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My school system in the late 60's / early 70's (rural regional school in a town of 750, so maybe not typical) did not offer algebra until grade 9, nor do I recall middle school algebra being a "thing" for my kids in the 90's. But I think teaching it in middle school makes sense today; higher math is increasingly important. For the first time in my career I find myself wishing I knew discrete math (I never went beyond algebra and geometry in HS and have never needed it until now, as I have built line-of-business apps all my life, which gets by just fine on HS algebra). But now calculus would be handy to master AI, and I would be at a disadvantage if I needed to build ML systems at a low level.
On the other hand I have a bespoke AI that helps me occasionally with coding so there's that. Although mostly it just amuses me with the way it's clearly guessing about 2/3 of the time. It just barely justifies the $100/yr subscription fee. I suppose it will get better at some point, but it certainly doesn't live up to the hype right now.
That was like mine. Algebra in 9th and no pre calc or calc offered. When I got to college, I was woefully behind the first semester because so many classmates had at least pre calc and many had calc. Jumping straight into college calc without any prep was a killer. Same with not having high school physics or decent chem class. I made it through, but my GPA took a huge hit that first year that I couldn't dig out of.
I “deserve” a lot of things, doesn’t mean I’m necessarily getting them, even if another person tells me I’m getting them while they give me everything but.
I “deserve” a lot of things, doesn’t mean I’m necessarily getting them, even if another person tells me I’m getting them while they give me everything but.
Don't read more into what was said than was there.
All it said was, "Every child deserves an appropriate and challenging education". It didn't say "the same" education. It didn't say "they will achieve at the same level".
I'll give you a very good example of what we are talking about. In my middle school we had 5 feeder elementary schools. We had 2 different gifted programs. One was called "gifted center", and who got into "gifted center" was based purely on the decisions of a central office; neither the elementary school principal or the middle school principal had any say in who was offered entrance into our gifted center program. Students who were offered entrance to the "gifted base" program were recommended by each of the elementary school principals, but the decision on who got in was made by the middle school principal. For 13 years I watched...and there was one thing I noticed...that one of the five feeder elementary schools had never recommended a single Black child for the gifted base program. But I was only the vice principal. The year I became the principal, when I met with that feeder elementary school principal, I noted that there was not a single Black student recommended. "Well, not this year". And I said, "No, not any year out of the last thirteen". "Oh, that's not true". So I pulled out a file folder and said, "Okay. Let's look". The look on that principal's face said it all. I didn't have to say anymore. She said, "Well, maybe I should take another look at our recommendations and we can meet again in a few days". "I think that would be a good idea. Particularly since our assistant superintendent who supervises our schools happens to be...Black". A week later the principal came back with a reasonable number of Black students among her recommendations. And guess what, during the next two school years, every one of those Black students got A's and B's in their gifted base classes.
I don’t see why they need to keep changing the way they teach math, especially with all this changing leading to the discovery of at least two methods that work well.
No, I do know, it’s actually because the guy’s brother is the head of a math education company, needs a lucrative contract hmmmm….
I live in California.
My kids go to public school.
They started pre-algebra concepts in 4th grade and are taught algebra I in 7th grade.
Well, normal students do.
Advanced students in the GATE programs are taught it earlier, and of course almost all the Asians teach their kids Algebra I at home or in cram school by no later than 5th grade.
I live in California.
My kids go to public school.
They started pre-algebra concepts in 4th grade and are taught algebra I in 7th grade.
Well, normal students do.
Advanced students in the GATE programs are taught it earlier, and of course almost all the Asians teach their kids Algebra I at home or in cram school by no later than 5th grade.
No, almost all the Asians do not teach their kids Algebra I at home. There's a lot of difference between students from various Asian nations (culturally) and school performance. That's way too big a generality.
Almost all the Asians of certain demographic segments in California claim to be teaching their elementary school kids Algebra I in order to save face and keep up with the Changs and the Patels. Many of these folks would claim their kids were learning Quantum Computing and Deep Neural Networks if their peer group said others were doing the same. Meanwhile many of these groups have learned from affluent whites to try to game the system, having noticeably older kids to "give them an advantage". I knew some people that had 4 year olds in kindergarten, but there were more 8 year olds, and plenty of 7 year olds. My then 10-year old Asian kid was tasked in 5th grade to help a 15-year old 5th grader get up to speed. There is no shortage of Indian parents who mysteriously take them kid out for a year in high school with "the kid is said to be away in India", but trying to study to get into a "better school", etc. As an "Asian American" I am still searching for even a minuscule fraction of these awesome Asians, ... and granted I did see a few in top 10 universities and programs, but they were dwarfed by folks that were largely similarly to most other humans.
Almost all the Asians of certain demographic segments in California claim to be teaching their elementary school kids Algebra I in order to save face and keep up with the Changs and the Patels. Many of these folks would claim their kids were learning Quantum Computing and Deep Neural Networks if their peer group said others were doing the same. Meanwhile many of these groups have learned from affluent whites to try to game the system, having noticeably older kids to "give them an advantage". I knew some people that had 4 year olds in kindergarten, but there were more 8 year olds, and plenty of 7 year olds. My then 10-year old Asian kid was tasked in 5th grade to help a 15-year old 5th grader get up to speed. There is no shortage of Indian parents who mysteriously take them kid out for a year in high school with "the kid is said to be away in India", but trying to study to get into a "better school", etc. As an "Asian American" I am still searching for even a minuscule fraction of these awesome Asians, ... and granted I did see a few in top 10 universities and programs, but they were dwarfed by folks that were largely similarly to most other humans.
You make an awfully lot of very broad generalities.
We had many in services 10 years ago based on Jo Boaler's Creative Mindset and the premise that all students were potential math scholars. Our curriculum was revamped to incorporate high-level mathematics for all students regardless of prerequisite skills, knowledge or motivation. Tracking was eliminated and all math classes were restructured as heterogenous mixes of abilities with strong math students in each to act as "teachers" for math ability and special education students (some higher ability math students resented having to constantly "help" other students understand skills and concepts they had little knowledge of or interest in learning). Many lower ability middle school students lacked understanding of the four basic operations, place value, or even the concept of odd and even numbers but they were in the same classes with students who had the readiness and capability to learn higher level mathematics. Not surprisingly, those who lacked the readiness for higher level mathematics got frustrated, disrupted the class, and got poor grades while those who were ready were bored and either sat quietly and disengaged, or joined others in disrupting the class. In the beginning, the pace was slowed to help build understanding (since some of these skills were only presented at a particular grade level) but the pace shifted in the latter years because too many classes were missing far too many parts of the curriculum that was never covered due to running out of time in the school year.
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