California’s War on Math

The article is pretty meh. The author seems a bit excited to map their own perspectives onto the experiences of millions of Californian students.

Those perspectives include some of the author's personal experiences (which I guess we should understand qualify the author to predict outcomes generally), an awkward set of entire countries against which we should compare this new CA program the author couldn't even be bothered to research patiently (let alone deeply), and some mention of how math made California prosper (actually it was history, no it was psychology, no wait it was geography, no wait...hmmm, these positions aren't just more of those "frameworks" the author was deriding, are they?).

Sorry but it's not very interesting to read this unless you are looking for, let's say, more reinforcement for a rage-fueled position on how badly the new stuff sucks vs. back in the cold war days.

(Guess what, cold war education sucked too, go read Feynman talking about his textbook review experiences.)

(I do think there's a bit of a funny after-image you can see, if you read the article and then stare at a blank wall for a few seconds, so to speak--it's shaped a bit like pent up frustration about a lack of ideas to move ahead with. Very common recently, this phenomenon. It's one thing to crit, another to predict, and still another step to creatively address, correct, and emerge with a win.)

Sometimes I wonder if these kinds of obviously quality lowering attacks on public education aren’t part of an effort to delegitimize public education in favor of some kind of educational profiteering scheme.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the path to “equality” by removing depth is a foolish endeavor.

Taken to its logical conclusion, nothing at all should be taught in school, and everyone will all get exactly the same grade and the exact same level of academic achievement. Perfect equality.

In reality, this will create an ignorant mass of poor people of all ethnicities, while those that can afford an actual education will do what it takes to put their children into private schools. It will dramatically alter educational outcomes based primarily on household income, and this will undoubtedly have the worst outcome for minorities.

It’s amazing that people cannot see this very obvious and predictable outcome.

The longer I live, and the more I learn about other countries' education systems, the stranger it seems that maths education is mandatory in my country the whole way through. (unless you get an exemption)

English, Irish, maths. (to get a 'pass' in your 'leaving cert') Everything else totally optional, but usually four other subjects.