8 ms·

I teach math at a community college. It is all about removing complexity. The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal. Therefore the racia

by syki 5y ago

I teach math at a community college. It is all about removing complexity. The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal. Therefore the racial achievement gap in mathematics is due to racism. The solution is to change things. Too many POC students aren’t placing into college level math therefore get rid of placement test and get rid of remedial courses. Create new college algebra with just in time tutoring and voila, no more racial achievement gap. If you dumb things down enough everyone passes and we can pat ourselves on the back and claim to have solved the racial achievement gap. My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed. This has long term negative effects. My own anecdotal experience is that what used to be a C is now an A or a B in my classes and I’m passing people who don’t know anything. I’m judged by the passing rate so I’m maximizing that metric. These reforms are just doing what I’m doing but in a less forthright way.

skyde 5y ago
i’m 100% agree with what you said. When i was in university the math teacher gave us access to previous year exam so we can (study/practice) with them. I quickly found that we are now getting 40% on those math test which result in an (A+) because they grade in the curve but 20 years ago the real average for this teacher exams where around (75%) and those exam had question of similar difficulty. TLDR: an A+ today is not the same as an A+ 20 years ago
csee 5y ago
> My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed. The root cause is well outside of the scope of schools to address. Perhaps they can help to a small extent through things like lunchtime meals. But curriculum reform itself will never narrow the gap more than a tiny amount. Childhood nutrition, single parent households, health of mother during pregnancy, culture/respect towards education as a virtue in the community and household, education level of parents and the time they have to play and talk with their kids. All these things are going to impact the capabilities of young school children and feed into outcome gaps between various groups (Black vs White, poor vs rich). I believe most proponents of "math equity" actually know all this, and are just maliciously virtue signalling either because they're jealous that their own kids aren't doing well, or for social credit.
- darepublic 5y ago
  The valleys shall be brought high and the mountains down low
- golemiprague 5y ago
  Interesting that you don't include genetics in your list, maybe it is a waste of time to try changing all those other things and instead we should focus on directing kids to aspire for their natural talents rather than trying to push them into something that doesn't suit them. To do this we will need to change the economy in a way that the market compensate other talents, not only the ones decided by the US coastal elites. We can do it by blocking illegal immigration and banning imports from countries that don't play by the same rules as western countries. Bringing back the power to the working class.
- Delk 5y ago
  > Childhood nutrition, single parent households, health of mother during pregnancy, culture/respect towards education as a virtue in the community and household, education level of parents and the time they have to play and talk with their kids. I'm not American, and I don't claim to know the environment and the issues people face there, or their root causes. I may not be fully understanding the extent of nutritional differences or family dynamics. I am, however, absolutely certain that affluence feeds affluence and that misfortune feeds misfortune, on average. Even if you had all of the above equal except for the education levels and socio-economic status of the children's parents, you'd end up with statistically different outcomes. I live in a fairly egalitarian country, and if I remember correctly, there's an average income gap of ~30 percent or so between people whose parents were in the highest quartile in income and those who were in the lowest quartile. While ethnicity may play some role in the statistical gap nowadays, I don't think it explains the statistical difference; ethnic minorities are disadvantaged here but they make up a small enough minority that I expect the bulk of the difference to be simply due to socio-economic differences within the same ethnic group. Basically, if your parents and their social in-group got highly educated, I believe you perceive that as the norm. If they didn't, it's not as likely that you do. Add in some practical stuff such as whether your parents can afford to finance or support your education, and the gap's already there. The rest just amplifies it. Sure, physical health, nutrition etc. can have an effect, and they certainly do if the differences are great enough. I'm sure ethnicity or race has an effect, sometimes due to racism, and sometimes because people perceive their own opportunities or expectations differently depending on social roles, and for various other sociological dynamics. The latter is true even if you remove ethnicity or race from the equation. Racial stereotypes and images probably emphasize things but I don't think you can pin it all on that. Considering how much worse off African Americans are socio-economically, on average, than white Americans, it's a no-brainer that their kids end up worse off on average as well. I'm not saying you should just shrug and accept that, and I'm sure actual racism exists as well, but the point is that some of it would happen even without racism, either overt or covert, or any "structural racism" that could include a whole spectrum of things. That means any real solution is going to be hard and slow, unfortunately. Changing the subject matter in the name of equity really doesn't sound like one. > I believe most proponents of "math equity" actually know all this, and are just maliciously virtue signalling either because they're jealous that their own kids aren't doing well, or for social credit. It could also be that people take an easy non-solution in preference to working towards improvements and solutions that could take time, great patience, tolerance of morally and socially undesirable situations (one might have to accept that you can't achieve perfect equity, or at least not quickly, and be able to withstand social judgement for that), and are all around a lot harder to accomplish.
cm2187 5y ago
And the irony of course is that these anti-racism policies that are based on the assumption that minority students aren’t smart enough to pass the tests and therefore the tests need to dumbed down to achieve social justice, are fundamentally racist.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > minority students aren’t smart enough Well, that's not quite what they're saying - essentially what they're saying is that they're a different kind of smart. Not that I agree with the logic, but essentially what they're saying is that the tests - along with the whole curriculum - were designed and written by white people, so they're unintentionally biased in a way that non-white people (except, I guess, asians) can't understand them. The implication being, of course, that if black people had designed the entire curriculum and the tests, they would be similarly impenetrable to white people. Of course, I don't think that makes much sense either, but that is the essence of what they're trying to assert.
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    I'm still waiting for the silence during which the insanity of this ideology finally clicks for those going along. We don't have to politely pretend that it isn't insane. We should pose direct questions to the lumpen commmissars trying to drag everyone into hell along with them. What is a "white person"? A "black person"? Are these metaphysical categories? Biological categories? Cultural categories? Why would a person of one category be unable to understand curricula produced by people of another?
  - skyde 5y ago
    you are correct, this is what they are saying. But i have yet to see anyone trying to give evidence that the test or curriculum contain thing that are inherently harder for black student to understand
  - laichzeit0 5y ago
    Mathematics is arguably (besides perhaps logic) one of the most pure, unbiased sciences one could imagine. Unless perhaps you take issue with the fact that notation borrows a lot of Greek symbols. It’s a difficult subject that requires struggle. Hand holding and dumbing it down is literally the worst thing you could do to make people better at mathematics. You must struggle or you will fail. Don’t think so? Let’s talk again when you hit real analysis.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gorwell 5y ago
What do they say when confronted with the fact that Asians are the top performers in this system?
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  I’m curious for both an accurate and/or socially acceptable explanation too. Some have suggested racism is cause for inequality, yet Asians do well in America where they’re a small minority. Some have suggested culture: certain parents promote education more. Some have suggested examining IQ more closely (though thinking along these lines is a doubleplusungood thought crime)
  - popcube 5y ago
    if only talk about People lived in region controled by Qing Dynasty, education give you more power just theeir religion
  - viro 5y ago
    oh on avg. they completely dismiss it based on current immigration policy self selecting rich Asian families. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - akomtu 5y ago
    There's a trivial explanation. If you're Chinese, you gotta be really smart, the top 1% smart, to immigrate into the US. This is also why Nigerian immigrants do so well here. The original European immigrants passed a similar test, as it takes a lot of courage and ambition to move across the ocean in a big wooden boat. But as you know the history, on one occasion, the admission process was violated, and since then America has been paying the price. The price has to be paid in full, for every cause has to be compensated with a result. Call it nation-scale karma, if you want.
    - porknubbins 5y ago
      This argument that populations only send their best to the US may be true today now that immigration is limited and there are large populations of well educated foreigners but its not true for large parts of American history. Most immigration is from the poorest regions- ie Irish during the potato famine, Sicilian Italians, Cantonese from China, Germans in the 19th C, to some extent the Scotch-Irish (well educated but poor) etc.
bsanr 5y ago
>The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal. Therefore the racial achievement gap in mathematics is due to racism. The solution is to change things. If we're going to go there: I went from being a straight-A math student in Pre-Calculus to a C (verging on D) student in my AP Calculus course in high school. In college, I retook Calculus and aced it, receiving one of the highest final scores in the class. The first course was taught by a black woman. The second was taught by a white man. The last was taught by a black man. I am a black man. People in this conversation are frequently quick to dismiss the value of anti-racist (and, for that matter, anti-sexist) policy and execution in STEM pedagogy. They lean on and extrapolate erroneously from the notion of many great mathematical thinkers' probable hereditary advantages to a general, in-born hierarchy of fitness for STEM thinking. Coincidentally, this shields them from tough conversations regarding their own fitness to teach, and especially to teach children whose backgrounds they cannot or will not find sympathy and empathy for. I will admit that the solution is not so simple as my anecdote might suggest, but the implied path shares character with the correct one, in recognizing the farcical nature of assuming that the status quo - especially in this country - is a product of actual potential playing out as it must necessarily so, and not of history overshadowing even the best of intentions (though they are usually less than that).
- kaitai 5y ago
  And jumping past your comments about anti-racist and anti-sexist policy and execution in STEM pedagogy, your anecdotes point out an actually effective intervention -- supporting the development of a teaching workforce that reflects the communities of students in the classroom! There is a significant difference in approach when someone sees their students as "theirs", a resource to be developed and nurtured, instead of "someone else's", an unruly crowd to be disciplined, as you mention in a later comment. Is the teacher teaching, or babysitting/policing? Too much of US education is the second, for children of any color. Must you have the same skin color to teach rather than babysit/police? No. In the American context, though, it takes effort rather than inertia to accurately see and develop the potential of your black students -- because inertia gives white teachers in particular a relentlessly negative media stream about "thugs" instead of "future Nobel winner". Our segregated society gives white teachers an incorrect set of Bayesian priors on the meaning of acting out or difficulties in class. They don't have black friends whose kids are going through a rough patch but are still the same sweet kid they were at age six. I mean, I just talked with a high school teacher in a rural Midwestern district who said 'at least she didn't have to worry about kids doing cocaine in the closet at school like at an inner city school', and as a graduate of such an inner city school, my response was "honey we couldn't afford cocaine, that's a rich kid drug". This is a lovely lady, dedicated teacher, and that's her prior on "inner city kids" as of Dec 3, 2021.
jimbokun 5y ago
> I’m judged by the passing rate so I’m maximizing that metric. We really need to divorce the teaching and accreditation functions bundled in the modern university. There is a clear conflict of interest.
WindyLakeReturn 5y ago
>My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed. It becomes a question of how do we ensure every child has access to a dedicated adult willing to tutor them and push them in education matters. Once a child begins to fail in a class, unless someone is there who can help them back onto the route of succeeding, they risk developing learned helplessness around education. Maybe a single subject, maybe education in general. It takes a lot of time for someone to work with a kid, find out what the root cause of the problem is, help them overcome that, and then build up on the topics they have fallen behind on. It helps greatly when that person isn't just there for teaching/tutoring but also invested in the child in other ways so the child values their input. When parents either don't have time, ability, or desire to do this, there is rarely a backup. Teachers try to fill the gap but they are spread too thin over too many students and rarely are with a student long enough to make a significant impact. Some teachers may even avoid it because it can quickly become an issue of favoring certain students over others. As for parents, while some parents will be able to fix the problem by having more time available, some parents lack enough education to keep helping their child past a certain point. Both finding how to give parents more time and how to educate parents enough to help their children are hard problems. As for the parents who don't have a desire to help, there might not be any solution at all.
Spooky23 5y ago
The whole thing is a classic case of using averages to drive policy and action. Your C student with an A doesn’t need your math class, they need an A. The employer filters all non college graduates and then filters by GPA. With most employers, knowing what you are doing is not ranked 1st or 2nd. Price and qualification is up front.
- candiodari 5y ago
  Which will result in what you see in many European exams: very easy exam, but anything under 98% and you won’t get hired.
akomtu 5y ago
What's "equity", btw? I mean, how is it defined by the administration of colleges these days?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
spurgu 5y ago
This is a worrying trend across the board. Everything has to be equal and politically correct, because if not then it has to be racism or something else evil.

by syki 5y ago

skyde 5y ago

i’m 100% agree with what you said. When i was in university the math teacher gave us access to previous year exam so we can (study/practice) with them. I quickly found that we are now getting 40% on those math test which result in an (A+) because they grade in the curve but 20 years ago the real average for this teacher exams where around (75%) and those exam had question of similar difficulty. TLDR: an A+ today is not the same as an A+ 20 years ago

csee 5y ago

> My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed. The root cause is well outside of the scope of schools to address. Perhaps they can help to a small extent through things like lunchtime meals. But curriculum reform itself will never narrow the gap more than a tiny amount. Childhood nutrition, single parent households, health of mother during pregnancy, culture/respect towards education as a virtue in the community and household, education level of parents and the time they have to play and talk with their kids. All these things are going to impact the capabilities of young school children and feed into outcome gaps between various groups (Black vs White, poor vs rich). I believe most proponents of "math equity" actually know all this, and are just maliciously virtue signalling either because they're jealous that their own kids aren't doing well, or for social credit.

darepublic 5y ago
The valleys shall be brought high and the mountains down low
golemiprague 5y ago
Interesting that you don't include genetics in your list, maybe it is a waste of time to try changing all those other things and instead we should focus on directing kids to aspire for their natural talents rather than trying to push them into something that doesn't suit them. To do this we will need to change the economy in a way that the market compensate other talents, not only the ones decided by the US coastal elites. We can do it by blocking illegal immigration and banning imports from countries that don't play by the same rules as western countries. Bringing back the power to the working class.
Delk 5y ago
> Childhood nutrition, single parent households, health of mother during pregnancy, culture/respect towards education as a virtue in the community and household, education level of parents and the time they have to play and talk with their kids. I'm not American, and I don't claim to know the environment and the issues people face there, or their root causes. I may not be fully understanding the extent of nutritional differences or family dynamics. I am, however, absolutely certain that affluence feeds affluence and that misfortune feeds misfortune, on average. Even if you had all of the above equal except for the education levels and socio-economic status of the children's parents, you'd end up with statistically different outcomes. I live in a fairly egalitarian country, and if I remember correctly, there's an average income gap of ~30 percent or so between people whose parents were in the highest quartile in income and those who were in the lowest quartile. While ethnicity may play some role in the statistical gap nowadays, I don't think it explains the statistical difference; ethnic minorities are disadvantaged here but they make up a small enough minority that I expect the bulk of the difference to be simply due to socio-economic differences within the same ethnic group. Basically, if your parents and their social in-group got highly educated, I believe you perceive that as the norm. If they didn't, it's not as likely that you do. Add in some practical stuff such as whether your parents can afford to finance or support your education, and the gap's already there. The rest just amplifies it. Sure, physical health, nutrition etc. can have an effect, and they certainly do if the differences are great enough. I'm sure ethnicity or race has an effect, sometimes due to racism, and sometimes because people perceive their own opportunities or expectations differently depending on social roles, and for various other sociological dynamics. The latter is true even if you remove ethnicity or race from the equation. Racial stereotypes and images probably emphasize things but I don't think you can pin it all on that. Considering how much worse off African Americans are socio-economically, on average, than white Americans, it's a no-brainer that their kids end up worse off on average as well. I'm not saying you should just shrug and accept that, and I'm sure actual racism exists as well, but the point is that some of it would happen even without racism, either overt or covert, or any "structural racism" that could include a whole spectrum of things. That means any real solution is going to be hard and slow, unfortunately. Changing the subject matter in the name of equity really doesn't sound like one. > I believe most proponents of "math equity" actually know all this, and are just maliciously virtue signalling either because they're jealous that their own kids aren't doing well, or for social credit. It could also be that people take an easy non-solution in preference to working towards improvements and solutions that could take time, great patience, tolerance of morally and socially undesirable situations (one might have to accept that you can't achieve perfect equity, or at least not quickly, and be able to withstand social judgement for that), and are all around a lot harder to accomplish.

cm2187 5y ago

And the irony of course is that these anti-racism policies that are based on the assumption that minority students aren’t smart enough to pass the tests and therefore the tests need to dumbed down to achieve social justice, are fundamentally racist.

commandlinefan 5y ago
> minority students aren’t smart enough Well, that's not quite what they're saying - essentially what they're saying is that they're a different kind of smart. Not that I agree with the logic, but essentially what they're saying is that the tests - along with the whole curriculum - were designed and written by white people, so they're unintentionally biased in a way that non-white people (except, I guess, asians) can't understand them. The implication being, of course, that if black people had designed the entire curriculum and the tests, they would be similarly impenetrable to white people. Of course, I don't think that makes much sense either, but that is the essence of what they're trying to assert.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  I'm still waiting for the silence during which the insanity of this ideology finally clicks for those going along. We don't have to politely pretend that it isn't insane. We should pose direct questions to the lumpen commmissars trying to drag everyone into hell along with them. What is a "white person"? A "black person"? Are these metaphysical categories? Biological categories? Cultural categories? Why would a person of one category be unable to understand curricula produced by people of another?
- skyde 5y ago
  you are correct, this is what they are saying. But i have yet to see anyone trying to give evidence that the test or curriculum contain thing that are inherently harder for black student to understand
- laichzeit0 5y ago
  Mathematics is arguably (besides perhaps logic) one of the most pure, unbiased sciences one could imagine. Unless perhaps you take issue with the fact that notation borrows a lot of Greek symbols. It’s a difficult subject that requires struggle. Hand holding and dumbing it down is literally the worst thing you could do to make people better at mathematics. You must struggle or you will fail. Don’t think so? Let’s talk again when you hit real analysis.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gorwell 5y ago

What do they say when confronted with the fact that Asians are the top performers in this system?

logicalmonster 5y ago
I’m curious for both an accurate and/or socially acceptable explanation too. Some have suggested racism is cause for inequality, yet Asians do well in America where they’re a small minority. Some have suggested culture: certain parents promote education more. Some have suggested examining IQ more closely (though thinking along these lines is a doubleplusungood thought crime)
- popcube 5y ago
  if only talk about People lived in region controled by Qing Dynasty, education give you more power just theeir religion
- viro 5y ago
  oh on avg. they completely dismiss it based on current immigration policy self selecting rich Asian families. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- akomtu 5y ago
  There's a trivial explanation. If you're Chinese, you gotta be really smart, the top 1% smart, to immigrate into the US. This is also why Nigerian immigrants do so well here. The original European immigrants passed a similar test, as it takes a lot of courage and ambition to move across the ocean in a big wooden boat. But as you know the history, on one occasion, the admission process was violated, and since then America has been paying the price. The price has to be paid in full, for every cause has to be compensated with a result. Call it nation-scale karma, if you want.
  - porknubbins 5y ago
    This argument that populations only send their best to the US may be true today now that immigration is limited and there are large populations of well educated foreigners but its not true for large parts of American history. Most immigration is from the poorest regions- ie Irish during the potato famine, Sicilian Italians, Cantonese from China, Germans in the 19th C, to some extent the Scotch-Irish (well educated but poor) etc.

bsanr 5y ago

>The idea in education is that everyone is intellectually equal. Therefore the racial achievement gap in mathematics is due to racism. The solution is to change things. If we're going to go there: I went from being a straight-A math student in Pre-Calculus to a C (verging on D) student in my AP Calculus course in high school. In college, I retook Calculus and aced it, receiving one of the highest final scores in the class. The first course was taught by a black woman. The second was taught by a white man. The last was taught by a black man. I am a black man. People in this conversation are frequently quick to dismiss the value of anti-racist (and, for that matter, anti-sexist) policy and execution in STEM pedagogy. They lean on and extrapolate erroneously from the notion of many great mathematical thinkers' probable hereditary advantages to a general, in-born hierarchy of fitness for STEM thinking. Coincidentally, this shields them from tough conversations regarding their own fitness to teach, and especially to teach children whose backgrounds they cannot or will not find sympathy and empathy for. I will admit that the solution is not so simple as my anecdote might suggest, but the implied path shares character with the correct one, in recognizing the farcical nature of assuming that the status quo - especially in this country - is a product of actual potential playing out as it must necessarily so, and not of history overshadowing even the best of intentions (though they are usually less than that).

kaitai 5y ago
And jumping past your comments about anti-racist and anti-sexist policy and execution in STEM pedagogy, your anecdotes point out an actually effective intervention -- supporting the development of a teaching workforce that reflects the communities of students in the classroom! There is a significant difference in approach when someone sees their students as "theirs", a resource to be developed and nurtured, instead of "someone else's", an unruly crowd to be disciplined, as you mention in a later comment. Is the teacher teaching, or babysitting/policing? Too much of US education is the second, for children of any color. Must you have the same skin color to teach rather than babysit/police? No. In the American context, though, it takes effort rather than inertia to accurately see and develop the potential of your black students -- because inertia gives white teachers in particular a relentlessly negative media stream about "thugs" instead of "future Nobel winner". Our segregated society gives white teachers an incorrect set of Bayesian priors on the meaning of acting out or difficulties in class. They don't have black friends whose kids are going through a rough patch but are still the same sweet kid they were at age six. I mean, I just talked with a high school teacher in a rural Midwestern district who said 'at least she didn't have to worry about kids doing cocaine in the closet at school like at an inner city school', and as a graduate of such an inner city school, my response was "honey we couldn't afford cocaine, that's a rich kid drug". This is a lovely lady, dedicated teacher, and that's her prior on "inner city kids" as of Dec 3, 2021.

jimbokun 5y ago

> I’m judged by the passing rate so I’m maximizing that metric. We really need to divorce the teaching and accreditation functions bundled in the modern university. There is a clear conflict of interest.

WindyLakeReturn 5y ago

>My complaint about these reforms is that the root cause of the issue is not being addressed. It becomes a question of how do we ensure every child has access to a dedicated adult willing to tutor them and push them in education matters. Once a child begins to fail in a class, unless someone is there who can help them back onto the route of succeeding, they risk developing learned helplessness around education. Maybe a single subject, maybe education in general. It takes a lot of time for someone to work with a kid, find out what the root cause of the problem is, help them overcome that, and then build up on the topics they have fallen behind on. It helps greatly when that person isn't just there for teaching/tutoring but also invested in the child in other ways so the child values their input. When parents either don't have time, ability, or desire to do this, there is rarely a backup. Teachers try to fill the gap but they are spread too thin over too many students and rarely are with a student long enough to make a significant impact. Some teachers may even avoid it because it can quickly become an issue of favoring certain students over others. As for parents, while some parents will be able to fix the problem by having more time available, some parents lack enough education to keep helping their child past a certain point. Both finding how to give parents more time and how to educate parents enough to help their children are hard problems. As for the parents who don't have a desire to help, there might not be any solution at all.

Spooky23 5y ago

The whole thing is a classic case of using averages to drive policy and action. Your C student with an A doesn’t need your math class, they need an A. The employer filters all non college graduates and then filters by GPA. With most employers, knowing what you are doing is not ranked 1st or 2nd. Price and qualification is up front.

candiodari 5y ago
Which will result in what you see in many European exams: very easy exam, but anything under 98% and you won’t get hired.

akomtu 5y ago

What's "equity", btw? I mean, how is it defined by the administration of colleges these days?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

spurgu 5y ago

This is a worrying trend across the board. Everything has to be equal and politically correct, because if not then it has to be racism or something else evil.