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We do a great job with the extreme students. The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. It

We do a great job with the extreme students. The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. It's the rest of the country that struggles. There are a lot of reasons why the US does well in Universities and poorer up until then relative to the rest of the world: 1 - In much of the world, the school you get into matters more than what you did there. (The lowest University of Tokyo graduate is considered higher than the top grad of any other school - so getting in there is the hard part) 2 - In the US we invest more in higher ed than K-12 relative to the rest of the world on a per-pupil basis - especially at the top schools. (Look at the Harvard or Yale endowment on a per-student basis) 3 - In the US, college professors are at the top of their peer group academically. It's a mixed bad in K-12.

ScottBurson 10y ago
> It's a mixed bad in K-12 Your typo is very accurate :-) I would say that our problem in K-12 is a self-perpetuating one. The teachers were taught math badly and so never really learned it (and learned to hate it into the bargain). So then they teach it badly. I'm not sure there's any solution except for tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs.
- eatbitseveryday 10y ago
  > tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs I think parents have an enormous role to play in the effectiveness of K-12 education. If they are not very much involved (e.g., enforcing, participating, encouraging) then school isn't valued or prioritized, nor will the average student see how fun many subjects can be to learn (assuming the teacher may not be effective at this). > were taught math badly > teach it badly Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
  - mathattack 10y ago
    Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"? Blame the English teacher who thunk it badly. :-)
  - ScottBurson 10y ago
    But the parents also suffered through incompetent math instruction. Unless they are among the few who loved the subject anyway, they're not going to be able to help. > Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"? I don't think there's anything wrong with "badly" here, and at least one dictionary [0] seems to support me; see esp. sense 2. But "poorly" works just as well. [0] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/badly http://www.dictionary.com/browse/badly
    - eatbitseveryday 10y ago
      > But the parents also suffered through incompetent math instruction. Agreed, but that doesn't mean parents are not able to be encouraging. Their support, I believe, is more valuable than their level of absolute education on the common subjects.
  - lithos 10y ago
    The average parent would almost never have time to teach a subject they know, how would they find time to teach something they don't know.
    - jsymolon 10y ago
      Just showing interest and asking what the child is doing is often enough. If the parent can get the child to explain it, that also helps. AKA rubber duck debugging.
      - eatbitseveryday 10y ago
        > Just showing interest and asking what the child is doing is often enough. Yes, this is what I meant to convey.
- mathattack 10y ago
  I've seen K-5 teachers in Silicon Valley public schools who would struggle with square roots. How can they inspire an interest in math? Ultimately it's on the parents.
- impendia 10y ago
  >The teachers were taught math badly I'm a college math professor, and I've talked to people who've taught the required "math for elementary ed majors" class. From everything I've heard, it's bleakly depressing. The students (i.e., the future teachers) show little aptitude, curiosity, or work ethic. They just want to be shown algorithms that will always lead them to the correct answer. I haven't taught such a course myself. I hope what I've heard is exaggerated. Liking kids is well and good, but if you're going to be a teacher then you should also like learning. My own elementary school teachers did, and everyone deserves an education as good as the one I got.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    I went to a university that used to be a normal school. I am not sure the math ed. majors "showed little aptitude" ( they got better grades than I did ) nor curiosity, but they were quieter people.
    - impendia 10y ago
      I should clarify that these are the elementary ed students. I've personally taught students training to become high school math teachers, and they have been pretty good.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        Yessir - my bad.
  - germinalphrase 10y ago
    This is likely different state-to-state, but I am aware that in the upper midwest primary education degrees are cross-subject area in focus. Your elementary teacher may not be a math major because they are expected to teach all subjects. There is also probably some bias against deep content knowledge because "it's elementary school after all". Secondary Education degrees are subject specific, so secondary education math students would, in fact, be mathematics majors.
mrcactu5 10y ago
our best students to really well. our average students are doing poorly / lagging behind. the US also has an anti-intellectual bent to it. You can be smart, but you can't be too curious or question anything.
jonathanstrange 10y ago
Spot on. The US education system is fairly elitist. It supports the top 5% and neglects the lower scoring pupils. That way (and with imported brains), the US can maintain a high level at academia while at the same time affording a fairly bad average education level of the total population in comparison to some other industrialized countries. The university system is also very elitist through student fees, Ivy League schools, academic societies, etc. That's why it's such a weird contrast for us egalitarian European schmucks when we get to know US colleagues in academia, who are extremely professional and well educated, while watching the daily news makes us think that the majority of US citizens must be mentally retarded and suffers from chronic lead poisoning.
- varjag 10y ago
  I'm not sure how daily news relate to that. The amount of bigotry in a given country seems orthogonal to quality of math education.
- minikites 10y ago
  >the majority of US citizens must be mentally retarded and suffers from chronic lead poisoning. You probably think we only pay attention to news from the US but the Brexit vote is merely the most recent example to show that Europeans can be just as manipulable and unintelligent as Americans.
  - sremani 10y ago
    Brexit Vote is an indication people are not drinking neo-liberal kool-aid. You and I might have benefited from Internationalism, but not every one and they are making their voices heard. They may not be as sophisticated as you, but their concerns are from economic insecurity, either solve or at least empathize rather than reach out to some stupid propaganda play-book and stamp them "bigots".
pessimizer 10y ago
> The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. That's because it's a very easy job. Once you've filtered out 95% of students, the rest would thrive if you threw them in a closet with a book and a flashlight.
- mathattack 10y ago
  the rest would thrive if you threw them in a closet with a book and a flashlight. I think you just described my kid, who would be happiest if we did that with him.

ScottBurson 10y ago

> It's a mixed bad in K-12 Your typo is very accurate :-) I would say that our problem in K-12 is a self-perpetuating one. The teachers were taught math badly and so never really learned it (and learned to hate it into the bargain). So then they teach it badly. I'm not sure there's any solution except for tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs.

eatbitseveryday 10y ago
> tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs I think parents have an enormous role to play in the effectiveness of K-12 education. If they are not very much involved (e.g., enforcing, participating, encouraging) then school isn't valued or prioritized, nor will the average student see how fun many subjects can be to learn (assuming the teacher may not be effective at this). > were taught math badly > teach it badly Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
- mathattack 10y ago
  Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"? Blame the English teacher who thunk it badly. :-)
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  But the parents also suffered through incompetent math instruction. Unless they are among the few who loved the subject anyway, they're not going to be able to help. > Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"? I don't think there's anything wrong with "badly" here, and at least one dictionary [0] seems to support me; see esp. sense 2. But "poorly" works just as well. [0] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/badly http://www.dictionary.com/browse/badly
  - eatbitseveryday 10y ago
    > But the parents also suffered through incompetent math instruction. Agreed, but that doesn't mean parents are not able to be encouraging. Their support, I believe, is more valuable than their level of absolute education on the common subjects.
- lithos 10y ago
  The average parent would almost never have time to teach a subject they know, how would they find time to teach something they don't know.
  - jsymolon 10y ago
    Just showing interest and asking what the child is doing is often enough. If the parent can get the child to explain it, that also helps. AKA rubber duck debugging.
    - eatbitseveryday 10y ago
      > Just showing interest and asking what the child is doing is often enough. Yes, this is what I meant to convey.
mathattack 10y ago
I've seen K-5 teachers in Silicon Valley public schools who would struggle with square roots. How can they inspire an interest in math? Ultimately it's on the parents.
impendia 10y ago
>The teachers were taught math badly I'm a college math professor, and I've talked to people who've taught the required "math for elementary ed majors" class. From everything I've heard, it's bleakly depressing. The students (i.e., the future teachers) show little aptitude, curiosity, or work ethic. They just want to be shown algorithms that will always lead them to the correct answer. I haven't taught such a course myself. I hope what I've heard is exaggerated. Liking kids is well and good, but if you're going to be a teacher then you should also like learning. My own elementary school teachers did, and everyone deserves an education as good as the one I got.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  I went to a university that used to be a normal school. I am not sure the math ed. majors "showed little aptitude" ( they got better grades than I did ) nor curiosity, but they were quieter people.
  - impendia 10y ago
    I should clarify that these are the elementary ed students. I've personally taught students training to become high school math teachers, and they have been pretty good.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      Yessir - my bad.
- germinalphrase 10y ago
  This is likely different state-to-state, but I am aware that in the upper midwest primary education degrees are cross-subject area in focus. Your elementary teacher may not be a math major because they are expected to teach all subjects. There is also probably some bias against deep content knowledge because "it's elementary school after all". Secondary Education degrees are subject specific, so secondary education math students would, in fact, be mathematics majors.

mrcactu5 10y ago

our best students to really well. our average students are doing poorly / lagging behind. the US also has an anti-intellectual bent to it. You can be smart, but you can't be too curious or question anything.

jonathanstrange 10y ago

Spot on. The US education system is fairly elitist. It supports the top 5% and neglects the lower scoring pupils. That way (and with imported brains), the US can maintain a high level at academia while at the same time affording a fairly bad average education level of the total population in comparison to some other industrialized countries. The university system is also very elitist through student fees, Ivy League schools, academic societies, etc. That's why it's such a weird contrast for us egalitarian European schmucks when we get to know US colleagues in academia, who are extremely professional and well educated, while watching the daily news makes us think that the majority of US citizens must be mentally retarded and suffers from chronic lead poisoning.

varjag 10y ago
I'm not sure how daily news relate to that. The amount of bigotry in a given country seems orthogonal to quality of math education.
minikites 10y ago
>the majority of US citizens must be mentally retarded and suffers from chronic lead poisoning. You probably think we only pay attention to news from the US but the Brexit vote is merely the most recent example to show that Europeans can be just as manipulable and unintelligent as Americans.
- sremani 10y ago
  Brexit Vote is an indication people are not drinking neo-liberal kool-aid. You and I might have benefited from Internationalism, but not every one and they are making their voices heard. They may not be as sophisticated as you, but their concerns are from economic insecurity, either solve or at least empathize rather than reach out to some stupid propaganda play-book and stamp them "bigots".

pessimizer 10y ago

> The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. That's because it's a very easy job. Once you've filtered out 95% of students, the rest would thrive if you threw them in a closet with a book and a flashlight.

mathattack 10y ago
the rest would thrive if you threw them in a closet with a book and a flashlight. I think you just described my kid, who would be happiest if we did that with him.