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Comment by pwthornton | Hacker News Reader

This is the way. Teach kids more, not less. Ask more of them, not less. If you need to lengthen the school day and school year to do so, do it. Do it now.

"So what should we do instead? Dallas came up with an answer: Teach kids more math instead of teaching them less. In 2019, Dallas Independent School District implemented a new equity policy that encouraged many more people to take honors math classes:

Many capable Hispanic, Black and English learner students did not elect to join these classes on their own or were passed over by their instructors. And their parents were often unaware they could make the request.

Dallas ISD, which serves some 142,000 children, took note of the disparity and in 2017 formed a racial equity advisory council — some of whose members had children in the district — with the goal of improving opportunity for all…It decided to move from an opt-in model to an opt-out policy in the 2019-20 school year. Since then…students cannot opt out [of advances classes] without written parent permission. The move has dramatically increased participation among traditionally marginalized children."

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> with the goal of improving opportunity for all

I'm chatting with some friends who are parents in the Bay Area. Their admittedly very Californian response is that at least this should reduce competition for college spots. (Their kids are obviously going to get tutoring.)

Ha that’s not actually happening though because college admissions aren’t going to be based in knowledge but on ability to jump through hoops perfectly

AI is going to upend everything about education.

I can't imagine colleges doing much beyond lots of AI interviews in the near future. That's if there is even a point in getting 95% of degrees anymore anyway.

The main purpose of college besides education and networking is the development of social stratification. Many employers will toss your CV without a degree even if it is not required in any capacity for the job in question.

The internet should have transformed education. For curious self-learners it has, there’s incredible resources online for those who seek them out. But it hasn’t made much of a dent in ‘the education system’

Because ability to asses knowledge is poor everywhere. programming might be a bit better at it but everyone else relies on signaling. Also many industries are essentially government adjacent so they continuation of college entrenchment continues

Something I say to anyone who will listen is that we have lived through the moment in history when the cost to receive a world-class elite education has collapsed to near zero and hardly anybody has noticed. We still talk as if an official four year university education is the goal and bemoan the cost of it rising faster than general inflation and worry about taking on debt that will burden them for the rest of their lives and worry about our kids “getting in” to the university of their choice.

It has changed education. And people who have kids nearing college age, who have noticed, will be able to help them navigate this world in a much more useful way than people who tell their kids to take on as much debt as they can to go to any university they want.

The pipeline that fuels our decision making of what to focus on in primary/secondary school as it relates only to what will help them stand out in a college application and our decision making of what a university-level education means as it relates to getting a job is fascinating.

The sort of personal mentoring, practical supervision, and social skills development that is required for intellectual maturity cannot be acquired from YouTube videos.

I learned these skills more thoroughly in a week of fast food training than in sixteen years of public and private schooling. If these are important context for education, you'd think we would still teach decorum.

And what, exactly, do you expect administrators to do? They don't have any actual knowledge and if they do, they absolutely do NOT want to use it, so tests are out. There are now more administrators than teaching staff. We're not far off from having more "social" workers in schools than teachers.

First and foremost, these people want to decide what is equitable. Firstly, without taking actual ability (or "conscientiousness", how much effort kids are willing to put in), and secondly, they're human. They're corrupt.

That’s exactly what I expect. With no ability to differentiate candidates by ability all you can do is chase diversity metrics or look for people that haven’t made any mistakes yet (4.0 vs 3.9 etc)

I thought Scott Alexander's take was interesting https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-match-school-and-s... and the phrase "laundering privilege" stuck with me. It's like a crypto mixer but for privilege.

Yeah, that was interesting take... that the actual smart kids are there to make the rich kids look smart.

I'm not sure it will — there are still plenty of schools elsewhere that offer advanced coursework, and their graduates can more than fill the freshman class of elite colleges.

For example, I grew up in Sacramento, and our public schools had a tracked program from 2nd grade. Pretty much all of us took algebra/geometry in middle school, and those who were advanced were taking precalc or calc by 9th grade. It has been a disappointing experience to learn that in the heart of silicon valley, 30+ years later, the public schools have less to offer in terms of differentiated learning and accelerated education.

BTW, I have also been talking with Bay Area parents about this, including some HNers. Would love to chat with you/your friends to know how folks are sorting this out. We've had some success and are always looking to help others do the same. Contact info in profile.

Tracking helped me in particular by making my homeroom (the British school equivalent, j called a class) more civilized, n fair to students w less academic talent than me. Given the tracking in English n at one point, briefly, Mathematics, it meant the other boys had a shot at getn the best score in the class or at all enjoying leniency in grading, which my presence as a future Erdosian mathematician made impossible, n their parents would deny them privileges n beat them sometimes if they weren't excellent students, so they'd bully me for monopolizing the academics completely. The girls did not, because i believe there was not an expectation they be the best student n plus i was very good-looking to them, though not to myself. Future model too. But the bullying was the main challenge, no matter what they threw at me the academics were nothing in difficulty compared to the bullying. So for that reason alone tracking helped me out, n the homeroom out too.

May I ask, what is Erdosian?

As for bullying, I was a "gifted" kid in school, too. I was treated nicely when people wanted help and bullied ruthlessly when they didn't need me.

> their parents would deny them privileges n beat them sometimes if they weren't excellent students

100% agree that this was one of the biggest factors in my bullying. Shame is powerful, and if a child is being shamed for their academic achievements, they will lash out at someone who has what they desire: good grades in this instance.

Erdosian means having the genetic trait Paul Erdós had, which was the uncommonly good reaction to similar stimulants to those he took, without which he could not do any math research at all. He was steroidal, i'm steroidal too in my research, it's like bodybuilding in that steroids are part of the game. As long as they do not damage your health, it's fine. I literally get time dilation from the stimulants i take, which i do under prescription of course, but at the same time i know it's not fair to play sports for instance, because they're performance enhancing drugs (n generally outright forbidden). But sports are zero-sum, research is positive-sum, so that's what i do instead.

In particular the critical trait is amplified creativity to the point i share Erdos view that "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.". Same exact symptoms.

In addition, my being steroidal is justified by the fact that i got brain surgery, like the radio transcranial magnetic crap, against my will n without my knowledge, electroshock too, the works. So perhaps it is understandable in my case.

Thank you for the insight. I really like your perspective on the zero-sum vs positive-sum as it pertains to steroids/performance enhancers.

I think this is exactly the type of program they're trying to get rid of because it caused a disparity of outcomes of students at graduation.

I think getting rid of this will cause more disparity in the outcomes. Rich parents can afford tutors and poor parents can't, so poor kids come out even worse off.

Move somewhere cheaper and invest in private schools and a private tutor. (Folks who were “engineer back in old country” are not that expensive.)

It won't reduce competition for college spots. Admissions committees will continue to fulfill shadow racial quotas using first names, last names, and reparations sob stories as filters to maintain the status quo. Test scores of special protected classes hardly matter as long as those primary objectives are met.

Not sure exactly what you're dancing around, but man, if some of those top schools in CA could reduce competition by, say, expanding admissions, that would be great.

> Not sure exactly what you're dancing around

Poor Californians who can’t afford tutors will lack the skills to compete with other students. (If you’re graduating without calculus, you’ll have a tough time becoming an engineer or performing on a standardised test.) That reduces those with means’ competition, ceteris paribus.

Maybe things have changed in the ~15 years since I took the ACT, but no calculus was necessary for me to get a score in the 30s. You're probably right about getting accepted into an engineering major at a prestigious school though.

Don't worry. DEI programs have this covered as well.

Stop using standardized tests to get in. And then just aim for the perfect "socially desirable" mix. Regardless of ability.

Can someone explain how DEI programs got so embeded despite being flagrantly regressive?

I personally am afraid to speak out against such things. I did in college and was viciously flamed by people who thought it was a good idea. You can shut down the entire conversation by just calling someone “racist” or “bigot”.

I don’t want to lose my job or be ostracized.

To be clear, my opinions are only that it seems wrong to me to discriminate against someone based on their immutable characteristics (like race).

It only seems inexplicable if you accept as reality the most extreme characterization of DEI programs, which personally I believe should be a tip-off that such a characterization might not be entirely accurate. The more ridiculous programs naturally get the most attention, regardless of how representative they are, and DEI programs as a whole are further strawmanned by politicians and pundits looking to trigger your outrage. The discourse thoroughly ignores all the programs working on DEI as a topic in ways most reasonable people would probably be OK with.

As an example right in this thread, the grandparent comment talks about the Dallas schools looking at the issue of children unevenly taking advantage of advanced courses and coming up with a solution that helped expand access across the board. This absolutely would qualify as a DEI program (they even used the equity trigger word), but did not do anything I would think many people would find objectionable.

On the contrary, I think most DEI programs suck and people know it. There's a few like the Dallas program that actually try to solve the problem in a reasonable way, and you won't find nearly as much pushback from people on those.

Well meaning if misguided attempts to address race and other social issues without improving pay or making structural changes to government and economic systems.

The amount of equity a society enforces should be inversely proportional to age. If a kindergartener is unable to succeed, we need to give them extra help. If a 45 year old is unable to succeed, they had their chances and it's their fault.

Even if an older person’s situation is largely not their fault, it is much more difficult to correct, and society’s benefit for its investment is much lower.

On ramps for everyone are important, but as you say, far far more important and effective in people’s early years.

Children need to be educated well and given opportunities to guarantee the future of society, but ensuring adults are content or at least able to support themselves is important for stability today. More un/under-employed/unemployable people means more crime and social unrest, retarding growth and costing more resources than would have been spent supporting them.

It's thier fault if we never gave the support in K-12?

You do see the glaring failure in your "reasoning", right?

I agree with you that I was wrong to say "It's their fault." There are people who get screwed by life.

The main way they got screwed was when life taught them whining was better than working hard. We need to stop screwing people that way. We need to hold a hard line on the principle that they can succeed or fail in a free market, and we will not reward whining. This means eliminating all entitlements for adults.

I'll help kids learn to be successful adult. I'm a teacher, that's what I do. Let the kids and their families pick their schools from any school they can get to, including online schools.

I will not help some whiny adult who can not even train themselves when they have Internet access.

If you give money to whiny adults, who do you take it from? Do you take it from long-term investments in education? Do you take it from long term investments in our economy like paying off our national debt? Our (US) national debt eliminates many options we would otherwise have. It is more compassionate to provide the best education we can to the children, and let the adults pay for themselves.

Long-term benefits should outweigh short-term benefits. A society that educates and raises its children to be productive, the provides a free market will outperform a society that rewards whining.

Tell me you're privileged and don't actually have empathy in a long winded diatribe < that's not what I asked for but that's what you gave me....

Plenty of kids are just stupid.

Plenty of kids get away with being stupid. If those same kids knew that they would have to provide for themselves once they turned 18, they would be studying and learning to work.

A welfare society trains children to be stupid.

A free market trains children to work.

Intelligence and education are different things. You can't train intelligence - you can teach some tools or frameworks for reasoning and such and that can help but some people will understand them and others won't.

As a simple example just look at how many people think math is useless. Even having spent 10+ years with people trying to bash it into their heads they still can't figure out any of the infinitely many useful things you can do with math.

Education is the result, intelligence is potential. Stupid people have less potential for results. Doesn't mean some of them can't pull a Forrest Gump, nor that they aren't valuable members of society. Just means they suck at learning (at least some) things so their time is better spent doing other stuff.

Plenty of kids aren't able to perform well in institutionalized schools. The root cause is seldom stupidity.

I know it’s vogue to ridicule DEI programs, but the reality is that as the blog post points out, these measures achieve the opposite of DEI (all 3 letters of those).

Even standardized tests. There is already evidence that standardized tests reduce equality. Which is not surprising at all because standardized tests are the one part of a college application that someone can excel at purely with concentrated hard work over a relatively short period of time.

An underprivileged kid motivated to go to a good college cannot make up for poor grades earned from K-8 when they barely had the ability to plan a day in the future, and so was driven to do whatever their friends were doing. And then that set them up behind the 8 ball in many ways from 9-12 as well.

Finally, real DEI requires listening to actual underprivileged people. The vast majority of underprivileged parents will not respond to data showing that their kids are underperforming by saying “make sure no one can do this”. They will respond by demanding the schools provide more resources so their kids can excel.

The OP wonders how Cambridge, Mass and CA are making such changes. But it’s not surprising at all because these decisions are being driven largely by upper middle class educated people who absolutely cannot relate to the under privileged people they claim they’re helping.

And this is an implementation of the worst of privilege. Making decisions for the underprivileged by the privileged without ever asking the supposed beneficiaries what will actually help them.

> They will respond by demanding the schools provide more resources so their kids can excel.

Right? Why would any parent want other kids in their class to be dumber so their kid is magically "smarter"? They want their child to grow up to be a competent person who is capable of competing in the world at large, not a wave-through at a "progressive" school.

Parents recognize that their children will be competing with the entire world for jobs, and easily see the folly of such a policy.

Such policy really does seem actively hostile toward the goals of such parents. For a group of educators to suggest that the solution is to do away with "mean grades and homework" is like saying, "We all know that you're kid isn't going succeed in advanced classes so let's not even pretend that they will."

rich white people introduce these regressive DEI policies so that smart poor and not-connected kids could not compete and enter elite ranks of society, and their (relatively dumb, but rich&well connected) kids could easily outcompete everyone.

1. It is incredibly hard for rich&connected kid to excel among smart & hard-working individuals

2. If barrier is lowered, and overall pool is "diverse" in terms of IQ and ability, then for a rich kid it gets much easier to outcompete and stand out (due to parent's $$$ and connections)

3. The only reason rich white privileged people want regressive DEI is to make it easier for their kids to stand out from competition

Is there evidence of this?

Lengthen the school _year_ sure, but I'm skeptical that lengthening the school _day_ won't have, at best, mixed effects, especially given all the studies on sleep etc.

Start at 10am, go till 4pm?

Hell, start at 10am go to 6pm. That's still less than 8 hours of instruction considering there's lunch, gym/recess, etc.

This really should vary with grade. It's hard to keep a 6 year old's attention for almost 8 hours. Far more possible in High School.

It's hard to keep my attention for almost 8 hours. And generally a lot less and that's with coffee and generally being able to get up and stretch my legs. And, while the situation is much different, I've become a fan of shorter presentations, meetings, etc.

ADDED: I often think I couldn't handle high school today.

Looking back on high school, no wonder I was so damn bad at it and hated it so much. And depressed all the time. And probably picked up SAD that took me a decade beyond it to shake.

I'd quit a job as soon as I could find another, if it demanded of me what high school did. Hell, I'd quit based on the consistent 10+ hour days and constant due-tomorrow deadlines, let alone the rest of it like the before-the-sun's-up start time, having to ask permission to go take a piss, sitting in crappy chairs in bad lighting for back-to-back ~hour blocks all day, and having to keep "working" indefinitely with people who won't stop being shitheads in ways that'd get them fired from most any job inside a week. It's insanely terrible.

Like, there are multiple bad things about it that I've never had to tolerate in such abundance and variety even in low-skilled jobs I've held. WTF.

College and adult life are so much more chill than high school. It was a real shock, leaving there for the wider world. So glad the people who were like "this [shitty thing] is to prepare you for the real world, which is way harder and less forgiving!" or "enjoy it, because this is the best time of your life" were entirely wrong. I'd probably have offed myself by now, if they'd been right. Four years was barely tolerable—a lifetime of that, or worse? No, thanks.

Unfortunately for a lot of people work is probably a lot more like high school than we might wish. But, yeah, in college I mostly attended class, some I genuinely enjoyed more than others, spent a lot of time on extracurricular activities/sports which is where I generally formed lifelong friendships (and developed a lot of the skills I use day to day)--and squeaked through. And, as the alumni donations person I've been a friend of for almost 40 years who works for $SCHOOL likes to remind me, I've done well and $SCHOOL taught me a lot in general. And I've had a good career. Luck has played a role.

Glad you found your place. High school wasn’t quite as bad for me but I was constantly sick and battled migraines that stopped as soon as I left. Now I work hard, work long hours, but I’m happy and feel healthy and strong. It’s very different.

I thought that I was the only one to feel this way! Not anymore.

High school's only benefit is a pseudo-forced social climate and not needing to compete for classes like you're buying concert tickets (the number of classes I was waitlisted for despite signing up the day of...).

Everything else is much worse for how I think. I don't get to choose how to time my schedule, the curriculum is mostly fixed (you would always have math/english/history, some language for 3/4 years. You only choose an elective and maybe 1 year of science) and homework tended to stack up constantly because every class was 1 hour M-F. And yea, as you mentioned it's absurd having 1 day due homework spring up when you may or may not be preparing for some other project, or test, or even competition.

You also were much more pressured against taking time to yourself. You can skip a class or take a sick day in "the real world" if you need a break or emergencies come up. those "perfect attendence" rewards were the worst grift of the education system.

School for 6 year olds involves a lot of social recess time and playing with friends. 8 hours in total is not an unusual amount of time. But as far as instructional time goes, yes, it benefits older kids more.

European here, I went to school from 8:20 till 16:05. You guys really have school starting at 10:00? Who takes care of the kids after parents go to work and before school starts?

No; the comment you replied to sounded like a suggestion, not a description of reality.

In the US, it's common for schools to start at 8:00 or even 7:30. Recently there has been a push to start later to give kids more time to sleep. So pushing it back to say 8:30 or 9:00 (but not shortening the day, so basically everything just gets pushed back, and the kids stay up later, and need more time to sleep...).

Thanks.

My high school started somewhere around 7:22. I got up at 5:45 in high school. Just nuts. I get up for my joby job as an executive at 7:15.

In general in the US I think high schools start and finish earliest, then middle schools, then elementary schools.

The reason is purely practical- start times need to be staggered to allow schools to share buses, and having high school students get home first means they can look after their younger siblings until their parents get home from work.

Mine was:

Elementary school, 8am - 2pm

Middle school, 9am - 3 something (3:20pm, I think?)

High school, 7:40am - 2:55pm

Yeah school starts between 7 and 9am, but we still have the problem on the other side in the US, schools end between 1:30 and 4pm (at least here in CA). Figuring out after care is an exercise left to the reader.

It’s completely ridiculous, especially considering how sane many (most?) countries in the rest of the world have it.

It's another problem that wasn't one in a time where a single income household could maintain a nuclear family. But like most child care, it's adapted horribly and the costs have skyrocketed.

Granted, even if they were on 2 income households in the 70's, it was also a time where 10YO's were trusted to get home or even walk home unattended, so it'd only be an issue for the youngest primary students. That may still be the case in some Asian countries today, but certainly not in the US.

For primary and secondary school, the hours can vary (because generally the school districts need to share public buses) but it's generally 8-15, or 7 hours of school with an cumulative hour of recess.

For secondary school you can elect to have early and late classes or simply opt out of a period if you have the curriculum met. but I've never heard of a student starting later than 9.

>Who takes care of the kids after parents go to work and before school starts?

that's generally why primary students start earlier than secondary students. By high school it's no big deal if the student is by themselves getting ready to leave at 8:30 if the parents need to take off at 8.

Most school districts want to have students home before the evening rush "hour" starts. Mixing school buses and parent pickups with peak afternoon traffic is something they absolutely want to avoid.

Pretty sure that's a shorter day than when I was in school. Though, I wouldn't have complained about a 10am start time.

Kids need time to free roam and just be. Always being fed more information in controlled environments is not good for the psyche or their creativity.

Even better idea:

Kids just work at thier own pace and don't graduate until they complete all work successfully.

Anything else is just a diploma mill.

who is going to fund that? it's not just education its subsidized day care, and "it gets done when it gets done" is going to either result in a lot of 20 year old Seniors -- who are still on taxpayer funded schooling -- or else the bar gets lowered to push these kids through fast albeit at their own fast pace.

And how is your worst case scenario worse? Because the bar is already as low as it will go and instead of just leaving some behind we are actively holding a whole bunch back.

I could have graduated by 12 if they just let me go at the material, instead they had me drop out, in frustration at being forced to work at the pace of the stupidest and laziest, before returning to do exactly what I describe through an alternative education program which cost the system 5x as much per student as main track... and that without addressing that it would likely be cheaper due to fundamentally fewer teachers required per student as the teacher wouldn't be babysitting study hall like they are now but instead focused exclusively on the acts of teaching and grading.

I'm not sure I agree with your solution but I agree with he problem. No child left behind is idiotic. Some kids are just stupid, put them to work digging ditches or something. No point wasting a ton of manpower and stuff trying to teach them basic algebra, they'll never use it for anything anyway.

If school wasn't also an important social benchmark that would make sense. But as it is, there is some benefit to setting a pace.

I do agree that we should encourage students to self pace themselves. Another aspect of school I had to de-program myself on: it's OKAY to repeat courses you are struggling on. Expensive, yes, but sometimes coming in a 2nd time gives you the perspective to start focus on the subtleties while you were struggling with the high level details the first time.

There's nothing keeping age peers from hanging out and being friends, just because they're at different levels in different subjects...

In actuality it's more likely that socialization would improve as kids weren't forced through stress periods where they were not permitted to socialize, grouped arbitrarily and explicitly set against each other in various programs (eg - sports, group assignments, etc)....

And that's without yet raising the fact that the kid who does well in language but not math would end up friends with the kid who does well in math but not language, helping each other and challenging each other to succeed in a positive fashion, rather than ending up pitted against each other by the fundamental structure of the class structure.

>There's nothing keeping age peers from hanging out and being friends, just because they're at different levels in different subjects

Nothing tangible. But your peers you do work with very much influences the kinds of peers that become your friends.

But that's tangential to the real point I was making: socializing around a bunch of different peers your age in a specific nigh mandatory environment helps develop a sense of public etiquette. How to socialize, how to figure out who you do/don't want to hang out with, how to manage arguments or de-escalate tension. Potentially delaying or skipping that can be catastrophic, and you can argue that there's so many people today that feel like they never got that.

This can theoretically be replicated outside of school. But given how few venues of loitering there are these days for adults, I don't have much faith that we'll create such places for minors.

>the kid who does well in language but not math would end up friends with the kid who does well in math but not language, helping each other and challenging each other to succeed in a positive fashion, rather than ending up pitted against each other by the fundamental structure of the class structure.

It's all theoretical. But my experience makes me much less optimistic of that outcome than you.

Applying behaviors borne directly of the current structure on to the outcomes from an entirely different structure is not the way we reason, is it?

It frankly couldn't do worse than what we have, as the current structure ensures suffering and pain for the majority as a result of the social structure established by the norms and systems.

At least under my suggestion those who would excel Could excel and get the hell out before they were irreparably harmed and held back by the fools and willfully stupid as we have now, let alone the fact that the "less capable" would have a real chance at leaving with a modest education rather than being shoved through and ending up in The real world either zero capacity for real thought, understanding and employability.

>Applying behaviors borne directly of the current structure on to the outcomes from an entirely different structure is not the way we reason, is it?

It's an inevitable result of reasoning. I can't know what I don't know. Short of the laws of physics, we can never truly predict the behaviors of a new universal model from scratch.

Regardless, I don't think human nature would change that drastically as a result of students being able to pace their learning. Greed, selfishness, and general malice may be lessened but not eradicated. Social castes would probably still exist as a remnant of various luck and circumstance of the elite established centuries ago.

>It frankly couldn't do worse than what we have

I never really disagreed, I just simply want to point out a less talked about point in the current educational system. It's not simply an institution of acedemia, nor a "glorified day care center" as others cynically put it. There's soft skills you don't really get except by engaging with other people, some you don't like. Some you may even outright hate.

I feel any alternative system that doesn't keep those soft skills in mind may face further issues down the road, even if it may or may not end up better than the current timeline.

You didn't actually apply the known correlaries though.

Kindergarten is about the only part of the current system which could be use as a reference for behavior, as after that all the structural features which _explicitly _ _induce_ the behaviors you reference are Forced on the kids.

So, using K as a reference, what xan we learn about free form education?

> The move has dramatically increased participation among traditionally marginalized children

This program may or may not be a fantastic idea, but "participation" is about the worst possible metric for measuring the overall impact of a mandatory program.

Are these children having better overall life and educational outcomes from this? Are they taking time and energy away from classes they want to pursue to struggle in math courses they might not be truly passionate about?

And what about its impact on the non-marginalized kids? Because "everybody" is now participating, are honors courses now slowed and dumbed down so actual high-achievers will be less prepared for their future?

If you would have read the article then you would know the answer to this:

> Before the change, three times as many White students as Black students enrolled in honors math; after the change, it was less than twice as many. Not perfect equity, but progress in that direction.

> But did all these new students actually learn the honors math? Yes, indeed they did:

> And the policy has not led to a decrease in student scores as some speculated: Last year’s 8th-grade Algebra I students had similar pass rates as those in years prior, the district said, with 95% of Hispanic students passing the test and 76% meeting grade-level proficiency; 91% of Black students passing and 65% meeting grade level and 95% of English learner students passing the state exam and 74% meeting grade level.

I did examine the article, and to me there's a few holes and question marks in what data was presented.

> For instance, they claimed that "Last year’s 8th-grade Algebra I students had similar pass rates as those in years prior" but the word "similar" is subjective. How about showing all of the stratified data in chronological order to make that determination for oneself? Did pass rates for the state test go from say 99% and reduce due to this? They don't mention the White race pass rates before and after this change, for example.

> The racial groups listed are Black, Hispanic, White, and Other. What is other? Are they Asians? That seems like the only place they'd fit, but the participation of "Other" before and after this change seems low for that group.

> This data tells us nothing about how the teachers are approaching teaching their courses in light of this change. Do they stop going over valuable material solely to focus teaching kids how to pass a state test so their metrics look good? (Is that what matters for their funding, by the way?) Are class sizes increasing or decreasing to make this change logistically work?

> Additionally, as I am not an educator from Texas, I don't know for certain, but the test itself seems rather dumbed down if a large portion of kids are passing it, but aren't meeting their grade level. Doesn't it raise an eyebrow that 91% of Black kids are passing the test, but only 65% of them are meeting their grade level?

> The article doesn't clarify if all Texas students take this test or just honors students, but it would be illuminating to see pass rates of this test in that school district from different groups before and after that change. If 95% of Hispanic students in this honors program are passing that test in this district after this change, what was the pass rate of Hispanics before that change?

Again, I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad program. It might be quite a good idea to really raise educational standards and force kids into tougher math programs. But the focus solely on "racial participation" makes this very suspect to me.

> Teach kids more, not less

It's an odd combination of teaching kids too much in elementary school and too little in high. The children are exposed to a far more comprehensive curriculum at the expense of never practicing the skills enough to master them. As soon as summer resets their brains, they suddenly have large gaps in knowledge that slow next year's learning.

> As soon as summer resets their brains, they suddenly have large gaps in knowledge that slow next year's learning.

One loves to say that summer vacations are long so that pupils have time to fill the gaps for the next school year. If they don't use this time (or their parents don't urge them to), it is their problem.

Nobody's spending their vacation studying if they can avoid it.

> Nobody's spending their vacation studying if they can avoid it.

If you have huge gaps in the subject matter of some subjects, you hardly cannot avoid it (and your parents will likely take care that you cannot avoid it ;-) ).

>if they can avoid it.

meanwhile, my parent put me in summer school almost every year in some capacity. At least summer hours and classes are relaxed compared to the gauntlet of 6-7 different subjects 8 hours a day.

Seems like you couldn't avoid it.

Does putting marginal students in advanced classes actually help them?

The results cited in the article suggest that either the answer is yes, or in fact "marginal students" are perfectly capable students who were being passed over.

The text of the article further suggests that many of the students who scored well on qualifying exams weren't taking the classes because they didn't have the parental involvement or default assumption that they would take it.

(Note that the opt-out group was selected from the general population based on the results of an exam; it wasn't a population-wide opt out. I suspect from your comment you didn't see that?)

Am I meant to believe that all students are equally capable? That's a tough sell.

students definitely are not all equally capable in one aspect for sure: their ability to hire or provide private tutoring outside of school hours. Cutting access to state-funded programs (such as algebra classes in middle school) just means the rich children get even more of a leg up on college admissions and life in general.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that.

The way math is typically taught at the lowest levels actively hurts mathematical ability. Just taking them out of those classes will help them.

This isn’t what they did. What they did was automatically enroll kids with higher test scores into advanced classes, making it opt-out instead of opt-in.

That’s all.

Yes because I refuse to believe “stand and deliver” could not happen in real life!

Seriously tho I think it will. I’m sure a foundation is important in many fields but one can get pretty far by jumping in. I remember my high school physics teacher take us on a wild ride of quantum mechanics for three weeks. If nothing it opened up a lot of future reading

Judging by the lack of hard numbers and some statistical fuckery they’re doing - no.

> Within two years of this policy, 94% of eligible students are taking these classes.

Preselection.

Additionally, about half of the entire student body took the advanced class.

Considering the fact that the advanced class is Algebra I, I’d wager that just being on the right half of the bell curve would be sufficient to pass. Half of the student population = the right half of the bell curve.

Additionally, I didn’t see whether they were doing individual tutoring, which would have an impact on the results.

I'm fine with expecting more, but for those kids who just don't handle it well, it's not right to make them pariahs, just take the math down a notch. I saw kids treated as “less than” because they weren't making it in a certain level of math, and that always pissed me off. Likewise, I even had to report a calculus teacher once anonymously, I recorded the class with a mini-cassette (in the late 90s) recorder and slid it under the principal's door with a note. No the kid wasn't me, but he was a decent guy who I knew a little bit and knew he was trying hard but just couldn't get it.

Go have kids, teach them what you want.

STEM minded folks need to eat their own dog food; your sensibilities are not divine mandate.

The other billions don’t owe deference to scientists any more than they do priests.

No scientist is a divine being. Their attitudes can be very human; they think their knowledge and skills is irreplaceable and the social system while trying to pretend that’s objective and could never be leveraged in typically corrupt human ways given their very human being.

In the end you’re one of billions bleating for others to follow the path you lay out. Where is the real or imagine social obligation to specifically serve you or any of the rest of the people here who make up a tiny fraction of the species?

Others think you should learn to grow your own food and kill your steaks rather than exploit the labor of others.

The free market of ideas is not just for selling widgets but tent pole social movements.

It was you wonder if a foreign state adversary is influencing us to stupify our next generation. I'll keep my comments civil here but its pretty obvious who is behind this.

If it's all that obvious, you should have no problem naming who's behind this and providing evidence to support your claim, rather than merely fearmongering to no useful end.

I don't know. These "equity" arguments are indistinguishable from a deliberate attack.... the sort of attack you'd expect from a country that, having been unable to either compete with the West or conquer it, is well-known to have resorted to memetic warfare.

> I don't know.

But you do, it sounds like. Enlighten us.

That would be way too spicy for this place, Bob.

I'm not claiming to know anything. I'm just asking that those who do make such claims be a little less gnomic in their commentary, so that the rest of us can evaluate whether or not you're talking nonsense.

TIL gnomic. Thanks!

And if I knew whether or not it was nonsense, I wouldn't have prefaced the post with "I don't know." I was just suggesting that proxiful-wash's downvoted post wasn't completely out of the question.

The priors are suspicious enough: might a country that attempted to get the world to believe that the US created the HIV virus [1], successfully influenced a razor's-edge Presidential election [2], and plotted to stir up domestic racial conflict [3] try to handicap the US by originating and propagating counterproductive educational ideologies? It's certainly believable, but there's no smoking gun.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/14/russian...

2: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-rus...

3: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-documents-reveal-...

You're putting "plotted to" and "successfully" to a lot of work here, on behalf of claims your sources appear at great pains not to make or even imply.

You seem to take this whole concept very seriously, so maybe you can help me understand why. Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems, what endgame do you see that actually improves our situation? What specific and relevant changes in domestic and foreign policy would you prescribe?

Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems

Translation: "A good-faith discussion is not going to happen, so let's hit the mud and see how dirty we can get."

I don't think so. Only one of us would enjoy it.

It's a little rich of you to plead good faith at this point, don't you think? You're not that far out over your skis with those sources by mistake; they simply do not say what you claim they say. But I am legitimately curious what endgame you have in mind here.

>A good-faith discussion is not going to happen

Historically speaking on western social media, making a bold claim on something as generic as American primary education being influenced by foreign powers without any real evidence does tend to go down conspiracy territory. Most conpiracy theories aren't made in good faith, no.

Also isn't particularly good faith to respond with ad-hominem when asked to prove claims, which tends to happen with conspiracy that has little/no firm evidence attached.

Robert Conquest’s Third Laws of Politics:

"The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."

Well either the US is especially vulnerable to foreign sabotage or the US is especially vulnerable to self-sabotage.

I'll let others debate over which is worse.

Demagoguery is always a constant fear for the free people.

I don't know if it's "obvious" - the United States has at least two large enemies that have the means, motive, and opportunity to do this - picking between them is difficult.

One thing's for sure, though - it's pretty unreasonable to automatically discount the possibility of foreign influence, as others in this thread are doing.

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