6 ms·

What's actually wrong with California's high school ethnic studies program? Asking as someone without access to the curriculum and thus no way to comment on it

by mkr-hn 5y ago

What's actually wrong with California's high school ethnic studies program? Asking as someone without access to the curriculum and thus no way to comment on it one way or the other. All I've heard is abstract culture war venting with no specifics.

imbnwa 5y ago
Curriculum specifics are being left to individual districts in order to account distinct demographic differences between them if I'm reading this right, there's a link to the state's "Model Curriculum"[0] in the article [0]https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp
R0b0t1 5y ago
It's my understanding they dropped a lot of gifted program material and are adding this. Not as the same step, but shows you their priorities. They need to be pushing things useful when working. For what it's worth a lot of curricula include a "world history" already, so I'm unsure what exactly they added.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  From my skim, this seems to be focused on the US, not the world, with special attention to learning about the many unique cultures a student will encounter growing up. I ended up atheist, but being exposed to all the world's religions--most with some presence even in rural Georgia--in an interactive way (temples, churches, etc) helped moderate my views. Exposure absent understanding breeds extremism.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  California is finalizing a proposal to remove math tracking, permitting Calculus to be taken only in the senior year, and de-prioritizing Algebra as a goal of middle school. It is doing so under the theory that the above promotes white nationalist ideology in math education.¹ [1]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... It is notable that in a long multi-part document concerning racial justice, there is exactly zero mention of "Asian" but bountiful discussion on white nationalist ideology in math.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    Did they make these changes to make room for this course? I know there's long been a movement to change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs.
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      > change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs. Would those be the needs of the Eloi? Math remains the underpinning of everything that enhances life in the modern world. Blissfully regarding it with disdain doesn't change that.
      - mkr-hn 5y ago
        Did you reply to the wrong post? My post doesn't regard math as a whole one way or the other, blissfully or otherwise. I have no idea what Eloi is.
        rvbissell 5y ago
        Eloi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Did they make these changes to make room for this course? I know there's long been a movement to change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs. Define "modern needs." My understanding is that American math education has long been affected by a tug-of-war between... 1) people (usually focused on K-12 education) who want to dumb it down to meet the needs of "modern day to day life" (e.g. algebra isn't important because common people don't use it every day), and... 2) people (usually focused on post K-12 activities at elite levels), who want to make it rigorous, because strong math skills are fundamental for high-level achievement in engineering and science. In America, #1 seems to be the dominant outlook unless there's some national competitive threat (e.g. the Soviets beating the US in the space race).
  - 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It's my understanding they dropped a lot of gifted program material and are adding this. This is false on many levels. Th concept of industrial-style tracked education is generally falling out of favor and being displaced by individualized curriculum adaptation with ad hoc, temporary, subject-specific shared learning groups of similar ability, and in math particularly there has been a recent and controversial change both implementing that change in methods and a change in focus for advanced learning toward deeper concept mastery rather than rushing through more concepts. Which certainly can be (and on HN has been, though people want to seem to rehash it in this thread with no new arguments) its own debate, but is not deleting material and then adding this.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    > Th concept of industrial-style tracked education is generally falling out of favor and being displaced by individualized curriculum adaptation with ad hoc, temporary, subject-specific shared learning groups of similar ability... The Equitable Math proposal is not this at all. All children are required to be on the same level.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The Equitable Math proposal is not this at all. It is exactly this minus ad hoc grouping, which is the least important and most subject-variable part. It explicitly and repeadtedly calls out the need for individualized opportunity, support, and expectations throughout, and explicitly cites as motivation concrete experience combining de-tracking with differentiated work and open-ended exploration improving performance outcomes for both more and less proficient students. I don't know if people criticizing it aren't reading it, or if the parts that depart from the industrial-style one-size-fits-all in predefined groups model are so foreign to some people that they are literally incapable of incorporating them into their mental model of the framework despite them being explicit in the text.
      - threatofrain 5y ago
        In classroom sizes of 30 to 40, which is typical of California, I don't know what kind of imagination you have for individualized learning, especially when all children must be in the same class without any opportunity for advancement, ever. And do you expect that a 9th grade teacher will have the range to teach Algebra 1/2, Trigonometry, Geometry, and Calculus? The ability to jump forward into Calculus is about an individual child's capability to do Calculus. The ability to jump forward in math is the opposite of one size fits all.

by mkr-hn 5y ago

imbnwa 5y ago

Curriculum specifics are being left to individual districts in order to account distinct demographic differences between them if I'm reading this right, there's a link to the state's "Model Curriculum"[0] in the article [0]https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp

R0b0t1 5y ago

It's my understanding they dropped a lot of gifted program material and are adding this. Not as the same step, but shows you their priorities. They need to be pushing things useful when working. For what it's worth a lot of curricula include a "world history" already, so I'm unsure what exactly they added.

mkr-hn 5y ago
From my skim, this seems to be focused on the US, not the world, with special attention to learning about the many unique cultures a student will encounter growing up. I ended up atheist, but being exposed to all the world's religions--most with some presence even in rural Georgia--in an interactive way (temples, churches, etc) helped moderate my views. Exposure absent understanding breeds extremism.
threatofrain 5y ago
California is finalizing a proposal to remove math tracking, permitting Calculus to be taken only in the senior year, and de-prioritizing Algebra as a goal of middle school. It is doing so under the theory that the above promotes white nationalist ideology in math education.¹ [1]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... It is notable that in a long multi-part document concerning racial justice, there is exactly zero mention of "Asian" but bountiful discussion on white nationalist ideology in math.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  Did they make these changes to make room for this course? I know there's long been a movement to change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    > change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs. Would those be the needs of the Eloi? Math remains the underpinning of everything that enhances life in the modern world. Blissfully regarding it with disdain doesn't change that.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      Did you reply to the wrong post? My post doesn't regard math as a whole one way or the other, blissfully or otherwise. I have no idea what Eloi is.
      - rvbissell 5y ago
        Eloi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Did they make these changes to make room for this course? I know there's long been a movement to change priorities in math education to better meet modern needs. Define "modern needs." My understanding is that American math education has long been affected by a tug-of-war between... 1) people (usually focused on K-12 education) who want to dumb it down to meet the needs of "modern day to day life" (e.g. algebra isn't important because common people don't use it every day), and... 2) people (usually focused on post K-12 activities at elite levels), who want to make it rigorous, because strong math skills are fundamental for high-level achievement in engineering and science. In America, #1 seems to be the dominant outlook unless there's some national competitive threat (e.g. the Soviets beating the US in the space race).
- 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
> It's my understanding they dropped a lot of gifted program material and are adding this. This is false on many levels. Th concept of industrial-style tracked education is generally falling out of favor and being displaced by individualized curriculum adaptation with ad hoc, temporary, subject-specific shared learning groups of similar ability, and in math particularly there has been a recent and controversial change both implementing that change in methods and a change in focus for advanced learning toward deeper concept mastery rather than rushing through more concepts. Which certainly can be (and on HN has been, though people want to seem to rehash it in this thread with no new arguments) its own debate, but is not deleting material and then adding this.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  > Th concept of industrial-style tracked education is generally falling out of favor and being displaced by individualized curriculum adaptation with ad hoc, temporary, subject-specific shared learning groups of similar ability... The Equitable Math proposal is not this at all. All children are required to be on the same level.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The Equitable Math proposal is not this at all. It is exactly this minus ad hoc grouping, which is the least important and most subject-variable part. It explicitly and repeadtedly calls out the need for individualized opportunity, support, and expectations throughout, and explicitly cites as motivation concrete experience combining de-tracking with differentiated work and open-ended exploration improving performance outcomes for both more and less proficient students. I don't know if people criticizing it aren't reading it, or if the parts that depart from the industrial-style one-size-fits-all in predefined groups model are so foreign to some people that they are literally incapable of incorporating them into their mental model of the framework despite them being explicit in the text.
    - threatofrain 5y ago
      In classroom sizes of 30 to 40, which is typical of California, I don't know what kind of imagination you have for individualized learning, especially when all children must be in the same class without any opportunity for advancement, ever. And do you expect that a 9th grade teacher will have the range to teach Algebra 1/2, Trigonometry, Geometry, and Calculus? The ability to jump forward into Calculus is about an individual child's capability to do Calculus. The ability to jump forward in math is the opposite of one size fits all.