Stanford and Cal profs level accusations as debate over math curriculum rages | Hacker News Reader

Stanford and Cal profs level accusations as debate over math curriculum rages

stanforddaily.com

30 pointsgnicholas14 comments

> the reformed framework attempted to remedy achievement gaps by urging public schools to remove certain accelerated math tracks from middle school education. Boaler’s guidelines have become a basis for a statewide push to move these classes, specifically Algebra I, out of middle school.

Closing the achievement gap is only a good thing if you do it by helping the lower-achieving kids, not by leaving them alone and just holding back the higher-achieving kids, which is what this would do. This sounds like something out of Harrison Bergeron.

That passage does not unambiguously say this, but is Algebra I in middle school now considered accelerated in California?

Yeah, they discuss Algebra I in 8th grade as being advanced. The push is to delay everyone from taking it until 9th grade.

This was something that caught me off-guard when we started learning about schools for our kids. We've lived in the heart of Silicon Valley, in very pricey school districts. One school bragged about how they had just implemented super-duper accelerated math, where some students took Algebra I in 7th grade.

That was surprising and unimpressive to me. I grew up in Sacramento and in our GATE program, Algebra I in 7th grade was the norm. The truly advanced kids were taking calculus in 9th grade.

There are many kids around Palo Alto who are advanced in math. But almost none of them are picking it up in the public schools. In fact, there are parents in Palo Alto who have gone so far as to sue PAUSD in order to get advanced math instruction. One lawsuit was settled (the kid was allowed to advance, and the parents were given thousands of dollars), and another lawsuit is pending.

> Closing the achievement gap is only a good thing if you do it by helping the lower-achieving kids

Modern "educators" see actual teaching as demeaning to their role; their schtick is that every student should just be learning their math by themselves. You can imagine how well this works for the unlucky 'lower-achievers', who for social reasons may not even have any alternative support from their family or community either.

+1 for the Vonnegut reference

Tldr Harrison Bergeron is a satire of the desire to make all outcomes equal. Worth a read.

The California education establishment seems to think of "Harrison Bergeron" not as a warning, but an instruction manual.

Jelani Nelson's Advanced Algorithms course that is available on Youtube was great and helped me a lot during my undergrad years. I'm glad to see that Professor Nelson is also in support of not diluting math education in favor of misguided, performative actions for POC. I'm in full support of him over Retweet Rachael and am amused to see the turn of events.

It’s really unclear what the goal here is—I guess there is some metric that they hope to improve? If the metric is equity, sure it’s easier to create equity by taking something away from somebody than giving something to people. But what’s the end game for this — keep cutting advanced coursework until you’ve reached some lowest common denominator?

That really does appear to be the main goal in leftist institutions (which pretty much includes every university) today--equality above all. Even if it requires pushing people down to the same low level to accomplish it.

Even math departments of Stanford is getting infiltrated by SJW and woke professors and students. Recent undergrad student who got admitted are more about their fake social justice initiatives and nothing about math skills!

Prof. Boaler is not in the Math dept — she is in the School of Education. My understanding is that she is not beloved in the Math department, and there are a number of Math/Physics professors from Stanford who signed the open letter opposing her proposed policies.

There is something to be said about the whiteness inherent in academia and trying to reduce that. But I think advancements in that area have more to do with linguistics and "UX" than the actual content.

This is just another case of profiteering and government economics, who's to say whether or not it's intended.

Care to explain the term "whiteness inherent in academia"?

I'm no historian but I don't think Newton was collaborating with any black people. Even if he was, you can't ignore the fact that the dominant academic institutions of today evolved from imperialist and white ones (e.g. the Royal Society).

That's hundreds of years of development and cultural momentum geared mostly towards people who find Latin/English natural. This massive and ancient ecosystem of information is best accessed when you can have some tea with your professor friends who only know [insert Romance language here].

There are of course other nonwhite institutions, but their development has been stunted and infiltrated by colonialist ventures.

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