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The biggest problem I see with this article is not the obvious intended political sizzle but an assumption early in the article along the lines of the only purp

by VLM 5y ago

The biggest problem I see with this article is not the obvious intended political sizzle but an assumption early in the article along the lines of the only purpose of public education is the eventual production of STEM college graduates and everyone else can and should go directly to hell and absolutely no resources or encouragement should be provided for any other educational outcome. It makes you wonder how the public school system is not in a continuous state of civil rights lawsuits over the equal protection clause. “every child must master algebra, preferably by eighth grade, for algebra is the gateway to the college-prep curriculum, which in turn is the path to higher education.” But that's not the life path for perhaps 90%+ of the population. I don't think we can justify burning tax dollars to exclusively and solely support a tiny minority of kids at the expense of nearly all the other kids. I would not be bothered by mindless STEM boosterism if it were not for pages like this: https://datausa.io/profile/cip/electrical-engineering#tmap_occ_num_emp_degree https://datausa.io/profile/cip/electrical-engineering#tmap_o... It offends me as a EE type person that the top job title for graduating engineers is software dev, where they'd have been better off with a CS degree, or no degree. Meanwhile I'm told by the other side that we have a terrifying massive shortage of engineering grads, despite that clearly not being the case and it being VERY difficult for new kids to get a job in the field. I'm led to believe by "shortage" they actually mean a "shortage of people willing to work 80 hrs/wk for minimum wage and no bennies" or "shortage of experts with decades years of masterful experience willing to accept apprentice level pay scales" We simply seem to have too many STEM grads for our economy to support. I don't see any realistic reason for future improvement in that situation. Meanwhile public education policy, meant to serve EVERYONE, is telling most of the kids to go to hell. And those are the kids running the rest of the economy and we're relying on them to grow the economy enough to support the 5% of STEM workers whom are the only important people to educate according to "public" education, which is now really only college prep STEM education and F every other kid. This path cannot possibly end well. The best way to handle algebra education as applied to the entire student body, is to acknowledge that for 95% of the population, learning how to change the oil in a car or how to identify when someone is using statistics as propaganda, would be a more valuable life skill. Yes I acknowledge STEM is and will remain important for a tiny subset of both kids and future jobs, but...

naasking 5y ago
> But that's not the life path for perhaps 90%+ of the population. I don't think we can justify burning tax dollars to exclusively and solely support a tiny minority of kids at the expense of nearly all the other kids. Sure, but that's not what they're objecting to. They're objecting specifically to cutting off avenues to those advanced paths, and in ways that harm underprivileged students more. Quote: > the bottom line is that rather than trying to elevate under-served students, such “reforms” reduce access and options for all students. In particular, the CMF encourages schools to stop offering Algebra I in middle school, while placing obstacles (such as doubling-up, compressed courses, or outside-of-school private courses) in the way of those who want to take advanced math in higher grades. When similar reforms were implemented in San Francisco, they resulted in an “inequitable patchwork scheme” of workarounds that affluent students could access but that their less privileged counterparts could not.
Jensson 5y ago
> We simply seem to have too many STEM grads for our economy to support. No, we don't. STEM grads makes way more money than most other grads, hence there is no glut of them if it were then STEM grads salaries would fall until they make the same as business grads or even literature grads or other fields where there is a glut of people to do the jobs. Engineers go to software since it pays more than their main field, but their main field still pays way more than a typical grad job.

by VLM 5y ago

naasking 5y ago

> But that's not the life path for perhaps 90%+ of the population. I don't think we can justify burning tax dollars to exclusively and solely support a tiny minority of kids at the expense of nearly all the other kids. Sure, but that's not what they're objecting to. They're objecting specifically to cutting off avenues to those advanced paths, and in ways that harm underprivileged students more. Quote: > the bottom line is that rather than trying to elevate under-served students, such “reforms” reduce access and options for all students. In particular, the CMF encourages schools to stop offering Algebra I in middle school, while placing obstacles (such as doubling-up, compressed courses, or outside-of-school private courses) in the way of those who want to take advanced math in higher grades. When similar reforms were implemented in San Francisco, they resulted in an “inequitable patchwork scheme” of workarounds that affluent students could access but that their less privileged counterparts could not.

Jensson 5y ago

> We simply seem to have too many STEM grads for our economy to support. No, we don't. STEM grads makes way more money than most other grads, hence there is no glut of them if it were then STEM grads salaries would fall until they make the same as business grads or even literature grads or other fields where there is a glut of people to do the jobs. Engineers go to software since it pays more than their main field, but their main field still pays way more than a typical grad job.