How Math Became an Object of the Culture Wars
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
The entire idea seemed to be giving students who were bored by the material more work than other students so they could be even more bored by the material but while never going at a faster pace because that would result in students learning material that wouldn't show up on that years standardised tests. Tracking was the norm, but at least my school was extremely reluctant to either let people skip a grade or hold back people a grade so they were preparing for standardised tests that provided them a reasonable challenge, as that would mean you were doing school with people who weren't your same age peers and that's bad!
I just never really understood why these tracked math programs were a good idea? They seemed EXTREMELY stupid to me at the time and I just don't understand how these classes were ever supposed to be a good idea. In the non-tracked classes you could at least blow through the work you were assigned more quickly.
Because by sabotaging "tracked" programs as you described, they can claim that "Middle- and high-performing students performed equally as well in both environments.", thus discrediting concerns that dumbing down math education to the lowest common denominator is harming high achievers.
And this is controversial? I thought we all agreed state education should be used to create the New Soviet Man. "We'll get you through your children" is a proven effective method, the only problem is resistance by backwards parents.
> In my next column, I’ll be writing about why it’s so difficult to figure out how to teach math and a new billion-dollar push to improve curriculum and classroom materials
Is it so difficult? There are many countries in the world, why not look at what they tried and what works, such as e.g. Singapore math: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35717121