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Ah yes, the ol' "raising success by lowering expectations" trope. This is a great way for some politicians to get kudos for promoting "equity" while at the same

Ah yes, the ol' "raising success by lowering expectations" trope. This is a great way for some politicians to get kudos for promoting "equity" while at the same time shooting our economy in the foot. It's one thing to say we shouldn't be rushing kids through rote memorization in Algebra to get them to Calculus. That is true. But if that's the goal, the target should instead be to revamp the Algebra curriculum and throw in some basic set theory/CS. We desperately need young kids to be computer literate, and these subjects go naturally hand in hand. From personal experience, I finished my B.A. in physics without ever having taken a single programming class. When i taught myself Java/Python online in subsequent years, I realized what a disservice it was not to require some of that along the way. Going back to really learn quantum recently showed me how much more facile i was with math concepts from learning about functions and objects in a programming language. They're just too similar to ignore. Seriously, a common refrain you'd hear from students from India/Russia/China would be "Oh, you didnt learn Hamiltonians in high school?"

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> Ah yes, the ol' "raising success by lowering expectations" trope. This is a great way for some politicians to get kudos for promoting "equity" while at the same time shooting our economy in the foot. It's also a great way for people to graduate with decent grades and then wonder why they can't actually get a decent job. Jobs - at least jobs at companies that survive - are going to hire based on whether people can do the work. If that work needs certain skills, they're going to hire based on having those skills. They're going to learn fast that they can't hire based on a piece of paper that alleges that a person has those skills. The result of this will be testing for job qualification, kind of like the schools used to do. It's just going to move from the school to the employer. And those who couldn't pass if the schools did it won't pass if the employer does. But they're going to be worse off, rather than better, because they won't find out that they're missing something important until after they've missed the main opportunity to learn it...

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> Ah yes, the ol' "raising success by lowering expectations" trope. This is a great way for some politicians to get kudos for promoting "equity" while at the same time shooting our economy in the foot. It's also a great way for people to graduate with decent grades and then wonder why they can't actually get a decent job. Jobs - at least jobs at companies that survive - are going to hire based on whether people can do the work. If that work needs certain skills, they're going to hire based on having those skills. They're going to learn fast that they can't hire based on a piece of paper that alleges that a person has those skills. The result of this will be testing for job qualification, kind of like the schools used to do. It's just going to move from the school to the employer. And those who couldn't pass if the schools did it won't pass if the employer does. But they're going to be worse off, rather than better, because they won't find out that they're missing something important until after they've missed the main opportunity to learn it...