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Comment by FFRefresh | Hacker News Reader

I don't doubt that the people crafting these proposals care. I think they truly believe they are doing the right thing. I personally think it's just increasingly popular, mistaken moral beliefs that inform these types of proposals. Some of the underlying beliefs:

1. Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability

2. Any observable differences between humans are merely the result of social factors

3. Any observable differences in outcomes between groups of humans are the result of oppression from the majority group

4. If you observe differences at your org/institution, it's your moral duty to create policies which disfavor groups of humans performing better and to favor groups of humans performing worse, as those performance differences are due to oppression.

If these beliefs undergird your worldview, and your social groups/information environment reinforce and reward these beliefs, it is of no surprise that we'll see a lot of people soberly propose the types of policies we see here. I can empathize that they really do think they are fighting the good fight, and are doing the right thing for society.

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I don't think that those beliefs are a workable explanation here.

These proposals come from committees and groups of people, and it's just not realistic to write off the entire group of people behind these proposals as having some uniform set of beliefs like that, especially when they give other rationales for the proposals!

The current school system makes decisions in middle school (8th grade and earlier) which determine whether or not each particular student will be able to take calculus in high school. This is, simply put, insane.

Because it's obviously insane, when you introduce questions of race and class into the mix, then it's easy to apply pressure to the department of education to come up with a proposal that changes things. And then you end up with bad proposals... why? Because these proposals are produced by poorly-shepherded committees full of government employees under political pressure, and it's much easier to come up with a bad proposal that responds to political pressure than it is to come up with a good proposal.

There's just no need to try and explain that this proposal is bad because the people who made it have bad beliefs. I'd characterize this as fundamental attribution error here... "the committees made a bad proposal because of wrong beliefs" versus "the committees made bad proposals because it's easier to respond to political pressure than to write a good proposal".

I feel like in this case fundamental attribution error would go the other way, no? The explanation you offer is that there aren't circumstantial factors dominating the decision (the beliefs on this particular issue), but a fundamental flaw in how committees work. To be clear, I agree that this is an inevitable result of the decision-making structure, I've just only ever seen fundamental attribution error referring to mistakes in the other direction.

That's an interesting way of looking at it.

I would never describe someone's beliefs as "circumstantial", and I would also never think of being on a committee as something "intrinsic".

Ah, now I get it! I was thinking of the committee as the entity, not the people on it. Then the question is "why did the committee make a bad call?" where "the topic in question coincidentally misaligned with the views of the members" is the specific cause and "committees always make bad calls" is the general cause. But looking at it from the perspective of the people makes it clear what you were going for

There are no two people in the world with the same beliefs - nobody is suggesting that.

There is however a very broad movement of people who believe that unequal outcomes are a manifestation of racism and so they act accordingly in their roles in government etc..

Many of these people are in the civil service and so this will influence their view.

It would be 'insane' to ignore this movement, it's one of the most powerful social forces in the US right now.

You're saying it's one of the "most powerful social forces in the US right now"... is there any particular reasoning here? To be honest, it sounds like an extremist take on the nature vs nurture argument which has been playing out for millennia and I don't see a reason to believe that somehow the extreme version nurture side of the argument has become dominant here. If anything, it's easy to remember the pendulum swinging back and forth in the past decades, and the pendulum doesn't seem to swing that far in either direction.

> Many of these people are in the civil service and so this will influence their view.

It influences the political pressures placed on people in the civil service more than anything else. People in the civil service are in the civil service for a long time, typically. Often they are in the civil service for decades. On the other hand, elected officials and political appointees rotate in and out much more quickly.

I know people in the civil service, they have a much more long-term and level-headed view of things, and my impression is that they "weather the storm" of changing political pressures. At least, the ones who survive in the job do. Political appointees and elected officials are much more mercurial. Appointees know that their position is (somewhat) an extension of their own political power to begin with.

“I don't see a reason to believe that somehow the extreme version nurture side of the argument has become dominant here”

watch “the news” or go on twitter

Twitter's algorithm promotes whatever tweet will make people angry, because angry people spend more time on Twitter. I'm on Twitter, but I've been on Twitter for a while now, I've selected who I follow, and my feed just doesn't get that kind of noise in it at any significant level. Most of what I see on Twitter is people arguing about Elden Ring or showing off how they can access YouTube from a Mac SE or something.

"The news" is dominated by organizations which are trying to maximize their social media engagement metrics so they can get more money from advertisers, so they're subject to the same forces that drive Twitter.

Neither of these sources reliably give you a picture of national affairs. Right now the best I can do is get a picture of local affairs by talking with people that I happen to encounter because I live near them.

Yes, it's been going on for a while.

Christians are fond if it: "You have an innate, direct relationship with God, in his eyes you are equal to the The King" etc..

But we've only had 'governance' in the broad sense for 100 years.

And we've never really tried to apply such principles into education until the 1960s.

Now we have actually made incredible progress on social issues, we have our 'wars' in Social Media with Holy Anti Racism Fanatics trying to do their best - because 'racism is bad' - which of course it is - and 'systematic racism exists' - which of course it does - but the 'kernel of truth' of these issues drives people into ideological fervour as though it's some giant overwhelming issue, when really it's not. Racism is still pernicious, but it's not fundamental.

And FYI don't think it's all rubbish.

For example - 'Math' is heavily based on prerequisites. If you 'fall back' in Grade 4, you may never be able to 'catch up'. While that's true in general, it's not as acute as in math.

Poor kids might be far more likely to 'fall of the bandwagon' and a lot of poverty might be due to systematic racism, and so the 'Hard Requirements' for certain things may not be ideal.

You could have 'summer school' or 'after school' or 'accelerated catch up' programs.

Those would be 'reasonable' solutions in my view - and FYI these are mostly issues of poverty, not race, they are couched as racial issues because that's what fires people up.

Edit: and yes, I agree 'most people in the civil service' are level-headed. Most people actually are. But some groups have outsized voices, amplified by 'allies' elsewhere.

The 'Anti Racism Agenda' is a 'fundamental pillar', like a religion, of 25% of the US population, and they are pretty active about it. And the actions of the most extreme 5% end up really upsetting other people. Much like a very powerful fool using made up constitutional manoeuvres to try to take over the government would upset a lot of people as well.

Good intentions, surely, but that doesn't make them right.

>>and 'systematic racism exists' - which of course it does

Systematic racism only exists today to positively discriminate against people belonging to so-called disadvantaged races, at the expense of those belonging to so-called privileged races. That's why White and Asian kids are discriminated against in college admissions.

Oh yeah? Then why am I stuck paying a higher property tax rate than my white neighbors who inherited their house from their parents that purchased during an era of segregation?

First of all, are we talking about “systematic” or “systemic” or “structural” racism. These terms are not interchangeable. Put that aside for a second…

I assume your example is talking about Prop 58. [1] Is Prop 58 racist? Of course not, the CA Constitution prohibits racist and sexist laws and the courts are very good at enforcing that prohibition.

Prop 58 means a lower property tax bill can be inherited by the children with the property. By your reasoning, isn’t allowing property inheritance at all racist?

To me this is a meaningless injection of “equity” into a discussion on equality. Racism is not a word that means “inequity” - as in - everyone not consuming, producing, contributing, and owning the exact same quanta. That of course is a bizarre fiction.

We are talking about a tax policy which generationally preserves a tax break. It had a meaningful basis in law and policy which does not discriminate based on race, but it certainly provides a significant tax benefit to generational land owners.

Now again, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the Federal estate tax lifetime exclusion amount, which provides orders of magnitudes greater tax benefits to preserving generational wealth, so Prop 58 is just a bit player in this scheme.

If the argument is that a tax policy which is advantageous to anyone with generational wealth is “systemically racist” then I think the argument has gone off the rails.

There are important justifiable public policy goals to ensuring a certainly level of generational wealth. There is no and never will be an important justifiable public policy goal of being “racist”.

If someone wants to argue for wealth confiscation, redistribution, and equity (e.g. some form of communism) then by all means give it a shot. But I don’t abide calling people racists if they disagree with that as a policy goal. If the argument is “merely” that there should be no tax benefit which preserves generational wealth, you actually immediately end up in exactly the same place.

The answer is of course more likely along the lines of “we do both”. We have policies that provide for protecting and maintaining a certainly level of generational wealth. And we also have policies which provide a massive welfare system for people without any generational wealth.

[1] - https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3706

The original commenter obviously meant "systemic" racism, and you're not discussing in good faith if you're trying to misinterpret this. Ditto when you digress about calling people racists when no one in this thread has done that.

As to estate tax exemptions, they aren't nearly as egregious. There can certainly be an argument for reparations of ill-gotten gains to level the playing field, but it's at least possible for me to accumulate wealth myself and pass it on to my children. In contrast, it's simply impossible for me to acquire and pass on the same property tax rate that my white neighbors have.

I guess to me the words matter, and calling it “systemic racism” means that somewhere in there, there should be identifiable racism and not merely structural inequity, aka property ownership and capitalism.

I think saying you can’t go back in time and capitalize on an investment 60 years ago that also comes with an accrued property tax advantage is true, but has nothing to do with race. Anyone can start accruing their own tax advantaged status under the exact same Proposition, and no one can ever try to take it away from them on the basis of a protected trait, right?

I guess what I’m asking is, is there anything specific about this tax policy that accrues benefits to a historical capital investment which makes it “racist” over any other tax policy that accrues benefits based on historical capital investment?

There are so many race neutral policies that provide accrued benefits like this. Even social security benefits accrue based on historical wages. But also things like Roth IRAs which provide compounded tax free growth. You can’t contribute the same dollars today to a Roth IRA and get the same tax advantages as someone who contributed the same amount but over the last 60 years, the benefit can only accrue over time, just like the CA property tax benefit can only accrue over time.

Not everyone pays the same tax rate on their income or their property, nor are they provided the same level of government benefits. In many cases that tax rate or benefit level will be based on historical personal or family wealth. Often times it works out to be a progressive tax, sometimes it’s regressive depending on so many policy goals that are often in conflict with each other.

Simply put, any of your neighbors who have owned their (family) property for several decades have accumulated a several thousand dollar a year tax benefit for being a long-time owner. You too can accrue a several thousand dollar a year tax benefit the longer that you hold your property. You don’t get to buy in and get that benefit on Day 1, and neither did they.

The same reason I am? I purchased later than them (and am white).

Shitty taxation policies fuck all new home owners and have little to do with race.

The difference in your experience from that of your neighbor is not a case of racial discrimination. Even if this afflicted more black people in general, a racial disparity in the impact of a policy is not evidence of it being systemically racist, so would not validate the claim that the US is systemically racist toward black people.

This can be trivially demonstrated: ten times more men are arrested and incarcerated than women, yet no one would claim this suggests the US criminal justice system is systemically sexist toward men.

>> Racism is still pernicious, but it's not fundamental.

How did you reach this conclusion in the face of 300+ years of verifiable, well-documented federal, state and local racist legislation and policies? If it’s pernicious now then it’s always been pernicious since generations have persevered irregardless of these policies… but that doesn’t make sense to me.

Institutional racism really does not exist, and in general, people really are not racist. Obviously, subtleties exist, and there is work to do - but by and large, people are treated fairly in 2020, moreover, there are numerous 'affirmative action' programs in place to try to make up for the issues.

I certainly agree racism gets overemphasized as the sole cause of disparities compared to other factors like culture, economic status, and selective immigration (I don’t see how racism explains, for example, why the children of Nigerian immigrants outperform those of Mexican immigrants, or why Asians outperform whites).

But even conceding that racism is the dominant factor in performance differences, the framework proposed here is plain ridiculous. In essence, what they’re advocating is that because disadvantaged groups underperform in advanced math, advanced math should be scrapped altogether in public schools. The effect of this will be to handicap disadvantaged groups even further, as they’re less likely to attend private school or have access to private tutoring, and thus will be locked out of advanced math entirely while advantages groups continue to receive advanced math instruction in private schools.

It sounds like you and OP differ only in that he thinks the people on the committee have these beliefs, while you’re implying that they’re afraid of “political pressure” from people who hold these beliefs. Which I suspect is correct.

I was thinking less that they are "afraid" of political pressure, and more that responding to political pressure is one of the things that these committees do, by design.

Political pressure is a manifestation of the population's problems / beliefs / perceptions. It's wrong to bow completely to political pressure, but it's also wrong to ignore it.

I agree with you somewhat, but I think there's an important distinction to be made.

If a political decision-making process concludes "men account for more road traffic deaths than women, but we've decided that gender can't be taken into account when pricing car insurance" that's fine; the facts have remained the facts, and a political decision has been made by a political process.

But if the same process concludes "men and women cause the same number of road traffic deaths" the process has gone off the rails despite the fact the outcome is the same because in one situation the facts have been acknowledged and the decision to act contrary to them made knowingly; while in the second situation that isn't the case.

Or if they sabotage the education for the women: give them a shorter drivers license education so they'll crash as much as the men

If you talk to these people though. They DO have bad beliefs. Let's not even talk about politics. Their goal is to get a kid a degree,(especially in groups that dont normally get degrees) and many of them believe just having the degree to get past the job resume hurdles is good and helping people.

They ignore the fact that the degree is supposed to be a proof of "This person has X skillsets at minimum". It no longer is. There is basically no job in the United States that cares if you have a high school diploma or GED other than government jobs. They are repeating this process with College right now. The College Diploma is now the new High School Diploma, and pretty soon jobs are gonna want Masters or Doctorates for entry level.

This is a bad belief, they don't (or won't) understand that they are ruining and devaluing a thing by their actions and beliefs.

You can't get a college degree without passing the College Algebra weedout course (let alone Calculus, which is required for the bulk of STEM courses), and you can only realistically pass College Algebra by getting a lot of rigorous math in K-12. Lowering the bar is doing every student a disservice, and the most vulnerable students will be the hardest hit.

You'd think that but there are work arounds.

Yes pretty much every college requires "college algebra". But some schools have "college algebra for stem majors" vs "college algebra for non stem majors". Guess which one is easier, has lots of bonus credit and extra curricular stuff to earn extra credit. (You attended the college showing of "vagely related math movie?! Here's 10 points on your final!") And also grades on a curve. Also you only need 69.5 (and sometimes just a D!) to graduate.

There's also other cheats/hacks. Like lots of state schools will let you transfer from a community college with credit for your "core courses", and some of those have questionable standards. There's also the fact that college algebra usually has some kind of test out or online option. There was a whole sub industry of "pay you to take the online test for me" at colleges for stuff like college algebra. Some of those courses did have some kind "you have to take 1 test in person so we know its you" rule. But they didnt check super heavily that you were actually that person other than a cursory examination of your drivers license name matched who was supposed to take the test. (and oh boy let me tell you about how covid and masks interacted with all of that)

Dont get me started on the "Statistics for Sociology" that was different than actual "Statistics" (but fulfilled the Stats requirement for the degree)

This is also ignoring that taking College Algebra to begin with IN COLLEGE. Was a major sign you were not a Stem Major. Stem Majors took that in high school and were taking at minimum precalculus. (and even that was viewed as the slow lane, you should be talking Calc 1 as a red blooded STEM freshman)

I do expect that such "workarounds" will always exist. I just don't think they're more realistic than just getting some good-enough math fundamentals in K-12, without mucking about with "data science" silliness. (Data literacy is of course appropriate to Science class, and the letter even mentions that.)

> pretty much every college requires "college algebra".

Caltech didn't. In fact, they expect you to know calculus before entering. I didn't, and that nearly capsized my college career before it left the dock.

They now do have a remedial kind of class, "Math 1d", which is to be taken concurrently with Math 1a. I was placed into it after not trying very hard on my placement test, but they let me drop it when I told them I didn't need it.

> They now do have a remedial kind of class

Sad to hear that. It suggests their admissions process has succumbed. When I attended, it was very rare for the admissions people to admit someone who couldn't do the work. I only knew one who couldn't.

Yeah, heaven forbid 17 year olds decide they want to take on a career in STEM later in High School. They must be real dummies. REAL engineers decide to be engineers as HS Freshmen and never waver from, struggle on, or doubt the One True Path.

Colleges should only admit those who pledge themselves to the Guild of Software Engineering at 13, so we can keep the noble profession of building CRUD apps in JavaScript free of riffraff.

Grandparent was talking specifically about Caltech. I don’t see how anyone can go to Caltech without knowing calculus, possibly even linear algebra. This school has tougher admission standards than MIT.

I was rejected by MIT, Hahvahd, and Stanford :-)

The calculus requirement was not listed as an admissions requirement. The other students were astonished that I didn't simply assume it was required.

Fortunately, physics prof Ricardo Gomez invited me to his office for some impromptu calculus tutoring, which saved my bacon. I owe him.

Frankly, a major thing that Caltech admissions looked for is a very strong interest in engineering and science. It's gotta be in your bones, or you ain't going to thrive there. With their limited resources (it's small) it's just not pragmatic to accept those with a more casual interest. And really, why would you want to go there if you weren't? After all, 9 out of 10 classes were 90% math, math, more math, and math.

There should exist places designed to provide maximum learning opportunity to those who come in already knowing a fair bit. It is a loss to society if such places start disappearing, or perhaps a sign of such loss if the reason is less demand.

This does not in any way imply that those should be the only kind of places to exist.

This does not in any way imply that there's anything wrong with people who started to recently to have relevant background.

I could have put this comment nearly anywhere in this thread. As a German I'm really surprised by this. Calculus was part of regular math school education and just expected knowledge for the mandatory math classes during my CS undergraduate studies. I did graduate at one of the universities that do use the first years to weed out students though and dunno if less competitive ones are more lenient.

We also do split students as early as after the 4th year (end of elementary school) in three different school systems with about 50% of students attending the highest university track tier. The other two tiers might not have calculus or only in a limited form, but also don't qualify for university without further education. Thus setting students on different paths based on ability/performance early on seems very natural to me. Students always can up/downgrade schools based on performance at any year later on.

> Statistics for Sociology

An acquaintance asked me if she should take "Calculus for Artists" after I suggested she take a calculus course. I laughed, and said that such a course should be named "Pretend to Learn Calculus". She should take a real calculus course, which she did, and did well in it.

If you're in college, stick to the real math classes, not the "math for losers who are forced to take a math class". You'll be with other students who want to learn math, and you'll have a prof that wants to teach math (the loser math course has a prof who doesn't want to be there, either). It'll be a much more pleasant experience.

Hey, if I was running a college, I'd have the two track math system, too. That way the students who want to learn won't be bothered by the ones who don't.

> I laughed, and said that such a course should be named "Pretend to Learn Calculus".

Was that based on actual knowledge of the course content?

I read the course description, although that wasn't necessary. The title gave the game away.

It's like "Flight School for Artists". There's no such thing.

And yet people don’t feel the same way about “Calculus for Engineers” despite it also being a ridiculously dumbed down course full of rote memorization of formulas, “procedures,” and “strategies” with the bare minimum of hand-wavy theory. Compared to the courses for maths students it’s just as much pretending to learn calculus.

dae STEM has got to be one of the most exhausting memes on the internet. Hell, I’m 3/4 of the letters and even I find this aspect of our culture insufferable.

FWIW, I feel the same way about "Calculus for Engineers". Even though I'm an engineer. It just screams "dumbed down". I want the real thing.

I don't think that's fair. I can't say anything about Calculus for Artists, but Calculus for engineers won't be dumbed down. It will be focused more on the practice of using calculus to solve real-world problems, while a 'regular' Calculus course will be focused more on the development of theory, proofs, etc.

Both have their place.

I've seen the real world result of dumbed down math for engineers - applying the wrong formula for the task, inability to adapt the formula to the task, and poking around in the dark because they were terrified of math. "Walter, can you go help him out" is what I'd hear.

So, yeah, in the real world, it doesn't work out so good.

I eventually learned to appreciate that Caltech never taught how to use formulas, but instead taught where the formulas came from. I recall a class on jet engines (really, an awesome class!), where the prof spent the entire lecture deriving the formula for a jet engine's performance. It was breathtaking. I knew where every term came from. I finally understood how the damned thing worked. All those other handwavy explanations mystified me.

If I was just handed the formula, it wouldn't have meant much of anything to me.

The theorems they prove in mathematician's calculus are useless for engineers, and they take time away from learning useful tricks for doing integrals, which if not that critical for a world with numerical methods, are crucial for solving problems on future tests.

I prefer to know where the formulas come from, to know when the formulas apply, when they don't apply, what their limits are, and how to adapt them to a specific problem.

this would perhaps, idk, also explain why math for artists is also not a super rigourous nor super technical computative class.

An introductory math class is supposed to

- get you used to the general feel of the topic

- make you practice proving things

The specific theorems students prove are not really the point.

> The specific theorems students prove are not really the point.

Right, that's why they should skip the calculus and start students directly on Real analysis. Then they might actually have some use for what they prove in the class.

Knowing the theorems behind calculus is difficult. But they don’t magically make you able to solve limits, integrals, etc. So having different courses that focus on different parts is smart.

E.g., there can be a course on compilers that teaches automata theory. There can also be a course that just jumps in and codes a compiler. Both courses teach different, but valuable skills. Now, having a course “Compiler for Artists” where you’re taught such useful gems as “a compiler translates between human-level languages and machine code,” not so much.

One of my favorite courses was an into to geology course I took on a lark. Turned out everyone (including the professor) called it "rocks for jocks". It was incredibly easy, and years after being out of college I don't recall much of anything I learned there that I didn't already know from high school or earlier, but I do remember the professor at least made the material engaging.

I’m a math tutor at a run-of-the-mill state university and I can tell you for certain that the average student in college algebra and especially in pre-calculus has to work hard to pass. Both classes have a substantial amount of easy credit like mandatory lab time, credit for filling out notes, etc. with tutors there on the clock and available, but in both classes student struggle mightily with the material and spend a ton of time in the lab beyond the requirement.

For cheating we proctor all of the tests, which are worth by far the highest portion of the grade. I’m sure people have cheated on the proctored tests, but there’s not rampant purchasing of passing grades. This is specifically to rebut your implication that students are cheating or being carried by the grading structure, not necessarily to discount your position in the overall discussion.

I also worked at a run of the mill state university as a teaching and CS/IT assistant.

It was well known there was a side hustle for some of that. And certain proctors would at times be told to drop it if they pressed. It was notoriously an issue with the non english speaking population. They would show up with an id that was clearly not them, proctors would be told to just let them take the test, same student would still be at classes months later. Though to be fair foreign students and schools chasing that money is probably its own kettle of fish.

How the heck can you call college algebra a “weedout course”?! I was a math major and skipped over it to start college in Calc 2, but I saw my friends tutoring those intro classes and saw the work my professor-friends put into trying to make basic algebra accessible and get them over the line. They really did everything they could. Many students still struggled though because public high school utterly fails most people and/or those peoples brains just weren’t wired for math.

> They really did everything they could.

That's probably true. But there's just not much that you can do to teach years of junior high and high school math in a single college class, to students who never got the chance to seriously engage with that material because their school replaced actual math courses with this new "data science" thing (or for countless other reasons which would fully apply even today). "Weedout course" might not be the intention, but it's definitely the real-world outcome.

Because a significant amount of people who attempt college fail at that course.

Given the situation on the ground you can comment that it'd be great to stop de-valuing college degrees but I think it's pretty clear that ship has sailed. A lot of jobs do unnecessarily demand college degrees, even going so far as to accept irrelevant degrees... anytime you see "Our ideal candidate has a BS from an accredited university" you can be confident that an arbitrary and discouraging requirement is being placed on the post. Now, in reality, a lot of employers don't actually care about those "requirements" but young people often don't realize that, and the ones that do can't be certain their uncertainty won't be invalidated by the time they secure a diploma.

I don't have a specific comment on the policy under discussion, I'm not a californian and I'm not familiar with the specifics - but telling people "You'll be fine without a degree" isn't going to go over well and, honestly, is asking the recipient to accept a large risk regarding their future while you, an employed person, have already passed that hurdle. American colleges definitely have issues with over enrollment but even if wanting that state is a "bad belief", it's certainly an accurate belief.

Employers only demand unnecessary college degrees because it's a quick and easy way to filter down a huge stack of applications. If there were fewer college grads available in the labor market then employers will just remove that filter and hire based on other criteria. It's not like they're going to leave those jobs open.

Does the why materially change what new market entrants experience? Right now a good chunk of High School students assume a college education will be necessary to get any sort of good job, unless we can reverse that conception[1] college will remain an assumed necessity for most folks.

I don't disagree at all that it's mostly BS, but, much like the stock market, it is functioning primarily on the social valuation - and currently degrees are seen as close to a necessity to enter the job market.

1. The only thing I've seen on this front is some advertising for trades work which can pay equal or better to non-SF software engineers.

"BS from an accredited university" indeed, for most jobs.

The boss of my first internship at Cisco majored in Geology.

In an ideal world employers would have better ways of assessing ability and students could go to college to learn, rather than take tests.

While I agree that the proposals are bad, I don't blame "committees full of government employees". One of the lead proponents/authors is distinguished Stanford Professor Jo Boaler. It's interesting that a lot of the arguments made in favor of the changes are done in the name of equity, but Boaler herself has been put on the wrong side of racial equity, threatening to call the cops on a Black Berkeley CS professor. This article [0] is gossipy, but it's both interesting and relevant how "Nice White People" can hurt the minority groups they are supposedly trying to help. Hurt by taking away opportunities to take calculus, and hurt by threatening legal action against one of the few minority CS professors at a leading research institution.

[0]: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Stanford-professor-Ka...

> One of the lead proponents/authors is distinguished Stanford Professor Jo Boaler..

I have an issue with the parent's gossipy put-down of Professor Boaler.

I think it's important to emphasize that genuine intellectuals who have put serious thought into this proposal support it. I would prefer more serious engagement with it, even if on HN the majority disagree.

It's mind boggling to me that this Twitter fight gone wrong is a bigger deal to people than the lack of scientific rigor in Boaler's work.

No, the point is that the fight undermines Boaler’s use of the racism / equity card which she uses in response to critics of her work.

Oh, I missed the context: https://stanfordreview.org/boaler-professor/. I didn’t realize Boaler had a history of doing that (though I guess I’m not surprised). Prof. Nelson sounds like a champion.

Boaler taught sixth and seventh grade math before becoming a professor of education. She might know how to teach pre-algebra concepts, but I do not believe she understands which high school math is most useful.

A lot of students in the US learn physics without calculus, which is basically useless. It's just a set of magic formulae to plug and chug. We should not go further in that direction but instead go in the other direction.

> The current school system makes decisions in middle school (8th grade and earlier) which determine whether or not each particular student will be able to take calculus in high school. This is, simply put, insane.

It's not clear that this is the case. The "current approach" is to offer Algebra I in middle school, which ought to leave plenty of time for students who want to shape up in math and be prepared for HS calculus to do so. Push advanced math later in the curriculum, and you just expose the students to even higher-stakes dilemmas. Lowering standards is no solution, since you'll just end up with lower education quality for all students, that will make it even harder for them to catch up to reasonable levels. This is the broad background of OP's letter.

I don’t necessarily agree with the proposal in california, but do all students need to take calculus in high school? What about solid coverage of algebra 2 and pre calc before higher education. Community college is a great place to take a calc class (or even a pre calc class) affordably. Source: took pre calc, calc and stat in community college after being signalled to that I was terrible at math throughout high school.

No one is suggesting that all students take calculus in high school.

What is being recommend is that no one take calculus in high school.

Both of these ideas are bad, but only one of them informs the California Math Framework.

> No one is suggesting that all students take calculus in high school.

It’s very commonly taught in 10th grade in France, Germany, Singapore and Taiwan (where I used to teach). It’s not universal by any means but as far as I can tell, the idea that calculus should be delayed until university is a nearly uniquely American idea.

https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/calculus-around-the-wo...

"Very commonly" in STEM-focused prep schools (i.e. the "academic" part of the tracked education system that's common outside the US). Which leaves you with very roughly the same percentages as the U.S. approach where Calculus is an elective course.

> roughly the same percentages as the U.S. approach where Calculus is an elective course

I can’t speak with certainty about other places but this directly contradicts my experience living most of the past 20 years in Taiwan (and speaking with friends who taught mathematics in the public school system).

Many, many people not on a STEM track learn calculus in high school.

My wife did the fine art/liberal art at a good mainland Chinese high school and didn’t really learn calculus, and definitely not later on in the fine art university she went to. I get the feeling that most Chinese students don’t learn calculus, but the ones that do are still slot (since China has a huge student population).

> but do all students need to take calculus in high school?

Imho, 50% or more of students don’t even need to take algebra.

For that matter, that same number pretty much don’t even need to go to high school (although some sort of voluntary coop with practical skills training might be better than current high school or nothing).

HS is glorified baby sitting for most students. It sometimes is useful for people who want to go to “competitive” schools or enter stem fields in slightly less competitive schools.

As for your solution, learning math starting at algebra or pre-calc in a CC is fine if that is what the person needs for their chosen career path. I think the general idea is that the lack of calculus in high schools prunes the career path tree fairly aggressively in some relatively well-paid fields (esp. STEM).

I like your argument. It's basically Hanlon's razor.

> These proposals come from committees and groups of people, and it's just not realistic to write off the entire group of people behind these proposals as having some uniform set of beliefs like that, especially when they give other rationales for the proposals!

You don't have to write off entire groups of people - just the few at the top. They got there by sucking up to those who were already at the top. Everyone else just has to keep quiet if they want to keep their job. Worse, they're expected to express visible support for their "superiors" and their ideas if they want to keep their jobs.

I suggest reading: https://publica.org.au/marriage-beliefs-un/

It’s an account of how a very diverse group of scholars advising the United Nations ignored research contradicted their ideological views.

One of the scholars even admitted in private some of their recommendations were “wrong.”

The group was chosen for its expertise and diversity.

I’ve served on school boards. They’re heavily susceptible to group think.

Once the culture wars get involved, peoples minds turn off.

It can also be straight up dangerous to try to express a countervailing opinion.

That is just an overall terrible outlook for the UN, how can this be the common denominator for nations? It seems that it becomes the personal outlet for some people.

Not really specific to the UN. These sorts of international NGOs all have the same problems. The WHO is worse. The whole idea of global governance is really only attractive to one particular type of person, and they aren't accountable to anything really, so of course you end up with this sort of groupthink.

> 4. If you observe differences at your org/institution, it's your moral duty to create policies which disfavor groups of humans performing better and to favor groups of humans performing worse, as those performance differences are due to oppression.

I don’t know anyone who seems to disadvantage high-achieving individuals. Only people who wish to raise the performance of as many as possible to the same level. And yes, I see oppression everywhere, including education.

It would be a net loss to society to deliberately reduce the performance of anyone.

I never understood why people try to make “blank slate” into a binary thing.

Can people not have varying degrees of physical and neural plasticity? Perhaps some people are more like blank slates and can adapt more readily than others? Maybe plasticity changes with age?

There's almost no opponent of the blank slate theory who thinks societal factors never matter. There's only one side that takes a hard-line dogmatic view on this issue and it's the blank slatists.

Blank slatists?

Of course they do. Even if someone actually believed in some 'hard' type of ideology, they might not act that way.

It's just a 'general set of principles', intuitions, pop culture ideals that lead a large group of people to assumptive believe that 'unequal outcomes are driven mostly by systematic racism' and that's that.

Ergo 'the world is deeply racist' and 'there is racism around every corner' including in your math textbooks and teaching.

Ad nauseum.

Some of it is actually correct.

Some of it is reasonable from an intellectual perspective, but it's hard to take anything from it.

Much of it just ends up being toxic.

It's hard for me to square your claim that there's a dominant belief that all humans are blank slates of equal ability with the sheer volume of messaging I see in both government-sponsored and private media about embracing differences, follow your own goals, find your talent, etc.

I see a lot more stuff that would lead a kid to believe "it's ok that I'm not good in math" rather than "I could be good in math if I wanted to be."

Frankly, I think this is actually worse educationally than what you suggest.

We need to find more ways to reward effort instead of pre-existing ability (regardless of how that pre-existing ability is gained... the kid whose parents got him ahead of the curve through high school math and then bombs out after taking university-level Calculus is similarly harmed by the current system as the one who's shunted away from ever being challenged).

You are leaving out who is involved and what commercial interest will be benefitted from these policies. It is likely those commercial interests are the ones sponsoring and pushing these by finding sympathetic folks.

The important thing to note here is- if you reduce the bar in high schools, a lot more students will end up in college - more money will spent, more loans will be written out etc.

> commercial interest

Or political interest?

I wrote sth about that here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176276

(Namely, foreign state psyops? -- I do not think so, just a thought)

I don't understand how these people could consistently ignore facts. Case in point, I could earn way more than Scott Aaronson or had way more social privilege than him, but you'd think I'm crazy if I claim that I can be as good at maths or quantum computing as Aaronson.

it’s not about being better than him. it’s about the theoretical possibility of being better + the virtue signaling that comes with the theoretical possibility

That kind of arguments goes in favour of the CMS. If you assume that only a handful of geniuses can do maths then as a society it makes little sense to allocate resources toward something completely inaccessible to the masses. Designing the education system for Scott Aaronson to the detriment of everybody else would be a mistake socially and economically. That is how these people think, not some nonsense blank slate theory.

In reality it's not quantum computing that we're talking about, it's high school calculus and algebra. You don't have to be a hardcore blank slate proponent to believe that most people can learn it. And that is what these people don't believe.

It's important to consider the goals of this committee. They propose this reform because they oppose the blank slate theory. The current structure really isn't appropriate to most people. Because it relies on a wrong form of the blank slate theory. They offer the wrong solution in my opinion, because they end up going too far the other way.

They're working with a bizarro Blank Slate theory according to which every student should simply be learning their math by themselves, and if they fail it's their own darn fault, or perhaps society's fault, or anyone else's fault, but certainly not the teacher's fault. Because the teachers all have Education degrees, and that's what they were told in Ed School. So don't anyone dare "demean" their job by suggesting that they have actual work to do in properly educating their students.

> Because the teachers all have Education degrees, and that's what they were told in Ed School. So don't anyone dare "demean" their job by suggesting that they have actual work to do in properly educating their students.

You have been to a remarkably bad college of education, if that was your experience. Which is saying something, because most of them aren't great, but for very different reasons.

It actually is possible that geniuses are rare but still contribute a significant fraction to the society. (Which means allocating resources to them will be the socially optimal choice.)

Not that taking calculus takes a genius, as evidenced by more sensible countries.

> Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability

Not only does the earlier version of the framework explicitly reject this view, it cited specific empirical studies that the broad approach targeted (which I gather had not changed in the revisions which is why the complaints remain despite some revision to details) was better for people across the ability spectrum.

Similar points apply to each of your bad-faith assumptions about the underlying beliefs.

> Not only does the earlier version of the framework explicitly reject this view

Can you share that explicit rejection of the idea that there are not innate differences in ability, in the CMF? I have not seen it myself, thank you ahead of time.

To share what I've read, and colors my views a bit, is the following, from 'Chapter 1: Mathematics for All' of the Second Field Review [1]:

> An aim of this framework is to respond to the structural barriers put in the place of mathematics success: equity influences all aspects of this document. Some overarching principles that guide work towards equity in mathematics include the following:

> All students deserve powerful mathematics; high-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated (Leslie et al., 2015; Boaler, 2019 a, b; Ellenberg, 2014). ...

> All students, regardless of background, language of origin, differences, or foundational knowledge are capable and deserving of depth of understanding and engagement in rich mathematics tasks.

> Hard work and persistence is more important for success in mathematics than natural ability. Actually, I would give this advice to anyone working in any field, but it’s especially important in mathematics and physics where the traditional view was that natural ability was the primary factor in success. —Maria Klawe, Mathematician, Harvey Mudd President (in Williams, 2018)

> Fixed notions about student ability have led to considerable inequities in mathematics education.

Note that my pointing to this doesn't mean I inherently disagree that hard work/education can't help improve outcomes. I show the above citations to show that the CMF is not explicitly denying the Blank slate theory, which is what you are suggesting. If anything, they go out of the way to view ideas of innate ability negatively. I'm happy to also look at the references that you alluded to but did not cite.

[1] https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/ (it's in the bottom section, the format is .docx, so don't want to directly link to it as that format can sometimes be cause for concern on random links shared on the internet)

You are simply attacking a strawman.

Absolutely no one I have met believes 1 and 2.

As for 3, "average observable differences" in mental ability can largely be explained by socio economic factors. Case in point, East Asian IQs stagnated behind US IQ averages 50 years ago, but are significantly ahead now. I dont think they underwent a general transformation in 50 years time.

4. Is again a strawman. Affirmative action is used for a limited number of historically discriminated populations in very limited contexts.

If you are interested in an actual debate don't invent a caricature of the opposing position.

> Absolutely no one I have met believes 1 and 2

Admittedly I am a little confused by your comment. You made the above statement, and then follow up with this statement:

> As for 3, "average observable differences" in mental ability can largely be explained by socio economic factors

If we are to assume you are being earnest here in your first statement in that you believe there ARE innate ability differences between humans and social factors don’t explain everything, can you explain how much innate ability differences are a factor in intelligence differences (using it since you brought it up)? And how do you determine it? What methodology are you using for that, and if you aren’t basing it on anything, what methodology should we use?

If you are going to dodge the question and suggest you were talking about averages between groups (for which the question does still apply) and that between groups are a special case, then please share how much of a factor innate ability differences are in intelligence within groups? And how you determined that?

Before I start, you really need to watch your tone and not pretend that you are a hunter on a hunt about to kill a nasty prey. My responses are clear, comprehensible and from your reply it is clear that you understood all of my points perfectly well, yet chose to use phrases like

1. If we are to assume you are being earnest

2. If you are going to dodge the question

etc.

I am a statistician and all of your questions have banal answers.

For individual differences you can plot the bell curve and the standard deviation gives you the individual variances.

I was clearly talking about population averages in 3.

> can you explain how much innate ability differences are a factor in intelligence differences (using it since you brought it up)? And how do you determine it?

AFAIK remember, heritable IQ/ height is estimated to be a bigger factor at an individual level. However, there is no existing causal methodology to determine it. Instead we have correlational regression models that make a lot of strong assumptions that are practical. There are various papers but it is clear that IQ is highly heritable like human height.

Also, I am going to replace "innate" ability with "inherited" ability because there is no methodology that can tell you how much of Roger Federer's tennis ability is "innate" and how much is "coached".

> talking about averages between groups

Your wording is ambiguous. But assuming you are talking about intergroup differences. When you sum up IQ or height within a group, the observation from regression models is that individual hereditary differences cancel out, and intergroup height and iq differences are easily explained by socio economic factors in a correlational regression model and heritable height/iq is an insignificant factor. Once again- this is not a causal model. Only correlational.

And this is just common sense. We know from life experiences that different people have differing IQs and heights from an early age. We are also aware of how important it is to have a school system - instead of just letting the kids figure things out on their own. The environment matters because we do have to work to nurture the inherent talents of a kid, otherwise that potential will be lost.

> please share how much of a factor innate ability differences are in intelligence within groups?

I expect the per sample standard deviation to be the same across different ethnic groups. For inherited "ability" i expect the total variance explained by "inheritance" factor to be the same across ethnic groups. I doubt if such an analysis has been conducted, because I don't see the value in this kind of subgroup analysis. Do you have any references to such studies? Have you seen data that contradicts this?

The assumptions above should result in ensuring educational resources are available for people who are struggling. They should also show people in which careers calculus is useful, to motivate people. Making calculus mandatory for everyone might also help on the margin, though this bears empirical investigation.

This is laziness of the moral clowns who know the easiest way to remove a difference in success is to eliminate the successful. As they don’t care about anything but the theatrical performance, they naturally take this route of least resistance.

Do you disagree with the following re-formulations:

Some observable differences are due to social factors.

Some observable differences by certain groups are the result of past actions by other groups.

You should favor policies to correct for the result of past harms.

One cannot reasonably claim that no groups in the US are still disadvantaged today due to actions taken on a centuries-long timescale. It seems willfully unfair to stick your fingers in your ears and just say "I'm not actively discriminatory, so there's no need to try to mitigate things, everything is peachy."

Not parent, but I agree with them.

> Some observable differences are due to social factors.

> Some observable differences by certain groups are the result of past actions by other groups.

Agreed with this as well.

> You should favor policies to correct for the result of past harms.

Mostly disagree. I'm wholly convinced there's never going to be even remote consensus about ancestral oppression and victimhood. I think that if you want to correct harms, you should focus on the current social issues. Not only do I think that has much less shitty side effects (such as exacerbating group identity), but I also think it will be more effective at reaching those that have been mistreated in the past - both directly and their ancestors. The US in particular has, let's say, a decent amount of low-hanging fruit in terms of social issues to address (homelessness, lack of preventative health care, incarceration for victimless crimes etc etc).

> there's no need to try to mitigate things, everything is peachy

This is not the only option. You can recognize that things are fucked but have a vastly different opinion on how to improve.

It feels so good seeing this utterly ridiculously ideology so thoroughly debunked, and rightfully attributed for the destructive attacks on education.

I've run into it so often by a vocal minority who slander anyone who objects. Fortunately, the popularity is waning.

And this is dog shit trash. Meant to destroy our freedom and statehood in general.

> Meant to destroy

I wrote sth along those lines here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176276

(Foreign state psyops -- I do not think so, just a thought)

> I think they truly believe they are doing the right thing.

The alternative would be awful, no?

There are lots of people who advance agendas (whether in the office or in the government) that they think are best for their careers. Whether they believe the agenda is right or wrong is secondary.

Edit: moving.... Moved to here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176346

I've sometimes wondered if these anti maths things, could partly be psyops by a foreign nation state that wants to long term damage STEM in the US.

I really don't think it is. And if it was, it'd be only partly, since apparently lots of this is coming from people inside the US.

But what if there're foreign state controlled FB groups that try to manipulate people in the US, spreading these anti maths ideas? I'd be surprised but not super surprised.

Still, if you were Putin or Xi, why would you not want to damage STEM in the US? And even if you didn't start these ideas in the first place, why not try to amplify them, once they already exist

It hugely is, and everyone in the most peaceful, free, and prosperous time is being 100x tricked, duped, and screwed out of realizing what they already have.

1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so...

2. This follows from #1, if we rule out nature then it must be nurture. Also, you must not be a parent if you'll accept "some kids are just dumb" as an excuse

3,4. Replace "oppression" with "competition". I think it might sound better to you. But the conclusion is the same.

You want to prevent winners from accumulating an advantage, eliminating all others (which sounds vaguely genocidal in this context), then you have to handicap winners and support the others. And the fact that the wealth distribution in America is so uneven certainly suggests that the initial premise is true (i.e, winning allows you to accumulate and compound advantages with repeated victories).

> 1. [All humans are of equal ability] is a founding principle of the country, so...

curious to learn how you arrived at this conclusion?

1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so...

Is it? Saying "all mean are created equal" has a lot of interpretations, of which many valid ones do not include "all men are born of equal ability in every regard." Given that some people are born to grow up to be 5'4 and weigh 100lbs and others are born to grow up to 6'7 and 320lbs, it should be clear that not everyone is "equal" at least in terms of their physical abilities. I'm pretty sure the Founders were aware of this, making it highly unlikely that their version of "created equal" meant "exactly equal in all terms of ability."

1. So the country is founded on a lie or you misread that founding principle.

Those compound advantages you're talking about are good things that we want people to have because they help them do more good for society. You seem to want to handicap them in the name of fairness. Where does that thinking end when you realize that the founding assumption (1. above) is false? Disfiguring beautiful people to prevent them accumulating the compounding advantages that come with beauty? Brain damaging intelligent people?

I thought the OP was being sarcastic.

a founding principle is not everyone is of equal ability. The founding principle equality of opportunity. The government won't hold you back because you are a (peasant|lower caste|other arbitrary decision). i.e. Everyone gets to go to school, but not everyone learns the same (qualitatively or quantitatively).

Don't you think the government deciding you're not fit for going to college would fall into this problem?

The government wouldn’t prevent you from going to college, it just wouldn’t voluntarily pay for you to go if you didn’t test well. You could pay your own way, seek external scholarships, etc.

As of now we effectively underwrite anyone who wants to go, often at the expense of the student racking up debt for a useless degree and later the taxpayer who will inevitably have to subsidize them.

When I went to public school in a privileged neighborhood, the "honors" track was opt-in for the parents and students. I don't think you have to go straight from "the government shouldn't decide whether you are fit for college" (which I agree with) to "there should only be one curriculum for everyone."

'Equal opportunity' is not a 'founding principle'.

Just that they are 'equal' i.e. before God, or before the Law.

That one man is not from some superior lineage, that makes him a superior being.

I would be the founding fathers would have no problem if one man decided to 'discriminate' among others for some arbitrary reason - even if they were landholding men of high status etc..

“ 1. Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability”

“ 1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so...”

yes those slave owning people really thought their slaves were the same as them, totally dude

Yeah I heard we tried to end the slavery part somewhere along the way and have been somewhat successful, but we definitely kept the first one.

The founding fathers almost all believed slavery was wrong but they were born into a society where it was a core institution and it wasn't obvious how exactly to reform it.

Entitlement principles are why the West was the 1st place in the world to abolish slavery and then went about and abolished it throughout the world.

> Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability

This is generally true.

People can find extreme examples that “disprove” this but they’re generally wrong. Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them — they either choose a different path, have fewer choices, or just don’t care.

And yes, before you ask, this includes computer programming.

yes and no. the old nature vs nurture + not all people are genetically gifted and a small generic advantage can mean a huge difference in capabilities.

I don't know. Have you observed multiple kids in the same family? Same parents. Same "privilege". Same pressure. Same education down to the same teachers, tutors, books, and parent temperament. And you know what, some of the kids simply beat their siblings who can be years older, in STEM or writing or reading or leadership without even trying. Have you observed your classmates? Some are driven, ambitious, self-disciplined, had access to all the education they needed, and got perfect grades before grade 8 or whatever. Then just one day, he simply couldn't understand maths or physics or chemistry or computer science, and they simply got left behind and couldn't even study STEM in college because they couldn't pass the placement test. In the meantime, their classmates, less privileged, didn't really understand everything taught in elementary school, didn't have nor need tutoring or even challenging text books, simply became the best students at anything STEM in high school and in college, and again, without much trying.

Or, do you really think every 2-year old kid can teach their neighbor kids maths and then explained what groups are when he was 7-year old like Terence Tao did? I tried my own kids. Needless to say, I failed, miserably.

Me & my sister grew up, like you say, in the same family, same parents, same pressure. We largely went to the same schools, even. She probably acceled further, academically, than I did. (She probably went to the more prestigious college, her GPA/SAT/etc. were better, she earned a doctorate, while I got a BS…)

Without pointing to a vague notion of "we're different people", I think there's a few key things that were different, despite everything that was the same:

* She's the second child, I'm the first: there were some things in my education that my mother literally said "we are fixing that for her". (And I should note that I don't resent this: my mother was clearly doing the best she could with the information she had — and because she loved us. But she had more information during Round 2.)

* Education is a finite resource: in my home state, whether I got into a decent school (i.e., a magnet school) was dependent on the literal roll of a dice. (Literally literally. I.e., list of names goes in, gets shuffled, top n go to good school & gets educated, bottom m talent gets wasted.) In the worst case I was 5th? 6th? from the bottom of a several hundred person long wait list. She got in. She got a year in the magnet system that I didn't (I got entry a little over a year later). That missing year was an enormous detriment to my education and growth; it was such a clear detriment my parents were contemplating whether they could afford a Catholic private school (we're not Catholic) or simple home-schooling. Had they had the gift of clairvoyance, I think they would have the moment I was denied.

* Almost certainly the gift of a computer got me interested in CS. She didn't get one, and her interests are different. (She's still STEM, likely due to our parents.)

To digress a bit: good education will be a finite resource as we have finite number of good educators and good schools. I don't think it's possible for everyone to access good education, especially given that we have different definition for "good education". Saying everyone should go to MIT (or any scarce education resource) is like saying living in beach property is human right. Maybe so, but it'll be a different topic.

Books are a finite resource, but not really limited for any practical purposes at least in the US. Used books are inexpensive, libraries are readily available, most things out of copyright are available online, etc.

Education is following as similar course. Things like MITs open courseware, edX, etc. are making it increasingly easy to get the educational content from top teachers regardless of how limited these teachers are.

(Having access to an education is not the same as actually getting a degree, and getting a degree isn't always the same as getting an education.)

But there has probably never been a time in history where more people had free or inexpensive access to the top educational content in the world.

Education content is definitely ample now, including text books and references. we even have great communities to get answers to our questions. Unfortunately the bottleneck of education just switched to access to good teachers. A good teacher inspires students, identifies exactly why each student has difficulty understanding something, explains intuitions behind the most difficult concepts, designs highly tailored homework, leads engaging seminars, and keeps students in their discomfort zone. As in STEM field in general, lab staff, equipments, chemical agents, lab materials are generally scarce resources too.

I understand what you are saying, but I would argue that lack of access to teacher is less of a bottleneck than drive, desire, and motivation. A motivated individual is going to have no trouble finding what they need to learn and places to ask questions for things they don't understand.

I see where you are coming from on access to labs, chemicals, and equipment. But someone who has fully availed themselves of everything they can learn from free/inexpensive online classes, books, forums, emailing people, etc. is headed on a path where they have a high probability of getting access to those types of things once that is the only thing blocking their continued education.

I don’t disagree with you. I just think “drive, desire, and motivation” is part of one’s talent. The progressive policies will not hurt the best students because they students will find their resources anyway. It is the middle, the vast majority like me, who would get hurt. They would think that they got good education, and then realize that their understanding of maths is so shitty that they can’t even pass city college’s dead simple placement test. Oh, I didn’t make this up, either. NYT reported this miserable experience of a straight A student, and I was shocked to read it.

Link, please?

> Saying everyone should go to MIT

Not suggesting that, and it's wrong anyways: the point here is that we, as a society, want people to have a basic floor of an education by the time they reach adulthood. Not necessarily MIT, but not nothing either, and the track I was on for a bit in my childhood was closer to "nothing" than it was to "decent", and it was certainly way off course if I were to shoot for MIT.

For the students that never left that track… I cannot imagine that school did much, if anything, to produce a citizen with a high-school education.

Problem being an extremely significant portion of that blank slate is written before the child even enters school, let alone makes it to middle and high school, and even during those times it is impossible for a school to make up for a horrible home life. We single out and spread stories about people who raised themselves up because it's not the norm. The vast majority of people whose parents don't talk to them as infants, don't read to them as toddlers, don't listen to them as children, and don't keep from hitting them as teenagers will radically underperform both as students and as adults. Mucking about with the education of students who haven't been sabotaged by their parents is governmental thumb-twiddling.

This is so obviously false that I'm always amazed there are people who actually believe this.

In _every_ activity I've ever participated in where I can observe many people's performance and progression - including powerlifting, bodybuilding, various ball sports, mathematics, chess, theoretical CS, software engineering, etc - it is transparently obvious that people's natural abilities vary dramatically.

Although it's not the most common scenario (training and experience do matter), I have seen many situations where someone with, say, 6 months' haphazard and lazy experience will absolutely crush the performance of someone with 3 years of serious and dedicated training.

Talent is real.

Thank you. I am quite stupid.

Talent is real, but generally speaking, ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake.

I'm not sure what "generally" means here. In professional sports, my failure of not getting into any major league will be due to your lack of talent. In higher-level math, my failure of passing any exam will be due to your lack of talent. In chemistry, my failure of not being able to consistently reach precision of under 0.1% is due to my lack of talent (and trust me, I really tried and followed all kinds of instructions to the greatest details, or so I thought). In mechanical engineering, my failure of not being able to piece out a 3D model from a 2D schematics is due to my lack of talent. In medicine, my failure of not being able to memorize thousands of latin terms for all the bones and organs is due to my lack of talent. In biochemistry, my failure of not being able to internalize the energy cycle in human body is due to my lack of talent. But on the other hand, you didn't even use a computer until switching your major to CS when you were 20 yet you became the best student in every single class in a prestigious university. That's your talent. You studied world history until you were 30 years old, yet you switched to physics and somehow got Fields medal, that's your talent.

Not all failures are due to lack of talent, for sure. A blank statement like " ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake " in the context of our discussion is nonetheless a mistake as well.

> Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them

Have you considered that maybe you're just unusually talented? I know most things people do are very hard for me, and the few things I do are very easy. Learning history is an uphill slog even though I love it, but math doesn't warrant effort. For a while I just figured people that failed math were lazy and people that passed history were geniuses, but it turns out people have different amounts of natural talent. It's not the start, it's the slope

As narcissistic as I am, I don’t think I’m “talented.” I’m just like everybody else — can get pretty decent at a lot of things. But also just like everybody else I like to pretend I’m talented at the things I put work into. And I like to pretend that people who are good at things I haven’t put work into are talented in a way that I’m not.

As narcissistic as I am, I don’t think I’m “talented.”

Huh. To me it seems more narcissistic for someone to say that they have no special talent and that their success is entirely due to their superior work ethic and years of study and sacrifice.

I’m just like everybody else — can get pretty decent at a lot of things.

That's a very different claim than "innate talent doesn't exist".

> That's a very different claim than "innate talent doesn't exist".

Yes! This is why I never said innate talent doesn’t exist.

I mean, by hours at this point I've definitely put more time in to math than any other subject, but it was easy from the start! Maybe I'm enough of a fuckup that it intensifies differences in ability which would otherwise be too small to notice - like math took close to 0 effort to do and want to do, so anything else is unbearable. Doesn't square with just how much effort I put into history though.

>Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them

That's true, but it's the small minority of tasks that require real intelligence that often matter the most. A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases.

The same thing applies to programming too. I had an internship at a regular company, and now work at a FAANG. The developers at the regular company are likely better at programming than me, especially when it came to regular tasks, but some of their technical decisions just didn't seem to make any sense.

> A regular person can probably be trained to 95% the skill of an anesthesiologist just by following instructions, but then they would kill the patient during edge cases.

You’re making the mistake of assuming anesthesiologists are something other than regular people with training.

Anyone who makes it through medical school is definitely smart by some standard, especially if they end up in a highly competitive specialty like anesthesiology. Does all that intelligence translate to talent for being an anesthesiologist? Probably not, but I'm sure a lot of it does.

I think this is where we’ll really disagree. Completing med school is a function of opportunity, determination, and to a much lesser degree intelligence. Doctors are just people and people have roughly the same innate abilities.

I don't think it has to be related to any point you put in here. I think when STEM people comment on math education, they easily forget K-12 math education is for all students, not future college STEM students.

Lots of controversies in math education between STEM professors (especially mathematicians) and K-12 math educators/researchers are rooted in this. In the community of math and science education, we educators/researchers always focus on average students who will grow into future citizens, not STEM workers. This is really a different mindset to STEM professors.

That logic isn’t used in any other discipline:

“We only cover bad art — we don’t focus on students who go on to be professional artists.”

“We only focus on bad English — we don’t focus on students who go on to be professional writers.”

“We only focus on bad history - we don’t focus on students who go on to study history or social science.”

Each of those has an AP and IB track, competitions to find elites, etc — just as mathematics should for high performers.

If as an educator, you only teach to the lowest common denominator, then you’re failing the children you’re supposed to educate.

To me, your post reads as if you’re bragging about failing at your job.

Students do learn art in K-12, but they could be considered as "bad art" by professional artists...

No — you should fact check that.

Middle and high schools start auditioning and training students into “advanced” art, preparing them to go onto competitions and onto serious careers in programs differentiated from the casual art classes.

Learning calculus won’t be enough as a professional in STEM either — but AP Calculus is the equivalent of audition-only advanced art classes. (Which exist all over.)

Do most public schools really have the capacity to train students for serious art careers? At least in dance and music, at the highest levels everything is purely student driven (school dance and music is typically not super competitive for the serious artist) and presumably visual art is as well. Unless you go to an arts high school, but there aren't that many of those

I went to two high schools, one very poor and one moderately wealthy.

Both had audition programs in art for “advanced” classes (both music and drawing), where students were matched with more serious training and where their bands went to competitions and drawings were entered in regional shows.

I think you’re confusing “good, on track for professional” with “absolute top tier” — many students from regular schools go on to, eg, be animators at a studio or choir directors.

The same split exists in math:

- advanced classes you have to place into exist at most schools, eg AP calculus

- but to be the “absolute top tier”, you’re talking about STEM schools and private mentoring programs

You need the first for engineers, scientists, etc — even if they’re not going to be Terry Tao.

So then let's have a few separate paths instead of only one curriculum. I believe that there is a lot of value to a basic algebra + personal finance + probability math track that helps a future plumber understand everything they need for their career.

Depriving college-bound students of calculus, though, is a bad move. A lot of philosophy also involves calculus-related arguments (ie if we cut up space in really small pieces, what do we get?), so it has applications outside the STEM fields.

That's fine, but it's the reason we have tracks. Future STEM workers can go into the advanced track and everyone else can go into their own track.

Germany separates people into vocational school and something closer to what we'd consider high school in the US by 9-10th grade. If you embrace the idea that some people are simply less suited for intensive math - whether it be because of work ethic, inherited IQ, lack of interest, etc. - and give them a path towards jobs that better fit their skillset, I think you'd see a lot less people drowning in college debt because they got a degree in sociology when they got weeded out of Calculus 101.

Totally agree. That's why there is a CTE (career and technical education) movement in the US now. Perkins V is the strong push in this regard. https://cte.ed.gov/legislation/perkins-v

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