number one influencer of the quality of the schooling systems; one of the measures is to hire qualified teachers, for example by testing them as part of the selection process. But any testing that makes someone fail is unconstitutional, it seems, so they should hire anyone with no criteria.

Good luck to them.

This is exactly the point of the ruling. If education and good jobs are distributed based on class, then rich people can ensure that their kids get them. A meritocracy is risky to the people at the top (like the judges on the Divisional Court) because they could lose their slot to smart poor people. Of course they will say they are doing it to help poor and disadvantaged people to give themselves moral cover.

Practice test: https://mathproficiencytest.ca/#/en/sample-questions-pre

It’s worth noting that this practice test was not available at the time the requirement was put in place (P18 of the judgement). While teachers that were raised in Ontario would be somewhat familiar with the grades 1-9 math curriculum, teachers not from the region would be more or less going in blind in terms of what content to expect. This is one factor that affected the judgement.

That's bad (tests definitely should publish practice tests), but for god's sake, it's grade math curriculum. It should be passable without any practice.

Having taken a look at those sample questions, would you really want a teacher who cannot complete them without explicitly preparing for them to be teaching your children?

They're not particularly complicated and I'd expect not only every teacher to able to complete them, but every student as well. This continuous dumbing down standards in the interests of equality of outcome does not end well for anybody.

The only thing that makes sense about lowering standards rather than increasing efforts to help people meet those standards is this is a consequence of increasing labor prices, and an attempt to keep expenses lower by not having to compete for well qualified teaching candidates.

End result will be further stratification of society via price segmentation where well resourced members of society can afford to purchase better quality education. This already happens, but these measures will help it become even more stratified across more of the population.

Honestly, I’m fine with my kid’s dance or history or whatever teacher not being able to pass that seeing as how the test was given blind and in a high-pressure environment.

The judgement seems pretty clear that the province was not able to demonstrate that teacher math scores produce significantly better student scores - any correlation was weak at best. It appears that pedagogy skills are far more important than being able to ace a standardized test. If there had been a demonstration otherwise my option would be different.

To be clear, teachers who teach subject X should know enough to teach it (once given sufficient prep time), but I don’t care if they know subject Y, or if they lock up when given a standardized test.

Maybe I’m just a bit more sympathetic than normal here since I always did poorly on big high-pressure math tests (but could do non-test-based content with flying colors).

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, teachers in Ontario (and most places, I imagine) do not specialize in a subject until high school or so. So most teachers needs to be able to teach every subject.

This is besides the point though, in my opinion. Any teacher being unable to do basic arithmetic is extremely alarming. It calls into question their entire credentials as a teacher. Anyone who graduated high school, let alone college should be able to do arithmetic.

This isn't a case of teacher in subject X has some knowledge gaps about subject Y. This is a case of a teacher missing basic adult competencies.

After looking at a handful of questions, I'd want a teacher who couldn't initially pass this test to be trained in math at this level first, but not disqualified from teaching. Teach them what they need that they're missing.

I'd want them to have the opportunity to be trained in it if they want, but the test isn't the problem here. This is basic math.

If they can’t do basic grade school math, it’s probably safe to assume their entire education is extremely limited and they’re functionally illiterate. Like can’t balance their check book illiterate. So I wouldn’t expect them to have the rounded peripheral knowledge needed for a top tier education. Why would we want people with such poor educations teaching children?

You're confusing literacy with numeracy. To give you a counter-example to what you're saying, my son reads above grade level, but has math anxiety, and would struggle with some of the questions that mixed percents and fractions, especially on a timed test. If he decides he wants to teach, he'll be great at it, but he'll need to level up in math skill and get more comfortable with juggling numbers in his head.

Your comment about wanting better-educated people to teach is legit. But we have, in America at least, run-down areas with crappy primary schools. Some of those kids will feel a calling to teach. What should we do about that? Find resources to help them get to where they need to be, or tell them they're too dumb?

If they've finished college and plan on going into education and can't mix fractions and percents, then it has nothing to do with their primary school math scores.

Which is actually a much larger question - how are teachers graduating from university without being able to do 5th grade math?

https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/mt/UserFiles/File/Master_of_Tea...

So to become a teacher you have to complete either 36 or 72 hours of math education over a single 6 month period, even teaching math in grade 12. That's it. That's less than 2 hours of math per week over 6 months.

More scary is that it DOESN'T mention exams. There seems to be no need to actually remember anything. You have to complete "practicum" which seems to be 2 months of helping out a teacher in a classroom, and "more" in the second year.

Any adult should be able to go in blind and ace this test. Why do people set the bar so low

Why are these low bars being lowered even further, every single passing year? That should be the next question one asks themselves...

I would love to live in that world.

Wait till you see the test that is asked of Police officers. There's a joke about that one goes something like this:

The only question is "how much is 2+2 ?". Any answer between -3 and 22 except 4 is considered correct.

There is a huge advantage in a lot of the questions in knowing shortcuts and simplifying the questions. Someone with a strong math background is going to find this a lot easier better than someone who struggles with math.

Sounds like the test measures proficiency in math then. A math proficiency test if you will.

Maybe a math competency test is more appropriate.

For a test called "Math proficiency test" that sounds about right.

"People who are good at math will be good at this math test."

What grade is this supposed to be for?

This is for teachers. Unbelievable, I know.

I have dyscalculia to the nth, I couldn't complete this test, I closed it after the first question. Although I wouldn't want to teach math, I'm perfectly well qualified to teach art.

How would you teach perspective?

Is geometry considered pure math? Funny you should ask, I was I thinking about that, I guess I'd just teach it via leading lines, and maybe look at the required geography prior to the class. Although I have a degree in art and I've never considered perspective in the context of geometric math, and I'm not sure it would be required to teach primary school art (or high school for that matter?)

Geometry is indeed math, and understanding perspective is impossible without it.

> dyscalculia to the nth

I see what you did there

How did you manage to make it through school? This is pretty basic stuff.

In Scotland in the 90s, after a few years, they just put me in a class with kids with down syndrome when everyone else was in Math and tried to teach me 1:1, and then when I moved to Canada I had 2 more years of High School and they just didn't make me take math because there was no way I'd manage it and there was no point in stopping me graduating because of it so I was given special consideration as someone with sever and complex special needs.

A little off-topic, but DeviantArt has been a hugely important part of my kids' lives. It's helped make them the artists that they are. Thank you for whatever role you had in building it.

Aww, thank you for saying that. I'm really happy to hear! I was one of the original community directions when a few of us were trying to get dA off the ground. I'm pretty sure there are actually a number of the original dA staffers around HN.

The issue is that elementary school teachers in Ontario are required to teach all subjects. We don't have subject-specialized teachers such as art teachers in elementary school.

Should this test preclude me from teaching grade school in Ontario? Are we not all weaker in some areas than others? My mother, Ms. Findlay, taught elementary school in Whitby for years, she's really great at maths, but she couldn't draw a stick figure or build something out of lego if her life depended on it, heck she can't drive stick shift. Unfortunately for me, dyslexia and dyscalcila are hereditary through the father line, so much like myself, my father can't spell or add two numbers together for jack, thankfully neither of us have had to work in areas that you'd notice, but I still think we could both teach elementary school just fine.

> Should this test preclude me from teaching grade school in Ontario?

Yes. If you cannot do basic arithmetic, you should not be responsible for teaching math to children.

> Ms. Findlay, taught elementary school in Whitby for years, she's really great at maths, but she couldn't draw a stick figure or build something out of lego if her life depended on it, heck she can't drive stick shift.

I don't understand what you are talking about. Elementary school teachers are responsible for teaching math, not teaching kids how to drive stick.

I'm sorry about your condition. It honestly sounds like hell.

I can't say I know much about how the education system works, I was under the impression grade school teachers are much more focused on soft skills and things like arts and crafts than say, high school teachers who teach harder skills. My point on mum was she isn't very creative or coordinated, and I would have thought creativity is more important in the elementary years, again i don't know much about how pedagogy works so I may very well be mistaken.

It depends on what you mean by grade school, I suppose. In the US and Canada, kids attend first grade at around 6 years old. From this age, they should be learning how to read, write, and do addition. By third grade or so, they are learning multiplication. Softer skills is definitely part of school, but learning to read and write and do math is like the fundamental thing you send kids to school for.

I would find it disturbing if a teacher assigns tests and homework for their students with some expectation of proficiency which outmatches their own.

In a field test, 19% of them failed the test (or, as they'd put it: "around 1 in 12" :) ).

> The EQAO led a field test between February 18 and March 7, 2020 to monitor, assess, and refine the implementation of the MPT before it was launched. A total of 4,065 applicants participated in the field test, with 81 percent successfully completing the MPT. The field test allowed the EQAO to test MPT items with the applicant population and collect data to establish items as valid and defensible.

IMO, if you fail this test, you have no business holding a teaching certificate that would allow you to teach math. It seems like the issue is that teaching certificates in that area do not adequately distinguish teachers who are certified to teach math up to 6th grade (where a general certificate is all that's required). Fixing that would seem to (me at least to) allow the testing to continue to be qualified to teach math. Fail the math competency test and you can teach other subjects. (That might not be ideal, but it's way better than having teachers who aren't competent in math teaching math.)

When I was a child in Ontario in the 1980s we had a single teacher for each class that taught all subjects except French, so (except for the French teacher) there weren't really any non-Math teachers. I imagine that things have changed a little, but probably not enough to except the preponderance of elementary teachers from being expected to be competent math teachers.

The problem is that in Ontario teachers are not differentiated until around high school, meaning a teacher has to be responsible for teaching up to that level in a general, well-rounded way.

I sure wouldn't want a teacher who has fewer requirements in math proficiency than the very students they're teaching. Imagine students receiving harder math tests than what a teacher would be comfortable with.

I understand it’s simple, especially the addition questions. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had to do long division. Without knowing some of the questions on this test beforehand, I’m confident I would be toast.

But you're not a teacher, right? Is this test not testing something that a teacher kind of sort of ought to know well enough to... teach?

I suspect if you know you were writing such a test you could have someone refresh your basic long division in relatively short time.

The two division questions in the section where you didn’t have a calculator didn’t require you to complete the division. You could examine the answers and get easily to the answer in one case and get to the answer or a 50/50 shot in the other case with basic knowledge of math, even if you forgot the long division mechanics.

There are 4 multiple choice answers. The questions were pretty simple to answer without even doing the math properly. They seem to be more "are you even aware of how to do this" than "here's a question that might present some difficulty".

A little less than 1 in 10 teachers failed this test when they tried ...

And frankly the quality of teachers isn't much better elsewhere.

Oh my.

Thanks for the link. I went through the 5 intro sample questions and clicked on all 45 questions in the next section. It looks like basic math grade-school curriculum such as fractions, percentages, arithmetic, etc.

I didn't see any high-school subjects like trigonometry, or algebra like completing the square to solve a quadratic equation, or adding matrices.

It's definitely not like the challenging college tests (SAT/GMAT/GRE).

The first 5 questions I saw were:

  What is the value of
  7.05+5+1.5+2.05+4.57.05+5+1.5+2.05+4.5  ?

  What is
  17.86÷0.19  ?

  What is the sum of the following set of four numbers?
  0.02, 0.6, 0.735, 0.00050.02, 0.6, 0.735, 0.0005

  What number is represented by this expanded form?
  (3×1000000)+(2×10000)+(7×1000)+(9×100)+(6×10)+(8×1)

  What is
  6905÷34  ?

Also, since these are multiple choice, they're all really easy to solve in ways that they wouldn't be if you had to fill in a blank.

Yeah, I think they're testing if someone will recognize that division by 0.19 is approximately equal to multiplication by 5 and ballpark the answer.

The section after that (the pedagogy section) is different though, and was explicitly called out in the ruling as part of the problem:

Question 1: "Based on Learning For All, which is a shared goal or strategy of differentiated instruction and Universal Design for Learning? A) To use the same textbooks B) To use only whole-class instruction C) To meet different needs of the students in a class D) To meet the requirements for curriculum expectations"

Question 6 (just clicking through randomly): "Assessment that occurs before a period of learning to assess a student's readiness for learning and learning preferences would be considered which of the following? A) assessment of learning B) assessment as learning C) assessment for learning D) assessment of learning skills"

Question 15: "As outlined in Growing Success, how does Ontario’s criterion-referenced assessment and evaluation approach require teachers to assess and evaluate students’ work? A) by ranking student performance B) by comparing work done by other students C) by referencing performance standards developed by teachers for their own classrooms D) by referencing the established criteria for four levels of achievement that are standard across the province"

It sounds like they need to read a few books and remember concepts from them - something they'd expect from elementary and high school students.

Maybe, but is it really something that should be in a math proficency test?

Especially since it seems to be the part that trips up the French speaking group.

the test and source material should be available in french - I assume it already is. That part actually seems to be in there to make it so those who do poorly in the math have some reading they can do to boost their marks.

> That part actually seems to be in there to make it so those who do poorly in the math have some reading they can do to boost their marks.

It's marked separately, so this doesn't happen: https://mathproficiencytest.ca/#/en/applicant/learn/results:...

"Applicants are required to obtain a 70% or greater on each of the components of the test, in the same attempt, to be successful on the MPT."

Not that I think that's particularly relevant to the lawsuit. If the component is discriminatory, it seems like it's discriminatory whether it serves as a filter on it's own, or it acts as a way to "boost your marks" for the other filter. Same if it's not discriminatory.

> Maybe, but is it really something that should be in a math proficency test?

It's not a math proficiency test, it's a math TEACHER proficiency test. I.e. it involves understanding protocols and not just understanding math. That stuff is part of teacher training so of course test takers should be prepared to be asked about it. It should probably also include basic first aid, a little bit of child psychology, and (in the US) crowd control and self-defense.

We can take an educated guess :

1) C 6) D 15) D

These are really dumb and tedious. However, I would not trust a teacher who can’t solve these

...I passed this test without knowing any of the reading materials for section 3 (just by guessing what seemed reasonable). This was a very basic elementary school math test.

Section 1 - 5/5 Section 2 - 44/45 Section 3 - 16/21

~91%

If you can't prepare for and pass this test you really shouldn't be teaching anyone anything.

> Section 1 - 5/5 Section 2 - 44/45 Section 3 - 16/21

Thank you for sharing your score.

Mine (practice test 1, English) was

Section 1 - 5/5 Section 2 - 43/45 Section 3 - 13/21. These are the questions I got incorrect

Section 2: questions 12, 33 (I know I don't have any excuse as a math major in college).

Section 3: questions: 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21.

When I went into this test, I thought this was for students and was trying to figure out which grade students would take this test. There were multiple questions which made me do a double take because I thought "surely this must be a trick question I am missing the point of".

> If you can't prepare for and pass this test you really shouldn't be teaching anyone anything.

13/21 is 61% which is failing score. I think section three of the test should be removed.

But this is without any studying or pedagogical training. You did pretty well and so did the commentator above you.

>13/21 is 61% which is failing score. I think section three of the test should be removed.

You didn't know any of the material, no wonder.

But my guess is that section 3 is there to improve pass rates - teachers who can't do basic math but can read and regurgitate slides/notes. It probably pushes a lot of people over the 70% pass. I got 16/21 on that section just guessing what sounded reasonable. If I had read a book or notes on it I'd probably ace it. It's a gimme.

The pedagogy section would really bother me as a teacher (https://i.imgur.com/3s9mVY5.png). They shouldn't be evaluated on the semantics of different mission statements.

it sounds like they needed to read a book and learn some concepts from it. That's something you'd expect from any student.

Thanks for this. I think the test is pretty interesting:

- The first and second sections test math skills up to about a grade five or six level, at least based on what I learned in Ontario schools in the 1980s.

- The third section seems pretty suggestive of the philosophy of the teacher training system. I didn't have much trouble guessing 16/21 questions correctly, despite never having read any of the referenced books.

- I would love to see how scores on the first and second sections of the test correlate with answers to the questionnaire that forms section four.

- I'm not sure what the pass standard for this test is, but I would be rather concerned if teachers who had scored less than 75% on the first two sections were permitted to teach mathematics (or science) above a grade 4 level. (Certain choices of answers on the questionnaire section would also provoke similar concerns.)

Looks like 70% is a pass: https://mathproficiencytest.ca/#/en/applicant/learn/results:...

I have the unpopular idea that Math, and in a broad sense, STEM, is mandatory for EVERYONE, especially teachers, regardless what they teach. Can a teacher teach well if his language skill is poor? Probably not, same for STEM.

Of course how much mandatory Math needed and IF a previous test has been passed is good enough is up to debate.

Poor language skills would mean that a person would perform poorly at explaining all subjects. I don't understand the connection you made to STEM.

Root comment states that language skills are required for teaching all subjects, and math is also fundamental to all subjects. Root comment is of the “unpopular opinion” (their words, I consider this phrase to be an emotional appeal when used in this context) that some basic skills are required of everyone in the teaching profession, regardless of the age or subject they teach, and that those basic skills include mathematics.

Thank you, I got that. Perhaps I should've explicitly added to my comment that my lack of understanding is about how school maths would help with, say, literature or arts teaching.

> regardless what they teach.

Huh? Why should we care about the math skills of someone who only teaches English or French? Proficiency assessments should absolutely be subject-specific.

A teacher should be able to understand the grade distribution on tests and throughout the year to identify if their assessments are too easy or too difficult, and if they may be racially biased. The argument that the tests unfairly bias certain groups is only known because the people administering the test understand math.

You don't need to know anything about geometry for that. And even teachers who know math won't use statistical methods too if their test for 22 students ended up badly this year.

It’s just interesting that we are using statistical methods to argue that teachers don’t need to understand basic math. Ontario doesn’t have dedicated math teachers until high school, many of these teachers will need to teach math in grades 3-8.

> Ontario doesn’t have dedicated math teachers until high school

Then that should be fixed, at least wrt. junior high. There's no reason to expect an English or French teacher to be proficient in Math, or vise versa.

I am not using statistic methods?

But I also think that there should be specialized teachers for math long before high school. Teaching math (or whatever) is not just about knowing it, it is also about know how to teach it at this or that age. And I don't think general purpose teacher can be good in knowing how to teach all subjects.

I am perfectly fine with teachers who cant pass this test teaching subjects that are not math or physics (or chemistry I guess).

I am absolutely not fine with math teacher who passed this test and that is extend of it. Specifically, math teacher should know a lot more.

Okay, but surely that could be tested as part of basic teaching competency, not math per se. You might as well say people need to know math to be able to look at the clock and figure out how to be at work on time, or to figure out if they’re driving above or below the speed limit.

>> and if they may be racially biased

How would moderate math skills possibly help with that? You think every public school teacher should be run statistical sampling on a continual basis AND dynamically addressing them?

When I was a student I had to be decent in every subject. Why would teachers have less strict requirements? Surely they were once students.

I want math and science teachers using proper spelling and grammar even if that's not the subject they teach.

As the document clearly lays out, any teacher can be required to teach math, only for higher levels it is behind additional certifications.

And many classes have overlaps, e.g. at least around here language classes are also where a good chunk of media literacy happens, for which a basic understanding of math is sort-of needed.

Then they should get rid of that requirement, since it's unfairly disadvantaging racialized teachers. But if you're going to teach math you should absolutely be competent in the actual subject you're teaching.

I agree, and find it odd that such a view is unpopular. STEM is as foundational in the modern world as language is. And, yes, especially for teachers.

I went to University at a time when everyone was required, regardless of major, to take language and science classes.

It is possible that some people don't have the ability to do math well in the same way that I don't have the ability, try as I may, to draw well. Should society have a place both kinds of people? Those who can't draw and those who can't do math?

I don’t think I could make a living selling sketches in the park, but the ability to “draw a picture” is actually a basic problem solving step in a lot of these math problems.

The question is, should they be teachers given their inabilities? Should the blind be tour guides? Both are possible, but better solutions exist.

That is the point of schools! To teach people skills they don't have.

Whether they're successful doing it is different discussion.

Drawing is not as essential, though, nor are musical talents or athletic abilities. The prerequisites for teaching should not include those, unless the person is to teach one of those fields. Language and STEM are foundational to learning and achieving in most every discipline.

Why should people study STEM specifically? Maths is generally useful in life so basic algebra, trig and such makes sense. But I've never really understood why science should be mandatory in schools, beyond teaching kids about how the scientific method works and thus imparting some pro-empricism philosophical ideas.

If I had to choose skills that kids were forced to learn, I'd prioritise those that would stand to benefit them the greatest - so probably some form of home economics, sales & negotiating, psychology, and such. As far as universally useful skills go, most of STEM is near the bottom of the list.

[edit] to clarify my point:

- A subset of STEM (maths primarily) is pragmatically useful to basically everybody and should have greater emphasis in education

- most of STEM is not pragmatically useful to most people

- these non-everyday-pragmatic fields should be taught, and belong within general education, but are not special in contrast to other school topics - because the criteria of "especially good" in a school context are those with actual practical use in the student's life.

physics for example, teaches people how the world actually works... thermodynamics, electricity, light, all useful information for determining fact from fiction when they turn into adults.

I wasnt even good in these subjects and im still glad i was taught the ideas and can explore them more readily as an adult...

I'm not denying that the natural sciences are /interesting/ - but are they especially useful?

If they're there to form part of a liberal arts education, to give young adults a broad experience in different fields alongside literature, art etc then great - I'm all for liberal arts education. But the parent set STEM aside as being especially and specifically important - which I disagree with. The only things that are especially and specifically important are those that will be useful in your life.

> I'm not denying that the natural sciences are /interesting/ - but are they especially useful?

The last couple of years certainly highlight the problems caused when people aren't given, or don't pay any attention to, a certain level of education in biology...

The general understanding of scientific methods of enquiry/study/critique is also essential for modern life IMO, and sadly lacking in many very vocal and otherwise high profile people.

if you're talking about anti-vaxxers - that's not caused by lack of education. I don't know that much about viral transmission either, neither do you, or 99% or the people who are taking the vaccine, masking up and so on. The difference is primarily cultural - trusting versus not trusting the government & scientific advisors. All these anti-vaxx people haven't been failed by a lack of scientific education, they just don't trust the motives of the government - and that's not remedied by more alka seltzer volcanoes in school.

I disagree. I'd be willing to bet that the better educated a populous is, the higher the vaccination rates would be. I also believe that it's not a high bar to expect people to understand basic physics and biology and chemistry before being called an "adult". The info may not be immediately pragmatically useful, but people being less ignorant in general cannot be detrimental to society. How much can I trust someone that doesn't understand that feathers and rocks fall at the same speed, it's merely the air resistance that changes it? How many centuries back do we have to go before we consider something mandatory information?

so, liberal arts > STEM in your eyes?

I see it the opposite..

that's not what liberal arts education means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

but no, I weigh them comparably, depending on the specific "arts" you mean. Maths > painting, but philosophy > chemistry.

> thats not what liberal arts education mean

i didnt provide a definition for liberal arts.

also your own link is contradictory to your earlier comments...

> Academic areas that are associated with the term liberal arts include:

Life sciences (biology, ecology, neuroscience) Physical science (physics, astronomy, chemistry, physical geography) Logic, mathematics, statistics, computer science Philosophy History Social science (anthropology, economics, human geography, linguistics, political science, jurisprudence, psychology, and sociology) Creative arts (fine arts, music, performing arts, literature)

this states that philosophy and biology are both liberal arts. Along with physics and other STEM topics. Linking this implies you agree that STEM is important, as much so as Philosophy, which i agree is an important topic along with all those in this link.

I think general education is useful, yes - but I was responding to a comment that was hyping up STEM as especially important. Aside from maths, I don't think that's correct.

Your examples seem to all be contradictory though. It seems you have your own barometer for value that doesn't line up with your arguments.

my barometer is pretty simple, and calling them contradictory doesn't make them so:

- general education is useful

- pragmatic education is a step above general education, and should be prioritised

- maths is pragmatic, most STEM is not

that's really all there is to it.

If you're judging value by pay, math and chemistry and (and pretty much anything STEM) will kick philosophy's ass. If you're judging value by abstract value, haven't we left the territory of your argument? Aren't you saying we should only give people pragmatic skills and go light on the other stuff?

It's not that these aren't interesting subjects or potentially useful in adult life. They just shouldn't be the priority. Is it potentially useful in adult life to know how your car's IC engine works? Sure, but nowhere near as useful as knowing how to get a good rate on your car loan.

"how the world actually works" is a bit of a misleading statement. a deep understanding of various concepts can take years or decades to develop, and the understanding you get from 1-2 years of general education can lead you to make false assumptions and assume you know more than you actually do and as a result dismiss the opinions of people who are actually informed.

I don't believe that an extra year or two of education on thermodynamics or electricity would make the vast majority of the population better in their everyday lives, and it might make things slightly worse in terms of experts' ability to push things forward. Do we really want all our neighbors bikeshedding utility grid management like amateurs crowding into a github pull request? We've seen how good the general population is at epidemic management lately.

I was personally deprived of basically any education until community college due to how education and parental "freedom" work in the US, and while the gaps in my education (STEM in particular) are regrettable, in practice they really have not interfered in my everyday life. I enjoyed learning about biology, physics etc and do some reading on my own time to this day but the stuff that I actually need to know about in my everyday life tends to be from the 'soft sciences' or non-sciences, like history or economics - despite the fact that I've been working as a programmer for over a decade.

Math is essential, though, no question there.

youre correct that it may not be enough time, but it gives them a foothold they can use later in life where the subjects might otherwise appear impregnable.

> Do we really want all our neighbors bikeshedding utility grid management

we already teach these subjects and i dont see this happening. I actually feel like bikeshedding would happen more if people only self educated on these topics, theyd have no baseline to compare to and anything they learned would "separate them from the pack" so to speak.

Your answer is "to deter to expert opinion" which already happens with our current system, except by not teaching it in schools we discourage people from learning it unless self taught. Which i think is a bad idea.

Exactly. That's good enough for a job in an Amazon warehouse.

Because everyone has a responsibility to vote. Even in a representative government, we've been shown over and over again that voting requires at least a basic science literacy.

Every wingnut that thinks windmills give you cancer, essential oils are medicine, is anti-vaxx, votes for pro-oil lobby politicians, climate change disbelieving and so on, has been failed by lack of STEM education.

Studies have shown over and over again that scientific literacy is no panacea against believing in bad science and that facts are poor counter-points to aggressive disinformation. HN is filled to the brim with people who declare their STEM credentials quite loudly but who seem to only have enough scientific literacy to google for papers from which they can cherry-pick stats to support their own politically-motivated positions.

yep, this is part of what I was trying to say. There are a lot of STEM-heads who like to point to their interest, employment or education in STEM as credentials for their rationality but who are mostly incapable of thinking critically. The level at which you have to critically engage with topics like empiricism and epistemology are way beyond the level of science education and towards being an actual research scientist.

Panacea is a strawman. If a little extra science education would relieve society of at least a few homeopaths, flat earthers, and free-energy kooks, maybe that's enough?

how is that the case? IIRC when I was in secondary school (ages ~11-16 in the UK) I had to take science (I also took physics in college afterwards, but that's besides the point). What did I learn? Newtonian mechanics, some basic experimental procedures tested out against the whole "objects fall at the same speed regardless of weight" proof, and such things. How does any of that help people to vote?

I'm sure this is related to the "Republicans are anti-science" thing, but that's a cultural divide, not a lack of education.

Studying science teaches the ability to find facts and use evidence in decision making - as well as the ability to properly discount outdated ideas or improper kinds of evidence.

One doesn’t need a lot of examples how this helps people from becoming “suckers”. We can merely look at the current state of the world. It is in the grips of a pandemic that is largely solvable - correlations between understanding science and vaccine uptake are well documented.

none of that is true. Learning science in school is not about teaching you how to analyse methodological errors in whitepapers. That's way too high level for high school students. In my experience it was mostly about learning the basic scientific method, and learning about some practical scientific models like Newtonian mechanics, basic biology & chemistry, that sort of thing.

This claim that the world would have less conspiracy theorists if only there was more science on the curriculum at school has a huge [citation needed]. So much of that stuff is downwind from cultural conflict and distrust of the government, not a lack of education.

All of it is true, but not as a direct consequence: improving your ability to think and reason, generally speaking, and not with respect to any specific concept that was taught to you, is a higher-order effect of STEM education.

that's not true at all. Case in point: engineers are over-represented in extremist groups and beliefs.

I don't think that studying science leads to increased critical thinking until the point where you're having to actually discover things for yourself - because before that point you're just re-learning what other people are telling you is true.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo

Engineers are human too, are susceptible to being wrong, and are susceptible to all other sorts of human cognitive biases.

With respect to the association between engineers and extremist groups and beliefs, I would wager that this is probably better explained by a third factor (personality traits which make someone less flexible, and less comfortable with shades of grey, for example).

Your comment is interesting, but none of the questions it raises mean that what I said wasn't true.

The question is not "are engineers inherently better thinkers". The question is "If you take someone and teach them STEM topics, do they become better thinkers than they were previously". The answer is (ironically / speaking of black and white thinking) pretty unequivocally "yes".

if high school science classes were about epistemology, then I might agree with your comment above - but they aren't, they're about learning some bits about biology, chemistry and physics. You don't really learn anything about epistemology, rationality, or even really empiricism from learning the periodic table or what a frog's organs look like.

I will agree with you that the manner in which we teach science has a lot of room for improvement, but in the aggregate, despite all the failings of the education system, I maintain that what I said is true.

The effectiveness of STEM education is certainly held back by the difficulties in keeping students engaged and interested, and in the failings of the educators themselves. I would suggest that raising the bar for educators (assuming supply wasn't an issue, which I recognize it is) would go a long way towards teaching STEM better, and augmenting its impact on students' lives.

Edit: I did learn about epistemology in school, but coverage was rather superficial and incomplete. I suspect people's experiences vary wildly.

I just don't see it when it comes to science education. If we were talking about teaching students critical thinking and reasoning skills then I'd be 100% on board with that because that's a directly-useful skill (and one I should've probably included on the list of pragmatic skills). But learning those skills by proxy of science would be extremely roundabout, and definitely isn't what's happening right now.

“none of that is true” - compelling. lol.

I was going to include a few links to recent reputable studies which confirm exactly my talking points, but why - they are very easily found, trivial outcomes that have been proven time and again and I’m not here to do throw chicken bones to people that form counterpoints on emotion.

You can be mad if you want, but my reasoning is based on my understanding of what's actually taught in physics or chemistry classes - not the empirical and epistemological process of "science" that got us the findings in these fields, but the findings themselves - scientific models of chemical reactions, Newtonian mechanics, etc. I would love it if we could increase the critical thinking skills of the general populace, but I don't see how that's the way to do it. And having these basic skills in specific scientific disciplines could spark interest in a career in research, which is great, but they don't make you more rational unless you're teaching empiricism or logic or whatever as well - at which point, why not just teach empiricism, logic and critical thinking?

>Studying science teaches the ability to find facts and use evidence in decision making

>this helps people from becoming “suckers”

Science is a helpful baseline and should also be taught for other reasons (everyone should have a basic understanding of how the world works). But it doesn't necessarily develop critical thinking skills, which is the real missing element these days. Many people would do better to understand basic logic, induction, deduction, fallacies, etc.

And, a lot of people are emotionally manipulated into becoming "suckers", wherein their knowledge and even intelligence are short-circuited.

Not 100% sure what to do about that problem.

Medical professionals (nurses, pharmacy techs, etc.) and tradesmen (welders, electricians, mechanics, etc.) come to mind as two groups of people for whom baseline scientific knowledge is important to even get started. Compare this to trig, which I've literally never seen used outside of a math class.

Basic science is important so people have the foundation to access more complex science.

Welders/fabricators and machinists use trig to set up accurate angles. In general, if one has never seen something from middle/high school math used, one isn't looking very hard.

See these videos for examples:

Sine bar (This Old Tony): https://youtu.be/PO-Ab7YfBzY

Compound slide tricks (Blondiehacks): https://youtu.be/6AQzDVic-hk

Trig is useful to at least know the unit circle for sin/cos/tan: http://crystalclearmaths.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Unit... (Amusingly I had to learn about this outside of class, but it carried me through)

Trig isn't so useful if you can measure everything, & I've made the mistake of using trig to skip measuring only to find that nothing's built straight. But it helps to ball park

Once was sitting on the edge of a river with my father & he raised the question of how wide the river was. A quick estimate was possible: stand straight across from a landmark point, then measure walking along the river for some distance. Measure the angle towards that previous landmark. Multiply traveled length by tan(angle). A particularly nice angle is 45 degrees, which requires very little math since tan(45) = 1 & 45 is an easy angle to eye ball

> Compare this to trig, which I've literally never seen used outside of a math class.

I suppose that's an indirect admission that you weren't an EE major.

How much does the basic science end up directly used in the careers of the medical professionals? My understanding is that much of the training is preparation for med school, but the underlying concepts more or less aren't used at all while on the job (except for pharmacists and biochemistry)

Knowing some amount of physics, chemistry, and the like come in handy on a regular basis for me in my everyday life. Plus, as noted, knowing how to use the scientific method (how to analyze, hypothesize, and test ideas) is incredibly useful.

I would also argue that economics (home in particular, but also micro and macro), social studies (government in particular, but also other societies), and history all have their places in life and are worth being part of the curriculum. But, aside from maybe home economics, they aren't as useful in everyday life as the STEM topics.

At least, that's my opinion based on my experiences. I only have me to base my opinion on, and I'm a sample size of 1.

Don’t forget that school science is 50% practical work. It’s not just about learning F=ma.

Pupils have to become proficient and disciplined with setting up measurements and getting consistent results — often in pairs — just as much as they have to learn the ideas and apply the math.

People should study STEM because that's how you learn to think properly, even very generally speaking, regardless of your discipline.

It doesn't even matter which specific maths concepts you're exposed to, and it's not even about how directly applicable it is: every single piece of maths under your belt translates in non-obvious ways to a better ability to think and reason.

Understanding stats and geometry is necessary to understand basic concepts about history and system design across many disparate fields of human activity. For example, in computer security, we talk about "reducing the area of the attack surface". There's no surface nor area, but the conceptual analogy remains useful. When you determine the appropriate staffing level for a customer service line where people call in for help, you use a statistical model that leads to the Erlang equation. The work to be done may not involve math at all, but in order for the employees to understand how their company is run, math is essential. When you build a house, you need to do various calculations to come up with an estimate; we do not think of construction as technical work, but if you need X concrete blocks and you can fit C blocks on each of N trucks that take a time T to move between supply and site, you end up with a mathematical model that leads to your final cost estimate.

Denying students educational support in understanding the flexible and general frameworks of mathematics that lead to the organization of human activity sharpens the division of labor and diminishes the possibilities for democratic engagement in the society's mode of production. The anti-math argument therefore appears to support a hierarchical Brave New World social structure because it advocates that we raise children to become functional assets rather than full participants in the economy.

you'll note that I pointed out that of the STEM fields, maths is actually useful.

I'm talking about people claiming that kids rolling cylinders down triangular blocks or dissecting frogs is vitally important to their education beyond the level of a broad liberal education.

This is a good point. When people talk about the "usefulness" of math/science, they tend to assume that learning math/science is analogous to being trained in how to operate a forklift: it's thought of as a "skill" that's useless if one never needs to directly apply the content.

But learning math/science encourages certain cognitive habits which are useful in practice. For most people, I expect that these cognitive habits are where the value of a math education lies.

As an example, in math, you often need to define a new object out of thin air, and then think about whether the definition is useful (e.g., let u=log(x), then rewrite the integral in terms of u and see if it gets you anywhere). I hypothesize that even after you've forgotten the math content, this cognitive habit (constructing a new mental object ex nihilo, thinking about whether it's useful, and perhaps giving it a name if it is useful) sticks with you, and contributes to general intelligence in other contexts.

so probably some form of home economics, sales & negotiating, psychology, and such. As far as universally useful skills go, most of STEM is near the bottom of the list

Depending on what level of education you're talking about, I had most, if not all these classes as requirements, plus a science requirement. There was plenty of time left over for other classes, too. I get that different places have different curricula (and that they change over time), so I can't be sure, but what you're asking for might be in place already.

Earlier levels of education, I think, give students a better idea of what they want to study in university (or not). Getting a little taste of math and physics (among chemistry and biology) in high school really informed me what I'm good at & what I'm interested. It was a major factor in my decision about what I wanted to study later on.

The school system is one place everyone goes through. It's a single point.

What are the most common jobs people have coming out the other side? According to the US Bureau of Labor (sorry I couldn't find the Canadian equivalent so this was the next closest)... the most popular jobs are retail salesperson, fast food and counter workers, cashiers, home health and personal care aides, RNs, customer service rep, laborers/freight/stock/material movers, office clerks, general and ops managers, stockers and order fillers.

A majority of these folks don't need to do STEM related things daily (if ever). They do need to deal with things around their homes.

These are jobs we all need in our society. Just like we need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and other skilled trades. You can't outsource those over seas.

For school to be useful and beneficial to the masses in most jobs... what school education should they have?

I realize I'm not part of these groups. I know a lot of people who are. Their lives, over the long term, needs to be considered. I'm a STEM person but I realize it's not useful for everyone.

I agree that none of these people need to know STEM stuff to a good level.

I see the point of school as exposing kids to all sorts of subjects to let them find out what they like and what they are good at.

I'm really bad at art. I got a passing but bad grade. Same in languages. Good grades while learning grammar and such. Bad grades when it got to reading Shakespeare and Goethe. I got good grades in math and some other STEM stuff and it interested me.

This obviously influenced my choices for university. It should (and I think does) influence choices for people that become electricians too. If you are bad in math and physics please don't become an electrician.

If you are reasonably good at both and you like working with your hands by all means become an electrician!

Understanding statistics and the way that companies, academics and governments lie with statistics to mold public opinion is important in having a civically engaged population.

People who don't learn enough science are people who get into healing crystals, psychic auras, and horoscopes and then vote like they're real.

Why? Because we value an educated populace where people have an understanding how the world works. You do not need to look any further than people who deny climate change, vaccine conspiracists, flat earthers, 5G hysterians, pseudoscientific con people and so forth to get at the root cause of the problem which is a lack of education. Learning science is at the bedrock of critical thinking, reasoning and rationalizing and enables people to actually apply the scientific method.

Two things can be true at the sand time. Putting an emphasis on proper STEM education doesn’t mean you skimp over vocational skills. People absolutely need to learn how to participate in society, whether it’s interpersonal skills, how their government works, world history or how to advance in their lives. But these are not necessarily universal skills: move from one country to another and all your knowledge about filing taxes with your government may become irrelevant.

> Learning science is at the bedrock of critical thinking, reasoning and rationalizing and enables people to actually apply the scientific method.

Many people who learn how things function don't learn critical thinking or reasoning.

People can be told that something works a certain way because it's science. Just trust the people who told you because they sit in positions of expertise or authority. They people don't have critical thinking. They have trust of certain people for certain reasons.

I'm a proponent of critical thinking and reasoning. It's often missing. STEM isn't teaching it.

Maybe what we need is to teach the basics of philosophy, logic, and reasoning in school. You can teach this apart from STEM and it's useful to STEM, too.

> so probably some form of home economics, sales & negotiating, psychology, and such

So, I actually took home ec because I had an otherwise dead period in the middle of the day that had to be filled, and, aside from mechanics of cooking, it was largely hyperspecific applications of math proficiency. Psychology is a science. So, I mean, the specifics on your list aren't really holding up the anti-STEM thesis. Anti-TE maybe, though maybe if you added the next three important items, two of them would cover those areas as well.

if they even didn't get basic statistics, how can they read news paper and vote?

This is a STEM centric site, and most people here are in that bubble.

If you are in a STEM career, would you have been able to do it if you were mandated to take and pass (for example) a nursing course?

You might ask what nursing has to do with STEM, and you'd be right that there is not much of an intersection, but nurses have to pass math classes that are well beyond anything they will ever encounter in a nursing career, and the math requirement is one of the main courses that prevents people from pursuing a career in nursing in our area.

Likewise, for teaching, I don't think you can talk about 'teachers' in general. I know the union does, but it really does not make sense. Most teaching positions require very little math. It's too bad that anyone with a teaching degree can teach any math class in high school, whether they know the math or not. I have the experience of being taught by such a teacher. I survived, but you have to wonder why there are no safeguards against such a travesty. Now we know - it's unconstitutional!

Your world would be near impossible for people with sever dyscalculia. I can hardly look at numbers, they almost make me nauseous, and I'm certainly not alone. I won 3 emmy awards though and help build a now publicly traded company. Sure, I can't do math, but boy one day I'd love to teach kids! Also, my wife has a PhD in American History and she teaches it, she's Korean and her English isn't great, but people love her classes.

It's fun watching the internet continually rediscover the concept of a liberal arts education.

You are asking for a Soviet-style curriculum and we can learn from their experience. The lesson here is not quite clear-cut unfortunately. Making something mandatory for everyone at the same level doesn't make it feasible. The Soviets themselves were very clear about it and had an impressive system in place to look for what in America is called gifted children.

To begin with, can you actually employ all those future engineers and scientists? China can. America arguably not so much unless some major 30-year old trends are dramatically reversed. Are your engineers and scientists respected and well paid professionals? What are the projections for the next 30 years? Again, outside of CS probably so-so.

In any case, there can be only so many high-IQ jobs. And so many scientifically-minded children with high enough IQ. So a reasonable educational system would find them and promote to higher-quality schools for sure. At least in a world where your people want to be competitive with, say, the Chinese. But there are the other 80% of population and they won't be able to cope with a stringent STEM program. So they would need an alternative curriculum, probably similar to how they orient such people towards trade schools in Germany.

Math is universally useful both to grow your mental capabilities and professionally. Sciences are less so unless you are planning on an engineering career. And even then people who are into chemistry are frequently not the same who are into physics who are different from those interested in molecular biology. Which again breaks this nice uniform idea of mandatory STEM! for everyone!

Where I agree with you is that the less STEM there's in schools the more political indoctrination there will be instead disguised as "liberal arts and humanities". So forcing children to stretch their minds in math classes while they are young is the least damaging thing that can happen to you in school.

From the document : https://www.otffeo.on.ca/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/...

From [33] : Candidates who indicated they had a cognitive disability failed the Field Test at over twice the rate of candidates without a disability.

French-speaking teachers did relatively quite poorly as well. (The test is available in both English and French.)

Its quite possible the french version of the exam was a badly translated version of the English. I have no idea if this one was, but I've heard that is the case for some professional orders' license exams in Ontario and Québec. Translation to the alternate language is done because its mandatory but it is not done well.

Interesting observation. I have not read the whole document, but based on Table 6.2 (page 34 of the PDF) it looks like almost all of the difference between ethnic groups comes from the people who took the test in French:

           |  % Successful (EN) |  % Successful (FR)
     White |        86%         |        84% 
 Non-White |        82%         |        55%

This seems quite strange to me. I am curious to know whether the French version is merely a translation of the English version, or there are other differences?

-------------------

PS. I just realized these so I'm gonna add them here.

There is a little bit of ambiguity about Table 6.2. Does the it French column refer to people who wrote the French version of the test (as the paragraph [33] of the ruling suggests), or does it refer to the languages the candidate spoke (as the existence of a "English+French" column suggests)?

Also, the vast majority of the candidates are Anglophones, so the overall difference is not as large as the above numbers may suggest. Overall, it's more like 80% (Non-White) vs 86% (White). (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28526%2B33%29%2F%2852...) Table 7 of the ruling has a more detailed ethnic breakdown.

I'm curious why a poor translation would more strongly affect non-white francophones? Why are the whites minimally/not affected?

Probably demographics; the white Francophones also speak English.

Does "non-white French speaker" actually mean indigenous peoples in this case? Is the actual problem being obscured by confusing labeling?

My guess was that it means people from African or Caribbean countries with a pre-existing relationship with the UK but whose first language is an uncommon one and whose second language is French.

> I'm curious why a poor translation would more strongly affect non-white francophones?

Canadian French, without assuming translation issues, might conceivably more strongly negatively effect non-White francophones, who may be more likely to be part of immigrant communities from (and natively speak the French of) various non-Canadian nations where French is commonly spoken, like (e.g.) Haiti.

Just an idea: maybe non-white francophones are immigrants from countries with a different dialect of French, so even if they are technically francophones they have a serious gap in understanding québécois. As French has an extra challenge in math by the way numbers are composed (ex: 80 is literally "4 of 20", not "8 tens") that makes decimal calculations a bit harder than in English, it can skew the results to the observed numbers.

Non-white French speaking populations are probably very distinct. Maybe immigrated from French-speaking former colonies? Though if every teacher in a French district takes the French test, then it would include any internal immigration in Canada...

From the practice test, some are weird Qs in english, let alone french.

> What is 19 thousands + 7 tens?

Idk French, but I wonder if white teachers are likely to be more familiar with english-to-french translation oddities. An immigrant might be baffled by what a Quebecois is simply annoyed by.

Maybe this is an insensitive question but why would you expect people with a cognitive disability to perform well on a maths test?

You wouldn’t. The data point is there for completeness. At least the ruling didn’t connect “racialized” with “cognitively disabled”.

What I find hilarious is it was suggested instead of the test, a mathematics course in undergrad. Which I'm sure way more future teachers couldn't complete if they couldn't pass this basic test.

That can be remedied by sinking the passing requirements to "just sit there and sign your name on the attendance list". Hey, no disparate impact, fully constitutional.

During my engineering undergrad I had to take various general education courses related to reading/writing, PE, those sorts of things. It doesn't seem unreasonable for teachers to also take even a pre-calculus course as a part of their studies.

I would assume that taking a course where you're taught by a professor, you can ask questions, practice with homework, work with friends and classmates, etc sounds much more reasonable and similar to real-world scenarios than sitting someone down and having them bubble in answers.

As an anecdote, I was able to get through my Calc I and II courses, received an engineering degree, but today I probably couldn't sit down and complete an exam on some of the content learned in high school math. It's about what you use every day and what you're exposed to through your work. If a fine arts teacher went through 6 years of college without having to do any math courses, I'd expect them to fail a math exam, too. Doesn't make them a poor teacher.

> What I find hilarious is it was suggested instead of the test, a mathematics course in undergrad.

A math course in undergrad should of course be required if you're going to teach, y'know, math. In fact, all teachers should have the equivalent of a full undergrad education wrt. the subject they're expected to teach. The fact that we don't require this explains much about the failings of our K12 education system.

In the US, an accredited undergrad degree requires a math course. Many years ago I taught that course at my friendly neighborhood Big Ten university. The topics were those that were required for accreditation, and were in my opinion disjoint and archaic. The course didn't even touch on the use of computers.

However, the legislature in my state introduced a bill, believed to be written by ALEC, that would have eliminated the college degree requirement for K-12 teachers altogether. So count your blessings.

I’m not sure why you would expect that everyone who would fail a test for a course they hadn’t taken would also fail that course if they took it. I’m pretty sure there are lots of things I don’t know now that I could learn if I took a course. That’s kinda the whole reason that courses exist and generally administer tests after material has been presented.

and why couldn't prospective teachers study for the Ontario Math Proficiency Test ahead of time by going to khan academy or something? is replacing that test with a 4 year degree really better?

I'm from Ontario. This test is relatively basic. Any math course at an Ontario university would be more demanding than this test. Although I do remember a friend of mine taking a history of mathematics course at McMaster while doing an English degree to have enough credits to teach high school math. He had however already taken first year calc.

But such a requirement might be constitutional. The court seems to think so, at least—though might perhaps change their mind when they are subsequently shown that "racialized" teacher candidates have trouble passing that too...

Changing their minds is what I figure would happen.

> The Divisional Court found that the Math Proficiency Test had an adverse impact on entry to the teaching profession for racialized teacher candidates and other reasonable alternatives should have been implemented.

What is a "racialized" teacher?

From the sample test questions:

There is a bag of 25 marbles. 5 are yellow. What percentage of marbles are not yellow?

If I were "racialized", I would be insulted to hear it suggested that the requirement was being removed, because it made it unfairly difficult for my "race" to become a teacher.

> What is a "racialized" teacher?

The meaning seems to be "belonging to a racial minority", and that sense of the word seems to be specific to Canadian English because when I search for "racialized X", for various values of X, I keep finding Canadian web sites. Ils sont fous, ces canadiens.

This is a bit tongue in cheek. We all know what it means in common parlance, but it's a very slushy term. The word implies that it is a status, or a process, which makes conversation even more confusing.

But ultimately, there's only one race -- the human race. Talking about a minority as if they are a separate race is extremely unproductive. I think what we really intend to discuss ethnicity.

> There is no research to suggest that a standardized test would improve student outcomes or enhance teacher pedagogy.

From https://www.nber.org/papers/w14021 ,

> By estimating the effect of teacher attributes using a value-added model, the analyses in this paper predict that observable qualifications of teachers resulted in average improved achievement for students in the poorest decile of schools of .03 standard deviations, about half the difference between being taught by a first year teacher and a more experienced teacher. If limited to teachers who are in the first or second year of teaching, where changes in qualifications are greatest, the gain equals two-thirds of the first-year experience effect.

> our results suggest that recruiting teachers with stronger observed qualifications, e.g., math SAT scores or certification status, could substantially improve student achievement.

Pulling up a thread from lower down - this didn't seem to get struck because it's a math test. It seem to have gotten struck down because it's actually an english test.

(1) the only difference is for non-white people who took the test in french.

           |  % Successful (EN) |  % Successful (FR)

     White |        86%         |        84% 

 Non-White |        82%         |        55%

(2) white french speakers (e.g., Quebecois) in Canada are much more likely to also speak english than non-white french speakers (e.g., immigrants from former colonies).

(3) english-to-french translations in Canada often suck, requiring french readers to back-translate to english to understand wtf something is saying.

Admittedly, 2 and 3 are anecdotal, but suffice to say it's more complicated than at first blush.

What business does anyone have being a teacher if they can't be bothered to log onto Coursera and teach themselves? Less than none. RIP Canada

I appreciate the intent of those who wish to maintain high standards and keep the kids well educated, but there is no point in having this argument without the bigger context of the failures of how education is administered.

We've well proven that in just about anything, it's extremely rare that you get improvement in large bureaucratic systems by making things harder on the people on the bottom, without also providing means and resources to make things better.

I've seen no good reason to think that standardized testing is something that improves this situation, especially as opposed to more localism and autonomy, better funding, etc.

That said, standardized testing _would_ make sense if it determined where funding is allocated, i.e. lowest scoring areas get the most funding and the highest paid teachers.

This is a test for teachers, not for their students. Are you suggesting that teachers who are worse at math should be paid more?

I'd suggest that those teachers need more resources -- in terms of education, and additional helpers in the classroom.

Why would you waste your best teachers on your worst students?

Since worst students have most to improve, I'd think it's efficient not wasteful.

This is a fallacy, similar to thinking that a portfolio should be invested into the worst performing stocks because "they have the most room to improve".

Education and stock market are not analogous. The key question is whether current level is correlated with expected improvement. For education it is, for stock market it isn't.

>Education and stock market are not analogous

Why not? A company is just an aggregate of people working towards a shared mission. Not unlike a society.

What is the unifying goal of the community you live in?

We don't have one in mine, the US. We have anarchists and right-wing stochastic terrorists and suburban dwellers engaged in the rat race and college professors seeking tenure and veterans working to find good healthcare and teachers paying way too much out of pocket for their classroom supplies and business owners often cheating to milk PPP loans or other shady revenue streams and public work officials making side deals and.....

If the bottom line is GDP, let me introduce you to GNP, and both of which miss cottage industry generally.

We don't have a shared mission, because society does not have a tangible owner.

So that you improve the students. So that you give more support to teachers working in harder conditions.

The right and left tail of the distribution are not equal and offsetting here. The cost to society from one idiot is more than offset by the benefit of one genius. Therefore equality is not a desirable outcome. Optimizing the abilities of the right tail is.

I dont really think so. First of all, math geniuses are fighting among themselves for a few positions that allow them to actually use hard math. We produce more of them then we can reasonably use.

Second, teacher able to move kids up from "idiots" is actually saving us a lot of money.

Because they are the ones who will see the biggest benefit from a good teacher. And concomitantly your country will benefit from a higher level of preficiency in maths of the population.

Going from 25th percentile to 75th at math does little good. Going from 90th percentile to 99th is more valuable. Better to have a population that has a lower median math skill, but many math geniuses than a population that has a slightly higher median, but few right tail geniuses.

In a democracy, I strongly disagree. The masses have a tremendous impact on the society that your geniuses have to live in.

If you're a genius, you're a genius - an average teacher would be able to point you in the direction of the more specialised coaching that would benefit you.

For the kind of people who don't seem to be able to weigh up basic risk levels and end up dying unvaccinated at six times the rate of those that do, I'd suggest that going up enough percentiles to save their lives would be, yeah, kinda useful.

> Because they are the ones who will see the biggest benefit from a good teacher.

This is a big assertion, and one not well supported by data[1][2].

Money is not the bottleneck at any public school in the West. A student's performance is very well correlated to external factors like parental income and education level, and is NOT well correlated with the amount of money the state spends on education. Utah spends a third of New York per student, and still outperforms in test scores.

I agree that the best teachers should go to the students who would benefit from those teachers the most. The students that would benefit most from good teachers are the good students, who exist in an environment that enables them to learn and excel.

[1] https://medium.com/@tgof137/increased-school-funding-doesnt-...

[2] https://www.alec.org/article/increasing-education-spending-e...

Who said anything about funding? You are attacking a strawman.

Money isn't the bottleneck, but teacher quality is.

The original assertion was

> lowest scoring areas get the most funding and the highest paid teachers.

I think using highest paid teachers as a proxy for best teachers makes sense in this context, because that's how the public policy works. A state looking to hire better teachers would raise teacher salaries in order to attract better teachers.

There is a certain brand of person who is obsessed with redistributing resources from the most productive to the least productive. They don't see how allocating the best teachers in the world to students who are disabled or borderline disabled is not beneficial to society.

Yes this. As someone who was “gifted” in school but with a father who teaches mild/moderate learning disabilities, the skill sets of the two ends of the spectrum of teachers are dramatically different. “Gifted” student teachers can take as a given that their students are there to learn and generally speaking want to be there. For my father getting students to begin to think that is a big part of the job. To replace him with a “gifted” student teacher who has no experience with that type of clientele would be absurd.

I suppose you could be the best at teaching disabled people...that might be a different person to the best at teaching maths to the highest achievers.

That would be rewarding incompetent schools and every school would try to have the worst scores to secure the most funding.

Three things:

(1) One genius inventor like Newton is worth more than an infinite number of idiots. No exceptions.

(2) If education becomes a meaningless credential where everyone gets a participation trophy -- then educational attainment itself will be completely disregarded as a metric used to compare individuals. Thus, this drive to use the resources of education (while it is currently a prestigious metric) to try and balance for differences in the cognitive abilities given to us by DNA is going to harm the reputation of the credential altogether.

(3) When accreditated, public education is reduced to a daycare, the private sector WILL fill the void by producing an alternative system while also calling for defunding the public system as it had been rendered useless by "good intentioned" radical race marxists.

Have you considered that Jordan Peterson is part of the problem with the education system? I doubt he could pass this math test given the arguments he’s trying to make about marxists.

I do not think it is worthwhile to engage in cults of personality. I do not obsess over him or anyone else (outside of my family).

While the man is accomplished and respected, his ideas are just ideas that he puts out there with the hope that we consider them and improve upon them.

You question his aptitude for math. Ok. I see no reason to have a thought on that particular matter.

The idea that the education system has a problen at all is an idea that suggests the education system isn't achieving a particular goal. The differences in perspectives all come from having a different goal.

Here is a breakdown of the differences in goals:

(1) Marxists in our society believe education's goal should be to achieve equal credentials for all people -- they view the contest and competition aspect as a negative.

Standardized tests inevitably reveal the different levels of intelligence between groups despite their afforded equal opportunities(which then makes a good argument for why we have disparate outcomes and is thus an ideological threat to marxists).

(2) Some marxists also view the aspect of actually training people to reach their maximal potential (IE fostering the genius of someone like Newton or Einstein) to be irrelevant to their goals. They just do not care about this aspect. They would rather advanced math classes be cancelled than see their ideology be dismantled by standardized scientific testing.

(3) A rather silent group of, say, "meritocrats" believes people are different, differences are beautiful, and differences create bellcurves of both athletic prowess and brain prowess. Standardized testing is the only way to assess people and see where their brain falls on the intelligence bellcurve. Education is valued as a way to foster our civilization's geniuses so that they reach their full potential.

Your view of equity is pretty narrow. There are loads of Non-marxists across the spectrum of political leaning and communitarian to libertarian that support equity of opportunity provided by educational access.

People who disagree with you aren't universally Marxists, though people with Marxists philosophy may also disagree with you.

With which part do you disagree?

Your usage of "marxist" to describe the people who push for equal outcome to the detriment of everything else.

Its just a label that is pretty universally applied to people with that mindset.

I have lived under communist governments. It is what it is, even if you refuse the label.

People are innately different. Marxism, in all iterations, has always been about blaming the different outcomes on some narrative of oppression, be it class or race.

While equal opportunity is great, equal outcome is a stupid and bad idea which should be opposed, lest we shackle ourselves to the lowest common denominator.

To avoid distractions I would therefore prefer a better label than "Marxist" that doesn't come with all the historical baggage, and is more precise.

Agreed. Which is why public education wasn't supposed to be enacted at the federal level. It is a state concern, or, more appropriately, a private one.

Edit: US perspective

Public education is administered at the provincial level in Canada.

And is administratively split between two major institutions here in Ontario. The public school system and the catholic school board.

And I believe the public system is divided further still by region. Near-north district school board, Toronto district school board, etc. (Though I’m unsure how much autonomy each board has.)

None in terms of curriculum

By “private” do you mean entirely un-subsidized? i.e parents pay for their child’s education?

Yes, exactly.

With respect to the US:

Don't get me wrong. States can enact a public education and directly tax residents to fund it, but the federal government was not enumerated that power in the Constitution.

Can you help me understand what part of mathematics, science, language arts, music, or most other extracurriculars change across state lines? I don't understand the argument that States vs. Federal, and we know that private education doesn't help but does exacerbate gaps in opportunity (which, as a minarchist libertarian, I oppose privatization of education due to equity/Rawlsian veil concerns). For this particular argument, I fail to see why non-standardized curriculum is better.

History as a subject I can understand localized curriculum.

Or are you arguing that funding can't be moved through central vehicles? Is this because if an area is better off (NY, CA, WA, IL) in their funding shouldn't help to fund ensure states worse off (MS, TX, OK, etc.)? I mean, I get the "F-u-i-got-mine" crowd but certainly there are national security/defense reasons to ensure a base level of education, such as science and finance, if only to ensure people aren't gullible to populism or, if financially irresponsible, open to manipulation by foreign states.

It's not so much that federally funded public education wouldn't be valuable or beneficial, it's more that the Constitution enumerates powers to the Federal government (Article 1 Section 8), and any power not enumerated to the Federal government is left to the states (10th ammendment).

Accepting funds from the federal government tends to come with strings attached, and such attachments tend not to work well over the generalization of the entire population (see the OP's about standards being added/dropped for everyone when it probably should have been considered from a local or hyperlocal perspective).

The strings-attached conditionality shifts power to the federal government, which is something to be avoided at all costs.

Edit: to enunerate to the Federal government the power of education, the constitution would have to be amended. Totally doable, but a requirement nonetheless.

Ah, I see. Your argument derives from an ideological reading of the US Constitution in lieu of a focus on impact, benefit, legality/precedent, ethics, and need.

I don't think my reading is necessarily ideological beyond what your "legality/precedent" is.

We have first hand record from Madison about what the general welfare clause means (last paragraph). https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-14-02-017...

It is more ideological that the courts knowingly reinterpreted the clause to allow for spending outside the scope of the Constitution, which immediately removed all restrictions on the federal government.

What is the point of enumerated powers if the gov is allowed to ignore them?

I'm not too concerned with the red herring of whether enumerated powers improve the capacity of local school systems; the current system tends to work okay when we centralize things that perform well when centralized, like educational standards and often funding. Clearly, Madison would be open to the current policy approach, regardless whether we arrived to and improve from here through judicial review or through a do-nothing Congress/ratification process explicitly enumerating (which process has proven to be insufficient in governing the modern United States, hence the rise of the administrative state), because Madison was willing to support a revolution to ensure people had realistic, capable governance (which in his time meant throwing out the king, and in our time means reasonable bounds of the administrative state).

Now, would you please address the core question: can you help me understand what part of mathematics, science, language arts, music, or most other extracurriculars change across state lines?

Or perhaps the sister question: if they don't, and the only reason we don't approach it that way is artificial due to gaps in the governance structure, then I trust you would support correcting the governance structure or supporting the governance structure that allows it?

I am wary of granting any additional power to a government on any level, state or federal.

Although your assertion that state lines do not change the nature of core fields like mathematics is correct, they do present a change wherein the funds to pay for education sold as a public good are sourced. And my contention is that the federal government is not granted the power to provide funds for public education.

States are left that power, so to the extent that states want to provide/force education to be a public good, they can do so. It is preferable as people could relocate to another state which does not raise tax revenue to publicize education if they so chose to. States, after all, are not prohibited from direct taxiation.

The entire point of the revolution was to shed rule-by-decree systems by imposing the separation of powers through a system of checks and balances. I do not believe that Madison would be of the favor of a federal subsidiary on public education, even in the modern era.

Of course the Constitutional system creates unequal outcomes. Of course it creates unequal opportunities. But those are problems for citizens to solve amongst themselves locally, up to the state level. The federal government is not to squabble in such affairs.

It's not like education didn't exist in the 1700s. The founders were well aware of it and explicitly left it out. The same is true of a federalized Healthcare system.

I genuinely believe that, given no public funding of education at any level whatsoever, we would still see localities mobilize to provide it, as the benefit would likely outweigh the cost. An educated society is preferred, after all. I also believe the solution would be more efficient in resource usage and allocation.

> And my contention is that the federal government is not granted the power to provide funds for public education

Which violates the 14th Amendment, which is arguably more important under Federalism than the 10th.

[0] And my contention is that the federal government is not granted the power to provide funds for public education

In what way is the federal government not being allowed to fund public education a violation of the 14th ammendment?

It's certainly not equal protection under the law because there is no law authorizing congress to provide public education.

It's not the repayment of debts because the US hasn't committed to paying debt for the future (we would have to pay off current obligations).

Please read the link provided, which answered your questions.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I think you may have accidently pasted the quoted text from my comment instead of the link in your above reply.

I'd be happy to read any link you send. My leanings toward extremely limited government have exponentially increased lately so I'd be happy to be brought back down to earth.

> I've seen no good reason to think that standardized testing is something that improves this situation

Standardized testing is a measurement. Measurement is necessary to improve, but not the improvement itself.

Further, every classroom in some way employs standardized measurement, unless we're talking about classrooms where some students get a fundamentally different exam. For the same reasons of comparable measurements, an instructor for a course would have difficulty knowing how well people are doing if everyone took different tests.

The "standard" part of an exam simply means that the person who is metaphorically sitting next to you doesn't get an easier, harder, or weirder test. IMO this is a return to administrative opacity and favor trading.

You are right in the literal sense, but "standardized test" is usually used to mean test administered to a group larger than a classroom.

Not to get all Heisenberg about this, but in my experience, standardized testing is a measurement which can have a significant impact on the education system. I'm not familiar with Ontario's system, but No Child Left Behind was a travesty because teachers had a strong mandate to teach to the test, and spend months on test-prep. Education got worse as a result.

And then there's the matter of what the measurement is used for -- NCLB was used not to bring help to the schools that needed it most, but to punish them and reward the ones that were relatively well off -- closing schools in poor neighborhoods (reducing local employment) and lengthening those students' commutes (further raising the barrier for them to participate in their education).

> Education got worse as a result.

While NCLB had negative side effects, education in America has been getting worse since the 1960s. The SAT is substantially easier than it was in the 1960s as well. NCLB had no impact on test scores either, so how do we even know education got "worse" if we've given up broad-based statistical evaluation criteria?

Seriously, what's the measuring stick other than an assertion?

> closing schools in poor neighborhoods

This might as well be a talking point from the NEA. Real-adjusted education expenses in America have tripled in the last 50-60 years. There has never been more funding or power for public education than now and we've never had as incompetent or entitled class of teachers as we do now.

You can use measurements to make stupid decisions (haven't we all seen it at work), but that's not an argument against measuring. That's an argument against stupid decisions.

The question is not whether or not to measure, it's how much of your resources do you devote to performing the measurement. From what I saw of NCLB, the measurement was extremely resource-intensive, and severely hindered teachers' ability to teach: that is an argument against this specific methodology of measuring, not measurement in general. That it was then used to justify stupid decisions was salt in the wound.

Here in Ontario we have a standardized achievement test called EQAO which is quite controversial and it has the exact problems you describe.

As we should know as engineers, averages are a pretty garbage measure if that's all you have.

A couple English-As-Second-Language learners in the class, or a class with some learning challenged kids in it, and the average is thrown off. Is the teacher bad? Is the school bad? You won't know without a much closer look than a simple test can give you.

My daughter was in French Immersion and all the curriculum taught in French, but EQAO was done in English. Vocabulary for math is different. An adult can translate fairly easily... but a kid in grade 3?

The test is used by various actors (including the right wing Fraser Institute) to "rate" schools on "quality", which is a dubious practice given aforementioned issues of statistical variance. Parents have been been known to pick neighbourhoods (to move to) based on these scores, which only hurts the school and neighbourhood.

The test is also optional, though most parents don't seem to realize this. We've come around to telling our kids that if they don't want to take it, don't and we don't care about their scores.

> Is the teacher bad? Is the school bad?

We don't know the answer to that question, but we do know that the student cannot solve the problem. This is important.

I do not want people to build bridges or airplanes who think physics is just a social construct.

> As we should know as engineers, averages are a pretty garbage measure if that's all you have.

But aren't they better than no measure? Would you support measurement with a higher degree of statistical fidelity with variances, distributions, and racial breakdowns?

For most teachers and institutions (including Harvard), the answer to that latter question is "no", because it shines a huge light on institutional incompetence and failed promises around how increased funding and hiring should lead to superior outcomes.

In the context of an ESL student. Do we know that the student cannot solve the problem, or did they fail the "math test" full of word problems because it's effectively an english test?

In college, I had an ESL math teacher who wrote extremely ambiguous questions, who "helped" students who asked for it by forking the answers over (even in exams, lol). I made a habit of finding all solutions to the problems as stated, which the teacher tended to mark wrong. I took this to the Dean of Math, and got the teacher into some hot water. Now, standardized tests can solve that particular problem -- but the teacher seemed to be quite fluent in conversation -- prepositions are highly nuanced and occur everywhere in word problems, which makes honest misunderstandings highly probable for non-native speakers.

> Do we know that the student cannot solve the problem

Yes. Emphatically. The problem was right there on the page, and they did not give the correct answer.

Answering a question in a language that is commonly used is part of the test. I also have perused the questions for this test and they do not require sophisticated lingual concepts to understand (and this test was for teachers!!!)

But if a pupil cannot solve a problem because they do not understand the language well enough to properly obtain the correct answer... they do not have the skills to succeed in the world. This is a fixable problem, except of course many schools do not actually want to teach the predominant language for reasons having to do with political vote capture.

Wow, you basically didn't read what I wrote.

I did actually.

What I understood and what the teachers understood and what the test taker understood and what society understood was:

The person was given some questions and supposed to write the correct answers.

I will not ascribe any moral worth to whether or not the person should have answered correctly given some hypotheticals, just that they did not. Similarly, I do not care if a person could have built the correct laminar flow equation for an airplane wing given a prompt in a language they may have not been familiar with, just that they did not.

No, you actually did not. You went back -- in a reply to my comment -- to the topic of individual testing when I was speaking of a specific test, the Ontario EQAO which is about testing schools and rating schools and the grades for the children are often not even given out -- just the average for the school. And in this case, it is a blatant mis-use of averages and "standardized testing" for ideological reasons, brought in by a gov't that had a vendetta against the teachers union.

These tests are not meant to provide guidance or assistance or measurement for the student to aid in education, but as a misguided "performance metric" for the school itself. And it's an unacceptable metric for the reasons I gave and which you did not address. The important information is lost in the process of taking an average.

But, honestly, what has happened here is a trend I see on many of your comments, as I peruse your profile. You have a hammer, and every topic is your nail.

But please, do go on, and bang away. You're clearly smarter than us all, and the downvotes you complain about only prove that.

> And in this case, it is a blatant mis-use of averages and "standardized testing" for ideological reasons, brought in by a gov't that had a vendetta against the teachers union.

And my response was that if we added more information and made it a statistically valid comparison, a "non-misuse" of data if you will, they would be even less likely to support it. Because it would show even more clearly that they are not successful at their jobs.

These institutions do not want transparency and they've managed to argue an unfalsifiable position: that teachers are good and there's no reasonable way to measure how good they are, so stop trying.

> it's extremely rare that you get improvement in large bureaucratic systems by making things harder on the people on the bottom, without also providing means and resources to make things better.

I definitely wouldn't want to be legally represented by a lawyer that failed to pass the bar exam or receive surgery from a doctor who failed the USMLE. Would I care that my Spanish teacher failed a math exam? Probably not. However, so long as there isn't any evidence of discriminatory intent, this should be decided through a legislature, not a court.

Autonomy and better funding have done absolutely nothing in some US school districts that are perennially near the top in terms of money spent per pupil. In order for things to change:

1. Parents have to care

2. Parents need to know how to support education at home

Both of those are sorely lacking in said districts.

No local politician likes that because it means pointing the finger of blame at the electorate (being the parents).

I don’t know what the answer is.

I’m ignorant of research into the efficacy of standards within bureaucracies for which you make a very strong claim - do you have some convenient evidence you can share?

Note that this is due to both the racial disparity in test results, and the weak relationship between teacher test results and student results. From my reading of the decision it would be allowed if the tests actually served an important purpose.

NYC recently settled a similar case:

https://gothamist.com/news/city-pay-largest-ever-settlement-...

Lowering the standards in the name of racial equity. What could possibly go wrong. I'm lucky that I am privileged enough to be able to afford private school because I will not have any of this race to the bottom identity politics bullshit (I live in Ontario). Canadian public education and the judiciary is a joke.

This is for teachers.

I think it isn't a huge deal if an English or French or Social Studies teacher isn't great in math, but is otherwise a good candidate.

But should someone who fails the math proficiency test be a math teacher? Probably not.

Society should try to match everyone with jobs which they are capable of doing, teaching is a good job. We shouldn't unnecessarily exclude people from doing A just because they lack the skills for doing B.

Here is examples of what is on the test:

https://cpl.oise.utoronto.ca/course/mathematics-proficiency-...

Video discussion of the test questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-7fnPD_c7w

> I think it isn't a huge deal if an English or French or Social Studies teacher isn't great in math

I think it is a big deal if any teacher isn't great in math, aside from perhaps PE instructors. Considering how much our whole society is supported by math nowadays and how much the average person sucks at math, perhaps teachers who suck at math are not very good role models for children?

It really does not matter. It does matter, whether math instruction is good.

PE instructors were the worst discriminators. They gave out grades based on physical performance. Looking at old class pictures, the lowest percentile could be easily identified (also corresponding to the last picked when building teams). I hope this has changed.

I thought you were joking at first, but looks like you are not? What else would PE grades be based on if not on physical performance?

Well though I somewhat agree, a lot of kids do not have parents who care or know better and may be on poor diets that cause obesity. Also some kids just don’t have the genetics. The grades should be based on effort applied at whatever skill level those kids are at. How do you grade effort? I don’t know but expecting a kid who comes in 100lbs heavier then other kids and expect him to run the same pace as some hyperactive kid really isn’t fair.

> The grades should be based on effort applied at whatever skill level those kids are at.

Are you suggesting that PE should have different grading procedures than other subjects (which reward measured results, or at least in my school did)? Or are you even suggesting in general that all subjects should be graded like this (and for example someone really bad at math but "trying really hard" should actually be getting A's and B's)?

You are mixing physical and mental checks. If I think really really hard about moving a 20lbs ball on 40m I doubt it will budge. If I repeatedly punch a sudoku puzzle it will not solve itself.

Actually, I'm not. We definitely had outcome-based (not effort-based) grading for both physical and mental disciplines in my school.

We had this too. It somewhat frustrated me to be able to understand the theory and apply it but not being "good" enough in the eyes of the PE teacher. Excellent grades in other subjects though, just didn't see the fun in running after a ball or the worth of investing time and effort at being faster or better at it. College change that. PE was stil mandatory in the cursus but was more oriented towards a healthy lifestyle. Benefits of physical activity, research on muscle development and training methods, what consists of a healthy diet, how to enjoy physical activities and include them in your schedule etc.

Oh and in primary school, teachers would go in the teachers lounge to smoke while they were given a break by us being in PE.

I didn't see the fun in many subjects either, and got appropriately poor grades that reflected my level of knowledge or skill.

For PE we had normatives we were supposed to meet -- so many pullups, etc (based on old soviet army normatives I think :)), and if you don't you got corresponding grade.

I would make sense to break PE course into two -- one about theory and one about skill and have two separate grades for them.

Other subjects generally have a well-defined “100% score” and time limit, and assume some basic range of ability (and people outside this ability range are treated differently). It’s not like math tests are usually graded on how fast you could complete the test.

Of course, you could establish a similar grading schemes for physical education, but that would essentially look like grading based on effort and participation.

In many areas, physical education and health education are combined. It is possible for an understanding of health to compensate for physical performance. The metrics for evaluation of physical performance can also be considered. Understanding and demonstrating technique may be a better metric in an educational setting where the rate of physical development is varied (especially in the middle grades). It may also be a better metric overall. Consider a coach: their goal is to help others to achieve their best, that does not imply that they are the best.

Like the above replies, effort and participation. Also set open objectives. Want the kids to do a 5k ? Give them an "inclusive" deadline. That way, if you already are a future champion you can get do it during class in be done in 15 mins or you have the option to split it into a few walks during lunch and after class.

Lots of comments going around that seem to be jokes to other people, apparently. Is it normal for people to expect physical education classes to literally just be various physical activities with grades handed out directly related to each student’s absolute performance in each activity? To me that sounds patently ridiculous.

> Considering how much our whole society is supported by math nowadays and how much the average person sucks at math,

I would have finished this sentence perhaps that’s significant evidence that the average person doesn’t need to be great at math.

No, this would be significant evidence that the average person doesn’t need to be great at math only if you knew for a fact that an alternative universe society with people being better at math had merely comparable societal outcome.

PE teachers in the UK also teach another academic subject as a sort of standby....so no

Sure but the document explains the rationale as follows:

> The Divisional Court found that the Math Proficiency Test had an adverse impact on entry to the teaching profession for racialized teacher candidates

So the concern is that the tail is wagging the dog -- in the sense that trying to have a certain mix of teachers from various backgrounds drives the requirements instead of requirements being guided by what students need from their teachers

Yup, misunderstanding of basic math strikes again. I thought it's a joke when I first seen an argument like "X race does worse at Y therefore Y is racist". Then I thought it's some kind of running joke. Then I've noticed some people are serious about it so I assumed they got fooled by the running joke. Apparently it's no longer a joke and it's used to dictate policies.

Pretty scary situation. The dumb are winning with the dumbest of arguments and now you can't even test for it to prevent it :)

This is precisely Kendi's antiracist rationale.

1. Every policy either is racist, or antiracist. There are no neutral policies.

2. "Racialized" teachers are unable to pass a math test in order to be eligible for the job.

3. Because the policy does not produce an equal outcome, the policy is therefore racist.

Add on top of that, the Smithsonian's ridiculous publication, suggesting that things like objective truth and math/science are concepts of "Whiteness", and this is the outcome.

Harrison Bergeron would like a word.

I remember when it started appearing and the narrative was "it's just a fringe, no one sane thinks like that" but apparently suddenly it's accepted argument in the court of law. I mean, this is Idiocracy materializing. You can't have any kind of discussion if the other side doesn't get basic reasoning right. It's one thing to disagree about values but if we can't even use very basic reasonings it's completely hopeless.

My wife kept failing math proficiency test. Despite having been a successful teacher for many years. Finally I started testing her myself and realized she knew nothing about math. Maybe 2nd grade level. She grew up in Canada and said math wasn’t really taught.

Spent months training her up to a middle school level. We moved states and she took test. No math questions on it…

She grew up in Canada and said math wasn’t really taught.

It think she's covering for a lack of paying attention.

Or maybe she's young, and standards have really slipped? Because otherwise no.

My son is in grade 2 math is definitely taught. At this point he’s already doing pre-algebra using perimeters of polygons. I think they will start angles by the end of the year. I was in Ontario middles school about 20 years ago and even the easiest math course you could take in grade 8 involved basic trigonometry.

I don't know about Ontario, but here People can skate by.

I used to tutor. Quite a lot of kids missed something simple somewhere in the beginning and then were skating by having passable but not good grades. Not understanding what is taught, but getting enough points.

The tutoring consisted of going beck few years and teaching them basics again. They improved, but school never did that "maybe this person now can learn the thing he/she missed 3 years ago".

This idea of missing something simple really speaks to me.

I remember “factorization” not clicking for me for the longest time in public school. My grades slowly got worse, until the right teacher came along and explained it in a way that clicked. I proceeded to have a successful math focused education in high school and university.

I wonder if part of it is that kids are at the mercy of what their teachers want to teach / the curriculum. I think kids often know which things they struggle with… they need help articulating it, and then someone to work with them through it.

Have kids in (edit) elementary school right now and it is pretty bad. There is no rigor and time for practice. Back in the day you would get homework but now that's pretty close to useless or teachers don't grade it. As a parent I have to supplement work after seeing what the schools are leaving students with. For now, it is working but it really should not be my job.

We had one elementary teacher in particular who stated that there was 1 study done in some Nordic country that proved homework does not help. (reference to said study was not provided). Interesting that if you look at high school there is tons of homework; same for university. If that 1 study had any merit it would have applied across all levels. The real truth is that practice makes perfect. But teacher unions do not want that burden on teachers and students suffer in the end. I do not get why elementary schools don't assign homework (I have no doubt private elementary schools do - they get better results).

If you have a parent who recognizes this short changing and is capable of supplementing the education there is a chance for recovery or at least mitigating a decline.

I think what was shown not to help is mandatory homework - and that's assuming a pretty high-quality education in class, as is standard in Nordic countries. But the teacher should absolutely be there to help the students with any extra work they might choose to do on their own.

How is she able to shop a bag of groceries? I am wondering how someone can live a normal life with not knowing almost any math at all. My grandmother, born in 1910 and skipping most school because of WW1, was a housewife in a time when even not knowing to read and write was not a problem, but in 2021 this is no longer possible.

What would geometry had to do with shopping or really anything in what she does? Or finding root square.

Geometry is not second level math. I asked because I had 2 such cases in the family, but at times when it was not such a big deal, you seem to be trolling by talking about root square.

I took my examples from test in question - someone linked it.

Budgeting has been a major problem for her. Her mentality has been. Buy on sale. No regard for the actual price. If I state we shouldn’t eat out as an effort to save money, she will go to the store and spend 80-200 on ingredients for 1-2 meals.

> I think it isn't a huge deal if an English or French or Social Studies teacher isn't great in math, but is otherwise a good candidate.

The test covers the grades 3-9 math curriculum. Not having that kind of basic math literacy is pretty big barrier to being able to evaluate, much less teach, Social Science materiak at the secondary level (the only level where you would likely have a dedicated Social Science teacher.)

And subjecting students to that kind of incompetence—as those from already-disadvantaged backgrounds will be the least likely to have a home environment that counterbalances it—is a far bigger force institutionalizing racial disadvantage than the test itself ever could be.

Agreed, particularly at a secondary level at least a basic understanding of math concepts is important both in general and in social studies - graphs and statistics are what first come to mind.

And if they're not at the secondary level, they're probably supposed to be teaching math.

I would expect an eighth grader to ace a test of this variety.

We expect too little of people. The bar is too low.

An 8th Grader might pass it. But I would probably fail without serious preparation because I haven't solved an algebra equation, used trig, or done any real math by hand in 20 years.

Disuse is not incompetence.

Now, they could make every history/language/music teacher try to relearn all these things in order to pass the test and forget it all again, but it's hard to believe it's not a big waste of everyone's time and energy.

Perhaps we expect too little of people, but there's nothing wrong with specialization.

PEs, architects and lawyers all need to pass standardized tests in order to enter their professions. You have to study for these. Expecting preparation is not the end of the world.

I would expect a professor of mathematics to get at least a few wrong because of awful phrasing and gotchas.

Humm looking at the sample test, the questions are easy, but the presentation and wording is awful

"She has 100m of plastic edging to encloses a circular garden." Hard to believe they let this slip through.

The question was written by another teacher, one that failed English?

These are poorly worded questions. Half the issue with “word problem” test questions is that they assume a cultural context or knowledge. The questions should explain themselves more (what is edging?) or choose a better context.

Well Google gave me the answer to "what is edging" and I doubt this has to do anything with math.

You typically don’t have access to Google when you’re taking a test. The onus should be on the test writer to ensure that what is tested is math knowledge and not math knowledge + some random facts about gardening.

Reminds me of calculus, all I seem to remember from college is that growth rate of a wolf population. And the hearing LIMIT from a high pitched voice.

Yeah, apart from the terrible typography, which seems to be mandatory for these kinds of test, there are plenty of terribly phrased questions as well:

> 7. A number cube is labeled 1 to 6. [...]

What's wrong with the word 'die'?

> 12. There is a linear relationship [...] What type of variation is this relationship and what is its initial value?

What on earth does 'variation' mean here? As far as the answer key is concerned the answer should be 'A partial variation with an initial value of $50.'. Which makes no sense to me whatsoever.

> 13. A rectangle has an area of 5^𝑥2 + 15𝑥 square units. Determine expressions for the length and the width of the rectangle.

Surely that depends on your aspect ratio? It could be sqrt(5x^2 + 15x) for both.

Also their answer key lists the area in question 4 in cm for some reason, if you're going to use units at least use the right one. And you just know someone is going to be anal about question 8, since the answer key doesn't list the exact value '100m/pi' but the approximate 31.8 m.

Also I hope they got a calculator otherwise the answer to question 15 which involves trigonometry is downright unfair.

> > 7. A number cube is labeled 1 to 6. [...]

> What's wrong with the word 'die'?

One usual excuse is to make it clear that it's a d6, rather than a d20 or something, but that's already clear here. The other reasons are that dice still have a connotation of being related to gambling in some people's eyes, which makes it politically incorrect to use the term, and that "die" being a homonym for life ending means that it's also politically incorrect to say.

I've noticed someone posted a different set of example questions, which seem to be more reasonable, though with a very odd 'pedagogy' section (which doesn't test mathematics knowledge and smells rather political for some reason).

The samples look like grade 9ish math. It's about understanding rules and how those rules can be applied to solve a problem. When starting a teaching career you don't always get a full-time, one subject schedule; it's more like covering sick leaves or temp contracts depending on schools needs. Having this test is useful since the College certifies that its members , even if they are specialized in a given subject, can understand the basics of other high school subjects. Imagine how it would suck if you come across the "not my job, not my problem" when asking a school teacher for help.

The first section of the exam does not cover specialized, esoteric knowledge. Deficiencies in basic reasoning extend to other areas of knowledge as well, and it seems unconscionable to allow those who suffer from these to teach.

But in social studies there is math that gets discussed. We had percentages for sure when discussing politics for example. My social studies is ever old but we definitely had some portions that had some math involved.

Based on the tests examples it's not about being great at math. Being able of divide one number by another or find area of a parallelogram is just a sign that that person is reasonably smart and functional in modern world.

The test is so basic, it's shame that teachers pushed it up to court.

Just a random pick from samples:

> Nada is landscaping her front yard. She has 100m of plastic edging to encloses a circular garden. What is the diameter of the garden?

We seriously expect teachers to not know about the Pi number?

Just a note on the test you're pointing to:

> Learners wishing to enroll in the Mathematics - Intermediate Additional Basic Qualification course may take this test in lieu of official transcript(s) showing proof of successful completion of a minimum of two full university degree credit courses or the equivalent in the teaching subject.

Ontario teaching licenses have qualifications for various grade levels and subject areas. This qualification is intended for people who intend to teach mathematics in grades seven through nine, and the sample test questions reflect that. I very much doubt this test is the one referred to by the courts. If it is, the qualification would be irrelevant (assuming test results reflect the ability to teach a subject competently).

This decision makes the assumption that there are zero differences between races right? Therefore the reasoning follows that any differences in scoring on a test means the test must be racist?

To code well, you need to be able to write well too. If your code isn't clearly written it can't be understood and it can't be maintained. Writing well isn't a "nice to have" for doing software development, it's a requirement. Yet despite this fact most coders are terrible, terrible writers. Even within the very limited literary realm of variable naming. And this lack of skills results in billions of dollars of thrown away and abandoned projects every year.

For a lot of teaching jobs, mathematical skills really aren't necessary. You don't need to be able to do long division to teach Shakespeare. You don't need to know algebra to teach French. For those professions, mathematical skills are indeed a "nice to have".

I think the individuals taking time out from their highly paid days of not bothering to add doc-strings to functions, skipping adding READMEs to new projects and not bothering to name their variables anything more informative than "data" should take consideration of these facts before posting here to say that overworked and underpaid teachers are lazy and stupid and should be required to jump through a bureaucratic hoop to confirm that they have a skill they don't need.

Does this open the door to private educational certification?

The world is crazy.

So, are societies allowed to maintain any standards at all if it can be argued that the maintenance of standards has disparate impacts on racialized bodies?

Societies that embrace this in full will be outcompeted by the ones that avoid this trap.

Good point. I hope the legal tradeoffs will eventually lead towards a better life for all, rather than a uniformly bad life for all.

For this, at least some discrimination is needed.

It’s a strange way of looking at things. Probably what they should be doing is using the data to identify groups that may need extra support to meet the standard and make that support available to them. Eliminating the standard completely is rather odd.

Of course, being Canada, it couldn't have passed the opportunity to mention "race".

But seriously speaking, it's a good decision for the wrong reasons.I personally would LIKE to see logic[as a precursor to anything, because even math is based on it ultimately] being taught and picked up everywhere, but that's not the case and will never be the case.People don't like being forced/told what to do, that's why ironically we need artists and people who know how to make things interesting for kids,adults,etc.This is not even going into the cultural and societal problems some countries have who banked on "training smart people" yet nobody is there to maintain basic utilities.You cannot and generally it's not a good idea to rely on foreign workforce, for a number of obvious reasons.

A teacher's performance should be analyzed mainly by the results.

time for saturday morning math school

Is this about education standards or about equal access to cushy jobs?

Did you just describe teaching as "cushy"?

Canadian teachers are kind-of, sort-of well-paid including pretty good benefits [0]. Their salaries and their union's power are a large source of political "discourse" in Ontario.

[0] From 2014/2015: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-604-x/2017001/t/tbld2...

The Teachers Union runs the province. They do whatever they want.

You shouldn't be downvoted. Ontario teacher unions are much more powerful than the US equivalents. Even their pension plan is powerful.

No one wants to hear the truth, especially all the folks who benefit from a corrupt system.

Honestly if someone is too stupid to pass a basic math exam they have absolutely no business trying to teach children.

Math is not racist. Lowering standards is racist. This will affect the working poor the most, who can't afford private school for their kids. If there's a racial discrepancy between teachers how about you spend money to train the affected teachers, who generally have above average IQ and you know could learn the required skills.

The general decline and lowering of standards in this country is why immigration from Europe has basically stopped and people are actually moving back.

I'm too lazy to read the court document.

Did non-math teachers have to pass the proficiency test? If not, did the math proficiency test contain material irrelevant to material the math teachers were expected to teach?

The linked document states: "There were reasonably available alternatives to the MPT that on their face appear to be less impairing and at least as effective in achieving the goal of improving student achievement in math. These include requiring a minimum number of hours of math instruction or a math course in B.Ed. programs, requiring an undergraduate math course as an admissions requirement for B.Ed. programs or waiting to see the effectsof the other parts of the Respondent’s four-year math strategy."

We're talking about the level of math that you need to calculate a percentage, or to average a handful of numbers.

I don't know, looking at the example questions the usefulness of some of them still seems limited.

Calculating fractional number division without a calculator for non STEM teachers is not a very relevant skill in my opinion.

There is no test to be a math teacher. This is one of the tests you have to pass to be a teacher. When you begin as a teacher it's not typically up to you which subjects you will teach.

Cynical (imaginary) counter-move - drop the literacy and verbal reasoning requirements for admission to law school to ~1st-grade levels. Ditto for the bar exam. Justify that with wording which imitates the offending court rulings. After their own elite social group's standards & status are threatened by dumbing down, the judges will suddenly start pretending that they actually care about their nation's future.

And maybe start work on an amendment to the Canadian Constitution, requiring that judges pass a statistical proficiency test every year.

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