Jump to content

Menu

Advanced Math


Recommended Posts

Please help me understand, what is going on with Math education in the US. I’ve read about several states trying to do away with Advanced Math in schools.  Is it social justice or are these lawmakers seeing something that I just don’t get. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm afraid your question hinges on suppositions without support.

Do you have any links that back up what you are saying?  Do they have information within them about the decisions being made?  Since I haven't read any of this, other than a vague memory of an area pushing back algebra to high school, I really can't form an opinion.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The story is all over in gifted forums, especially ones from parents of profoundly gifted kids. Many STEM-focused colleges expect that students enter with Calculus BC done, and a math sequence that doesn’t start Algebra until 9th grade doesn’t allow for this. A lot of smart kids are already bored out of their minds with the pace of math instruction. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is very real CA, they are trying to reimagine Math. They have been trying to take advance math from students for years now. My dn was able to test into geometry in 7th, but by the time her sister got to 7th pre-algebra was the highest math class. Now the Board of Education wants to keep kids together until 10th grade, then separated kids into advanced classes for 11th grade. Here is a link to the math framework CA is look to adopt  https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/mathfwchapter1.docx

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm always suspicious when Jo Boaler is at the back of something. 

I don't really care when kids do algebra... What I want is for them to learn it, and the Jo Boalers of this world keep them from learning it, because they are zealots. 

@Not_a_Number, I see you as someone with a lot of math knowledge and someone who can also contribute from the perspective of a math educator.  This is at least the second time you have attacked Jo Boaler as a person without referencing any of her actual ideas  (I recall expressing my dismay when you did so under your previous name, Square 25).  I would be genuinely interested to hear what it is about her ideas that you disagree with.  I write this as someone from outside the US, where math is integrated and it is normal to keep all students together until the end of grade 10, before providing four tracks in grade 11-12.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

as @SDMomof3 said, in CA they are trying to address "inequity" in the public school systems by getting rid of math tracks. The new line of thought is that children are best served in a heterogeneous class. So, everyone will study the same math until the final years of high school, no matter what their talent or aptitude levels are. They reject the idea that some kids have a natural gift for math and instead say that their focus is to make all kids love math (I am paraphrasing, but they actually said these things in the document). In fact, the new framework for school math discourages calculus in high school and calls it "misguided" and they state the fact that many students have to repeat calculus in college as the evidence that students are not ready for calculus in high school.

This framework is expected to be adopted soon and there is also the other news that UC's will no longer consider SAT and ACT for admissions because they are "racist".

It does not affect my family as we are not part of the PS system and are not looking at UC admissions in the future, but, in my area which has good schools, there is a furore among the PS parents and many are moving on to summer math classes hosted by private schools, DE, after school academies like RSM etc to meet the needs of their gifted children.

Edited by mathnerd
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, I think this move will create more inequality and a bigger divide between the haves and have nots. The PS parents in my area, who can afford extra math classes, have their kids enrolled in after school, weekend math classes, or summer school classes at private school and learning academies. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, caffeineandbooks said:

@Not_a_Number, I see you as someone with a lot of math knowledge and someone who can also contribute from the perspective of a math educator.  This is at least the second time you have attacked Jo Boaler as a person without referencing any of her actual ideas  (I recall expressing my dismay when you did so under your previous name, Square 25).  I would be genuinely interested to hear what it is about her ideas that you disagree with.  I write this as someone from outside the US, where math is integrated and it is normal to keep all students together until the end of grade 10, before providing four tracks in grade 11-12.  

I don't know her as a person at all. I only have issues with her ideas. And I don't mind integrated math in the least -- in some sense, I'm doing integrated stuff with my kids. 

Before I get into this (and I have a LOT to say), I'm curious whether you've read up on her ideas. Do you know what she advocates? 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do you know what she advocates? 

I would say I am familiar with her *products*, and have a passing rather than thorough understanding of her ideas.

She is a former UK classroom teacher who is influenced by Carol Dweck's ideas about growth mindset.  She wants students to understand that maths people are not born, they are made, and all students can achieve a high standard if they are supported and continue to work hard.  She opposes tracked classrooms, and her UK research showed that not just the lower performing students but also the highest performers improved significantly when given low floor, high ceiling, open problems that are creative and visual, as compared to similar socioeconomic level classes using traditional teaching.  She doesn't say this, but perhaps this is about the deeper learning that takes place when we are highly engaged with an idea and use collaboration and discovery methods to learn?

I use her product line of "Mindset Mathematics" books as a supplement to our main Singapore curriculum.  You couldn't use them alone - they de-emphasise calculation in favour of patterns, visuals, area, graphs, and data presentation.  However, I really appreciate how different they are from Singapore.  My most mathy and perfectionistic kid gains a lot from her emphasis on process, from having to explain his ideas to other kids, from being invited to roll around in a math activity for the joy and beauty of it rather than to complete an exercise.  My most artistic kid enjoys the visual nature of her stuff and the connections to the art/music/language parts of his brain.  I tutored a low achieving kid for a year and she appreciated a chance to feel successful in math because the work wasn't particularly tied to math facts or place value, which were the gaps for her that we were filling in that year.

I agree with her that understanding data/statistics/information is increasingly important in our culture today, and that it has not had a corresponding increase in prominence in math curricula to this point.  As a liberal arts major, I have not needed higher math for college or work or life, and it seems sensible to me to offer kids a chance to pursue other kinds of math than calculus, but I am not in the US and am not aware of plans to "do away with Advanced Math in schools" as the OP references.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, caffeineandbooks said:

I would say I am familiar with her *products*, and have a passing rather than thorough understanding of her ideas.

She is a former UK classroom teacher who is influenced by Carol Dweck's ideas about growth mindset.  She wants students to understand that maths people are not born, they are made, and all students can achieve a high standard if they are supported and continue to work hard.  She opposes tracked classrooms, and her UK research showed that not just the lower performing students but also the highest performers improved significantly when given low floor, high ceiling, open problems that are creative and visual, as compared to similar socioeconomic level classes using traditional teaching.  She doesn't say this, but perhaps this is about the deeper learning that takes place when we are highly engaged with an idea and use collaboration and discovery methods to learn?

I use her product line of "Mindset Mathematics" books as a supplement to our main Singapore curriculum.  You couldn't use them alone - they de-emphasise calculation in favour of patterns, visuals, area, graphs, and data presentation.  However, I really appreciate how different they are from Singapore.  My most mathy and perfectionistic kid gains a lot from her emphasis on process, from having to explain his ideas to other kids, from being invited to roll around in a math activity for the joy and beauty of it rather than to complete an exercise.  My most artistic kid enjoys the visual nature of her stuff and the connections to the art/music/language parts of his brain.  I tutored a low achieving kid for a year and she appreciated a chance to feel successful in math because the work wasn't particularly tied to math facts or place value, which were the gaps for her that we were filling in that year.

I agree with her that understanding data/statistics/information is increasingly important in our culture today, and that it has not had a corresponding increase in prominence in math curricula to this point.  As a liberal arts major, I have not needed higher math for college or work or life, and it seems sensible to me to offer kids a chance to pursue other kinds of math than calculus, but I am not in the US and am not aware of plans to "do away with Advanced Math in schools" as the OP references.

Right. That sounds like a fair summary. I'm sure her products are a good supplement! 

The problem is that she's been trying to make ALL of the math in her experimental schools like her products. Everything is group work. Everything is discovery-based. There's a serious de-emphasis of basic skills. 

Her research on this stuff is also sloppy. Since she doesn't really believe in tests, she publishes papers that don't use standard metrics to measure how the students are doing. There was a group of "traditionalist" math professors at Stanford who were bickering with her -- now, I happen to know those folks, and at least some of them have no right to speak on math pedagogy at all, lol. But they had some pretty serious criticisms of her study: 

https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v8n1.pdf

I tend to worry about movements like hers, because people who run them believe they'll work before they have any data, and they don't collect data that might show them they are wrong. So there's no way to fix or improve anything, because they don't actually allow themselves to be evaluated. 

Basically, I think this is going to hurt the students of California. I think it's irresponsible to push reforms without thoroughly testing them, and the kids who ALWAYS pay for the stuff are the always the low income and minority ones 😕 . The ones with parents at home who can teach them or who can get them tutors are always fine... 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also worry that her stuff is giving discovery methods a bad name 😕 . I actually lean pretty heavily on the discovery side, and the way I teach is pretty non-traditional. I'm not really one of the people who thinks that we need to go back to some mythical traditional past where all math is taught by rote. I value sense-making and tend to believe in the Benezet experiment 😉

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Right. That sounds like a fair summary. I'm sure her products are a good supplement! 

The problem is that she's been trying to make ALL of the math in her experimental schools like her products. Everything is group work. Everything is discovery-based. There's a serious de-emphasis of basic skills. 

Her research on this stuff is also sloppy. Since she doesn't really believe in tests, she publishes papers that don't use standard metrics to measure how the students are doing. There was a group of "traditionalist" math professors at Stanford who were bickering with her -- now, I happen to know those folks, and at least some of them have no right to speak on math pedagogy at all, lol. But they had some pretty serious criticisms of her study: 

https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v8n1.pdf

I tend to worry about movements like hers, because people who run them believe they'll work before they have any data, and they don't collect data that might show them they are wrong. So there's no way to fix or improve anything, because they don't actually allow themselves to be evaluated. 

Basically, I think this is going to hurt the students of California. I think it's irresponsible to push reforms without thoroughly testing them, and the kids who ALWAYS pay for the stuff are the always the low income and minority ones 😕 . The ones with parents at home who can teach them or who can get them tutors are always fine... 

Thank you for this.  That whole adolescent slanging match between Milgram et al and Boaler was disappointing.  It seems to me that there is plenty of middle ground that they might agree on if the relationship between them was not so toxic.  He raised some legitimate questions about her research, but has apparently been unable to get his article published except on his own website (the one you linked) in the intervening 10 years, and Stanford itself doesn't seem to be persuaded that he is right. 

I am thankful to have the skills and freedom to educate and advocate for my own children.  A whole school system is such a complex and unwieldy thing to improve or reform; I'm glad to be able to cherry pick resources and approaches from others and immediately see the fruit of them.  It must be frustrating for Jo Boaler that it's almost 20 years since she conducted that research yet it's only now beginning to see major implementation, and just as frustrating for Milgram that in 10 years he hasn't succeeded in discrediting her in the eyes of Stanford or the state of California.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/22/2021 at 7:33 AM, mathnerd said:

as @SDMomof3 said, in CA they are trying to address "inequity" in the public school systems by getting rid of math tracks. The new line of thought is that children are best served in a heterogeneous class. So, everyone will study the same math until the final years of high school, no matter what their talent or aptitude levels are. They reject the idea that some kids have a natural gift for math and instead say that their focus is to make all kids love math (I am paraphrasing, but they actually said these things in the document). In fact, the new framework for school math discourages calculus in high school and calls it "misguided" and they state the fact that many students have to repeat calculus in college as the evidence that students are not ready for calculus in high school.

This framework is expected to be adopted soon and there is also the other news that UC's will no longer consider SAT and ACT for admissions because they are "racist".

It does not affect my family as we are not part of the PS system and are not looking at UC admissions in the future, but, in my area which has good schools, there is a furore among the PS parents and many are moving on to summer math classes hosted by private schools, DE, after school academies like RSM etc to meet the needs of their gifted children.

This sounds like a really bad idea!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

<SNIP>

Yes, I did read it.  It's difficult for me to evaluate.  Do you know that Milgram officially made a charge of professional misconduct over this, that Stanford formally investigated, and that they found in favor of her - ie that there was no such misconduct?  So he turned to writing and self-publishing this article to try to get some traction.

Here is the conclusion of their investigation, as published at insidehighered.com: "We understand that there is a currently ongoing (and apparently passionate) debate in the mathematics education field concerning the best approaches and methods to be applied in teaching mathematics. It is not our task under Stanford's policy to determine who is 'right' and who is 'wrong' in this academic debate. We do note that Dr. Boaler's responses to the questions put to her related to her report were thorough, thoughtful, and offered her scientific rationale for each of the questions underlying the allegations. We found no evidence of scientific misconduct or fraudulent behavior related to the content of the report in question. In short, we find that the allegations (such as they are) of scientific misconduct do not have substance." (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/stanford-professor-goes-public-attacks-over-her-math-education-research)

When I read the Milgram article, I can see that he doesn't understand qualitative as opposed to quantitative research, that he's happy to claim "stories" and "letters" support his case but never quote them or show me where to find them, and this is harder to define, but I get a feeling of nasty glee from him, that he was really enjoying sticking the knife in to her personally.  Perhaps it's because his piece is uniformly negative.  There are positives to her research, but he provides none.  None of this helps me to believe that he is a more trustworthy evaluator of her study than she is.  And you yourself said that you "can tell she sincerely believes what she's saying", which means that although she might have been mistaken, she did not deliberately obfuscate a failed experiment.

I also see that even though he's a professor at the same university that published the study, he has been unable for 10 years to get enough support within the university to have his piece published, or to have hers censured in any way.  Stanford has not been concerned enough about his claims to have her make any changes.  She has accused him of academic bullying, but that too seems to be unsubstantiated, and her attempt to paint him as calling children from racially diverse backgrounds "pickaninnies" (his comment used that word but in fact decried that view, not supported it) seems disingenuous.  I'm left with two adults who have diametrically opposed views about how to teach math, both of whom are unwilling to admit that they may have only some pieces of the puzzle, or that their opponent has any pieces at all.

I like having the option to add her stuff to our math program.  I think it makes it stronger.  I would not want to subtract anything from our program though - I'm not "going full Boaler" or arguing for radical departures from traditional methods.  My concern was that your original comment dismissed her and labelled her a "zealot" without evidence.  I see now the source of your opinion, although I am not persuaded by it.  I predict that California's implementation of her approach will be neither the silver bullet she hopes nor the nuclear meltdown he hopes - and I do say that he "hopes" it because he seems like the kind of person who would gladly sacrifice a generation's education if it meant he could score points off his rival.  If he really cared about truth he would have written his article more carefully, and would have jumped through the hoops needed to have it published after Stanford rejected it.

 

Edited by caffeineandbooks
Quote removed at request of poster
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, caffeineandbooks said:

If he really cared about truth he would have written his article more carefully, and would have jumped through the hoops needed to have it published after Stanford rejected it.

I'm sorry, but are you arguing that STANFORD has any say in whether he publishes this paper? Why would it care? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Not_a_Number, I'm not sure whether I can productively discuss the research with you.  I feel hampered by not knowing enough about US standardised tests and information gathering practices - I don't know what measures are available to assess whether the intervention worked, and I don't have access to the raw data, so for now I am simply noting that Boaler and her team created tests, that the actual class teachers from the three schools considered those tests and agreed that they reflected material that was taught to all three classes, and that there might be a problem there, as raised by Milgram, because it appears that no common higher level content was taught to all three groups.  Milgram's article is suggesting that a lot of measures were available to the researchers which contradicted their research, which I imagine would be the substance of his professional misconduct charge, right?  But since that was investigated and dismissed, I take it that Stanford doesn't share his opinion.

When I suggested that Stanford had a say in whether he published his paper, it was because he submitted it to them for publication, and they rejected it on the grounds that he included quotes from the relevant schools that were readily discoverable by a Google search, which could have resulted in the schools being publicly identified.  He says (in response to her bullying accusations, I think) that he declined to remove the quotes for privacy because he was too busy, so after a few years (her research published in 2006, his article in 2011 I believe?) he just put it on his own website.

As to removing your quote, you added the request to not be quoted after I had already done so, as I was typing my response to you.  I didn't deliberately quote you against your wishes.  However, I might be doing so now: you talk about not wanting to be quoted "trashing" someone that you know in real life, and then you go on to trash him further, in the same attacking-the-person style that first caused me to write to you.  If you are worried about leaving a trail of words that seem slanderous or unprofessional, perhaps it might be best to not post such words in the first place.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, caffeineandbooks said:

When I suggested that Stanford had a say in whether he published his paper, it was because he submitted it to them for publication, and they rejected it on the grounds that he included quotes from the relevant schools that were readily discoverable by a Google search, which could have resulted in the schools being publicly identified. 

How could you possibly submit an article to "Stanford" for publication? Stanford is not an academic journal. Stanford is simply the employer of both of these professors. 

This isn't verified by me, but this is something I randomly found online: 

 

"Their resulting paper, “A close examination of Jo Boaler’s Railside Report”, was accepted for publication in Education Next—and then Boaler moved to England. At that point, they decided not to publish the paper. All three men were heavily involved in math education and didn’t want to burn too many bridges with educators, who often lionize Boaler. One of the authors, James Milgram, a math professor at Stanford, posted the paper instead on his ftp site. Google took care of the rest." 

 

You may wish to verify this. If true, this suggests that no one rejected this paper -- they chose to pull it. If false, you should let me know, because I'll want to know.  

 

3 minutes ago, caffeineandbooks said:

If you are worried about leaving a trail of words that seem slanderous or unprofessional, perhaps it might be best to not post such words in the first place.

I was going to delete it eventually, clearly. But yes, I tend to be interested in telling people what I actually think about what's going on, because i figure that's one of the advantages of a somewhat anonymous message board -- you can mince words less than you would IRL, where there are many more social considerations. This is an advantage to the audience, because they get an insider's take on personalities. 

But I want to again make it clear that when I say that she's a zealot, that is not an ad hominem attack. That is a statement that I believe that she doesn't treat her data in a properly scientific manner. It's not personal. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, caffeineandbooks said:

Milgram's article is suggesting that a lot of measures were available to the researchers which contradicted their research, which I imagine would be the substance of his professional misconduct charge, right?  But since that was investigated and dismissed, I take it that Stanford doesn't share his opinion.

You can absolutely think that the conclusions of the paper are unwarranted without thinking that the paper was professional misconduct. I don't think her paper is professional misconduct, per se. I just think it's wishful thinking. 

You also keep talking about "Stanford" as if it's some sort of cohesive structure. The ed school and the math department very rarely overlap. I would guess the opinion about Boaler's paper in the two departments is quite different... 

Edited by Not_a_Number
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

How could you possibly submit an article to "Stanford" for publication? Stanford is not an academic journal. Stanford is simply the employer of both of these professors. 

This isn't verified by me, but this is something I randomly found online: 

 

"Their resulting paper, “A close examination of Jo Boaler’s Railside Report”, was accepted for publication in Education Next—and then Boaler moved to England. At that point, they decided not to publish the paper. All three men were heavily involved in math education and didn’t want to burn too many bridges with educators, who often lionize Boaler. One of the authors, James Milgram, a math professor at Stanford, posted the paper instead on his ftp site. Google took care of the rest." 

 

You may wish to verify this. If true, this suggests that no one rejected this paper -- they chose to pull it. If false, you should let me know, because I'll want to know.  

I got that idea from Inside Higher Ed, at this link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/stanford-professor-goes-public-attacks-over-her-math-education-research Sorry if my reference to "Stanford" was clunky.  Am I right in understanding that Stanford did indeed put the kybosh on his article though, and is it reasonable to conclude that they did in fact "care" whether he published it?

"He said via e-mail that the essay was prepared for publication in a journal and was scheduled to be published, but "the HR person at Stanford has some reservations because it turned out that it was too easy to do a Google search on some of the quotes in the paper and thereby identify the schools involved. At that point I had so many other things that I had to attend to that I didn't bother to make the corrections." He also said that he has heard more from the school since he wrote the essay, and that these additional discussions confirm his criticism of Boaler's work."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, caffeineandbooks said:

I got that idea from Inside Higher Ed, at this link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/stanford-professor-goes-public-attacks-over-her-math-education-research Sorry if my reference to "Stanford" was clunky.  Am I right in understanding that Stanford did indeed put the kybosh on his article though, and is it reasonable to conclude that they did in fact "care" whether he published it?

"He said via e-mail that the essay was prepared for publication in a journal and was scheduled to be published, but "the HR person at Stanford has some reservations because it turned out that it was too easy to do a Google search on some of the quotes in the paper and thereby identify the schools involved. At that point I had so many other things that I had to attend to that I didn't bother to make the corrections." He also said that he has heard more from the school since he wrote the essay, and that these additional discussions confirm his criticism of Boaler's work."

An HR person has no ability to stop a tenured professor from publishing their work. So I would guess he just lost interest and got sick of fighting with them. It's not really his area of research or anything. He'd get no kudos for it professionally. 

Edited by Not_a_Number
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, caffeineandbooks said:

I got that idea from Inside Higher Ed, at this link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/stanford-professor-goes-public-attacks-over-her-math-education-research Sorry if my reference to "Stanford" was clunky.  Am I right in understanding that Stanford did indeed put the kybosh on his article though, and is it reasonable to conclude that they did in fact "care" whether he published it?

"He said via e-mail that the essay was prepared for publication in a journal and was scheduled to be published, but "the HR person at Stanford has some reservations because it turned out that it was too easy to do a Google search on some of the quotes in the paper and thereby identify the schools involved. At that point I had so many other things that I had to attend to that I didn't bother to make the corrections." He also said that he has heard more from the school since he wrote the essay, and that these additional discussions confirm his criticism of Boaler's work."

As for whether they cared: it sounded like someone in the hierarchy cared, yes. I don't know how much they cared or how much he cared and I don't know how far up the hierarchy the caring went. But again, Stanford isn't like a private company with a head or anything. Dissenting point of view are published from different corners all the time. 

Edited by Not_a_Number
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

An HR person has no ability to stop a tenured professor from publishing their work. So I would guess he just lost interest and got sick of fighting with them. It's not really his area of research or anything. He'd get no kudos for it professionally. 

If you click into the link, he clarifies that by "HR" he doesn't mean human resources, as is usual, but human research.  Like an ethics gatekeeper, I assume.

If he had really lost interest, why did he then edit the paper after all (the quotes don't appear on his website version) and publish it?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, caffeineandbooks said:

If you click into the link, he clarifies that by "HR" he doesn't mean human resources, as is usual, but human research.  Like an ethics gatekeeper, I assume.

If he had really lost interest, why did he then edit the paper after all (the quotes don't appear on his website version) and publish it?  

I mean, he obviously wanted it available. He might have just gotten sick of fighting with them. But they certainly can't technically STOP him from publishing it. And it wasn't Stanford itself that was going to publish it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, caffeineandbooks said:

Only in this thread have I realised how many of your posts are edited moments later... 😄

Oh, gosh, it's not because I say things wrong, mostly. It's because my typing is very fast but is too automatic -- I very often skip words or type common words that start in the same way as a less common word that I was ACTUALLY trying to type. (Like, I may type out "automatically" when I was trying to do "automatic," since maybe I type "automatically" more often. My hands just do it despite my brain!) 

ETA: And I also think of extra thoughts to add often, lol. As you can see in this example! 

Edited by Not_a_Number
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyway, I now deeply regret linking Milgram's paper 😂😂. I don't really want to talk about him at all. 

The point is that I think she over-interprets her research and isn't open to data that suggests that she may be wrong. I am actually not in any way against using some of her activities -- I think I thought about using some of them myself -- I'm just always afraid of people with a lot of reformist ardor who don't seem open to data. Maybe it's my USSR upbringing... one of the Russian songs on my playlist has the following lyrics (mostly translated badly via Google translate): 

Do not be afraid of praise, do not be afraid of blasphemy,
Do not be afraid of pestilence and gladness,
You should only fear the person, 
Who says: "I know the right thing to do!"
Who says: "Come on, follow me!
I will teach you the right thing to do!"

I'd be happy to talk about the reason I think she is mistaken in her enthusiasm, even though I think she's probably a nice person and genuinely believes what she writes. It's just that in my opinion that doesn't excuse anyone 😉 . 

Edited by Not_a_Number
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, caffeineandbooks said:

 

I also see that even though he's a professor at the same university that published the study, he has been unable for 10 years to get enough support within the university to have his piece published, or to have hers censured in any way.  

I like having the option to add her stuff to our math program.  I think it makes it stronger.  I would not want to subtract anything from our program though - I'm not "going full Boaler" or arguing for radical departures from traditional methods.  My concern was that your original comment dismissed her and labelled her a "zealot" without evidence.  I see now the source of your opinion, although I am not persuaded by it.  I predict that California's implementation of her approach will be neither the silver bullet she hopes nor the nuclear meltdown he hopes - and I do say that he "hopes" it because he seems like the kind of person who would gladly sacrifice a generation's education if it meant he could score points off his rival.  If he really cared about truth he would have written his article more carefully, and would have jumped through the hoops needed to have it published after Stanford rejected it.

 

Thank you for this overview; it was helpful for my understanding.

I'm a little confused by the bolded.  Is there a particular journal published by Stanford itself?  Or are you referring to some other journal?  Was his article rejected by peer review somewhere?  I always thought the peer review process was rather opaque; that is, you don't know where a paper was rejected, only where it was eventually published, further down the levels of prestige.  But it does seem like a mathematics professor would have difficulty being published in an education journal unless he had taken it upon himself to run an actual study.  (I think...I don't know how often these studies actually occur.)  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, daijobu said:

I'm a little confused by the bolded.  Is there a particular journal published by Stanford itself?  Or are you referring to some other journal?  Was his article rejected by peer review somewhere?  

Sorry about my confusing wording.  I got that idea from Inside Higher Ed, at this link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/stanford-professor-goes-public-attacks-over-her-math-education-research It doesn't name the journal but I presumed it must be a Stanford-owned paper because were the ones rejecting it.  From the link:

"He said via e-mail that the essay was prepared for publication in a journal and was scheduled to be published, but "the HR person at Stanford has some reservations because it turned out that it was too easy to do a Google search on some of the quotes in the paper and thereby identify the schools involved. At that point I had so many other things that I had to attend to that I didn't bother to make the corrections." He also said that he has heard more from the school since he wrote the essay, and that these additional discussions confirm his criticism of Boaler's work."

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, caffeineandbooks said:

Sorry about my confusing wording.  I got that idea from Inside Higher Ed, at this link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/stanford-professor-goes-public-attacks-over-her-math-education-research It doesn't name the journal but I presumed it must be a Stanford-owned paper because were the ones rejecting it.  From the link:

"He said via e-mail that the essay was prepared for publication in a journal and was scheduled to be published, but "the HR person at Stanford has some reservations because it turned out that it was too easy to do a Google search on some of the quotes in the paper and thereby identify the schools involved. At that point I had so many other things that I had to attend to that I didn't bother to make the corrections." He also said that he has heard more from the school since he wrote the essay, and that these additional discussions confirm his criticism of Boaler's work."

I think you may want to read up a bit on how academic publishing works. Most journals are not affiliated with specific schools. I believe I provided a name for the journal he had submitted the paper to, which is not Stanford-affiliated. Even if it were Stanford-affiliated, it wouldn't get shot down by an HR person, as far as I know, but by peer review or by the editor of the journal. 

I would doubt it's the case that Milgram was unable to get that paper published. I would guess he just decided it wasn't worth his time -- as I said, it's not in his field, and it would never get plaudits from people in his field. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/21/2021 at 4:17 PM, Swimmer1112 said:

Unfortunately, I think this move will create more inequality and a bigger divide between the haves and have nots. The PS parents in my area, who can afford extra math classes, have their kids enrolled in after school, weekend math classes, or summer school classes at private school and learning academies. 

That’s CA for you - two extremes. The state is crazy and certain areas/parents are equally crazy in the other direction. 

Edited by Roadrunner
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And doesn’t waiting until high school to start algebra creates a bigger race? Why not start early and go slowly and deeply instead of waiting until 9th grade and then rush over topics on a superficial level?
All these kids taking summer courses, what are they really learning/retaining? My DS is taking precalculus at a CC over summer. Let me tell you how little it covers. 😞  We would have never considered this as proper learning, only this kid has worked through AoPS Intermediate Algebra and half of AoPS precalculus, so his summer course is basically just so we could have a proper documentation (he needs it for school). Now we are going to put kids into the situation where this sort of rushed summer learning becomes a norm? 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

And doesn’t waiting until high school to start algebra creates a bigger race? Why not start early and go slowly and deeply instead of waiting until 9th grade and then rush over topics on a superficial level?
All these kids taking summer courses, what are they really learning/retaining? My DS is taking precalculus at a CC over summer. Let me tell you how little it covers. 😞  We would have never considered this as proper learning, only this kid has worked through AoPS Intermediate Algebra and half of AoPS precalculus, so his summer course is basically just so we could have a proper documentation (he needs it for school). Now we are going to put kids into the situation where this sort of rushed summer learning becomes a norm? 

This is what I’ve observed in my area. When Algebra was mandated for 8th grade. The more competitive high schools decided as a response to create one semester math classes, so their students can get to Linear Algebra and Differential Equation by senior year. This inevitable caused more students who would have benefited from year long courses to drop out of advanced math because they couldn’t keep up with the pace. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, SDMomof3 said:

This is what I’ve observed in my area. When Algebra was mandated for 8th grade. The more competitive high schools decided as a response to create one semester math classes, so their students can get to Linear Algebra and Differential Equation by senior year. This inevitable caused more students who would have benefited from year long courses to drop out of advanced math because they couldn’t keep up with the pace. 

I have no sympathy for those parents either. There is no need to hothouse kids. That’s another extreme, and it destroys childhoods and emotionally maims children. And this is what is causing the backlash. Gifted programs are now predominantly overtaken by hothoused kids who make it into those programs because they are made to do schoolwork from morning till night, but many gifted kids without torpedo immigrant moms are left out. So the state goes into another extreme eliminating everything. I really have no sympathy for either side. And having known a pediatrician who ran out of Bay Area to save her kids’ mental health after watching in her medical practice kids coming out of this school culture, I am at a loss as to why these parents behave the way they do. 
I feel very fortunate that we can homeschool and I can mostly ignore the nutcases on each side of this madhouse. 

Edited by Roadrunner
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

many gifted kids without torpedo immigrant moms are left out. 

I agree with much of your post, but would add that it isn’t just immigrant moms. 

 

On 5/21/2021 at 5:17 PM, Swimmer1112 said:

Unfortunately, I think this move will create more inequality and a bigger divide between the haves and have nots. The PS parents in my area, who can afford extra math classes, have their kids enrolled in after school, weekend math classes, or summer school classes at private school and learning academies. 

Yes - seems like AOPS Academy and other such programs will see increased demand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
On 5/22/2021 at 11:44 PM, Not_a_Number said:

Right. That sounds like a fair summary. I'm sure her products are a good supplement! 

The problem is that she's been trying to make ALL of the math in her experimental schools like her products. Everything is group work. Everything is discovery-based. There's a serious de-emphasis of basic skills. 

Her research on this stuff is also sloppy. Since she doesn't really believe in tests, she publishes papers that don't use standard metrics to measure how the students are doing. There was a group of "traditionalist" math professors at Stanford who were bickering with her -- now, I happen to know those folks, and at least some of them have no right to speak on math pedagogy at all, lol. But they had some pretty serious criticisms of her study: 

https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v8n1.pdf

I tend to worry about movements like hers, because people who run them believe they'll work before they have any data, and they don't collect data that might show them they are wrong. So there's no way to fix or improve anything, because they don't actually allow themselves to be evaluated. 

Basically, I think this is going to hurt the students of California. I think it's irresponsible to push reforms without thoroughly testing them, and the kids who ALWAYS pay for the stuff are the always the low income and minority ones 😕 . The ones with parents at home who can teach them or who can get them tutors are always fine... 

I have to admit the only good thing I saw when our school started talking about was they admitted speed in basic facts drills wasn't important.  Unfortunately they had just spent a year doing those drills which made my son (who is very accurate and a decent speed but not near the fastest) thing maybe he didn't like maths much any more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/22/2021 at 10:03 AM, mathnerd said:

as @SDMomof3 said, in CA they are trying to address "inequity" in the public school systems by getting rid of math tracks. The new line of thought is that children are best served in a heterogeneous class. So, everyone will study the same math until the final years of high school, no matter what their talent or aptitude levels are. They reject the idea that some kids have a natural gift for math and instead say that their focus is to make all kids love math (I am paraphrasing, but they actually said these things in the document). In fact, the new framework for school math discourages calculus in high school and calls it "misguided" and they state the fact that many students have to repeat calculus in college as the evidence that students are not ready for calculus in high school.

This framework is expected to be adopted soon and there is also the other news that UC's will no longer consider SAT and ACT for admissions because they are "racist".

It does not affect my family as we are not part of the PS system and are not looking at UC admissions in the future, but, in my area which has good schools, there is a furore among the PS parents and many are moving on to summer math classes hosted by private schools, DE, after school academies like RSM etc to meet the needs of their gifted children.

Here with all subjects too until year 11.  The argument is they have proved all kids do better in mixed classes.  I imperfectly happy to accept most kids do but I would question whether any of the classes they based the research had kids in the top of bottom half percent.  What it does do is widen the gap between the poor (who are mostly dependant on the school for resource s) and the rich who can buy other resources.  At year 11 here exams start and it is generally accepted that not all kids need the same level of maths or the same subjects for their future.  Some kids do hospitality while others do physics.  My son is currently in an extension programme for years 10 and 11 but it is the only time it is offered now.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...