9 ms·

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have b

In the US, the quality of your math education is determined by where you live on the community level, usually by property value. Within 10 miles, you can have both a school that performs on par with Sweden and another that performs on par with Turkey. What does this mean? Things are way worse for the poor here than this study even acknowledges. If you're poor in America, your best chance at a good education is by raffle.

aurelian 12y ago
Could this be explained in part by people who are good at math tending to make more money than people who are bad at math? http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/TotalGroup-2013.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2...
- mikegioia 12y ago
  It has nothing to do with that. Wealth in this country is in no way correlated to math ability.
  - nickff 12y ago
    Do you have any direct evidence of this? I ask because it is well known that math ability is correlated with educational achievement, and level of education is known to be correlated with income. Putting these two together, I would suppose that math ability is correlated with income.
    - mikegioia 12y ago
      I'm not saying that greater math ability doesn't correlate to greater wealth. That could very well be true (and it probably is). What I meant was that the public school system is funded by tax dollars. Wealthier neighborhoods contribute more tax money and have better public schools. I obviously don't have any direct evidence, but I would sat there's almost no correlation to wealthy neighborhoods and their residents being good at math. If you don't believe me, we could go knock on every door in my parents' neighborhood and ask them what they got on their SAT math section :P Joking aside, I'm basing that on the fact that not every high-paying job requires math skills, and not every rich person got rich because of math.
      - aurelian 12y ago
        Direct evidence against your belief: http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/TotalGroup-2013.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2...
        mikegioia 12y ago
        What an annoying response. You link me an 18 page PDF and call it direct evidence? Did you even read what I said? I'm not arguing that greater math ability doesn't correlate to greater wealth! This issue boils down to wealthier neighborhoods getting more money to invest in better math education for their students. That's it! Are you claiming that all rich people are good at math? Or that only people good at math are rich? In your world, can there exist a neighborhood of wealthy people who are not good at math? I have no clue and frankly I'm done explaining myself here.
        aurelian 12y ago
        Your belief is wrong. All research on the subject tells us that spending has at most a small impact on test scores. I'd link you to PDFs but I know how you feel about that.
        esbranson 12y ago
        I think you're wrong, and that spending does have a huge impact on test scores; the PDF you link even supports that higher family income correlates with higher test scores. My argument assumes that wealthier families spend more than less wealthier ones.
        aurelian 12y ago
        The evidence is not on your side. http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/04/07/study-no-link-between-school-spending-student-achievement/ http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/04/07/study-no-link-betw... You can downvote me but you still have no evidence for your beliefs.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- psychometry 12y ago
  If that's a component, it's a relatively insignificant one. Regression to the mean would likely take care of that advantage across generations.
at-fates-hands 12y ago
I totally agree and am depressed that places like inner cities have such a hard time getting more charter schools and competition that would give these kids and their families a shot at a decent education. Is it politics? Teachers unions? Getting good admin people? What's holding back these places from getting ahead? As a comparison, my sister lives on the outskirts of a large metro area and their school has been teaching STEM for almost 10 years now.
- mikegioia 12y ago
  Honestly, the problem is a collection of so many problems that it's very difficult to really even assess the situation properly. It could be the overemphasis on standardized testing. It could be the lack of support teachers get in inner cities and the fact that they have to babysit 50% of the time. It could be the public school system's unwillingness to adapt. It could be the unions fighting tooth and nail to prevent more charter schools from opening. It could even be the charter schools not actually working! Personally, I think the problem is that the public school system can't work well enough in poor areas. I think those children need a completely different education system to work for them (longer hours, after school programs, school uniforms!, etc).
- Jtsummers 12y ago
  I'm curious what you mean by "teaching STEM", do you mean a particular emphasis on STEM? Because most schools at least cover the science and math part, with varying degrees on the technology and engineering (often limited by teacher availability and financial resources). If they don't cover those things then they aren't really covering any state's high school curriculum.
  - at-fates-hands 12y ago
    Sorry, bad wording on my part. Yes, they have an emphasis on STEM. My niece is in 4th grade and they're already learning algebra, something I didn't start learning until 3-4 years later. They also are learning about programming and other really technical stuff I was surprised to hear about. The other thing which was nice to hear is how they foster kids to learn and enjoy math - something I missed out on until I was in college and had a professor who really gave me a sense of how wonderful mathematics can be, not just a means to an end.
noobermin 12y ago
I think the interesting thing was even middle class kids demonstrated poor performance too. The problem us spread wider across the distribution rather than abysmal performance by a minority such so that it pulled down the average (to me, that never really made sense in my intuition).
- josephschmoe 12y ago
  I definitely agree. There are some high-performing schools but they're a minority. There's also a minority of very, very low performing schools. What makes us unusual is how wide the spectrum is, even if the average is bad.
stillsut 12y ago
Having gone to school in MA, I know educational spending ($/student) here is inversely correlated with performance. But I'm not really worried about national average, state average, even school average: there just needs to be the opportunity to succeed for individual students, wherever they're located.
- noobermin 12y ago
  I think it is very much worth caring where the average is. This average person will grow up to become a voter and taxpayer and we need intelligent citizens to vote in competent representatives. Philosopher kings never happened, otherwise, just making sure the smartest get smarter would be okay; we have a democracy and the only way to make it work is to have informed citizens.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Arbitrary education standards and comparisons to other countries aren't going to change the way people think. (Implicit in the above is the opinion that for loads of national political issues, the biggest thing stopping "the masses" from being informed is that they simply don't care.)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
vraid 12y ago
Incidentally, both Sweden and Turkey are ranked below the US average. Swedish education is in a sorry state at the moment, dropping fast in the rankings and already well below the level of any other nordic country.

aurelian 12y ago

Could this be explained in part by people who are good at math tending to make more money than people who are bad at math? http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/TotalGroup-2013.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2...

mikegioia 12y ago
It has nothing to do with that. Wealth in this country is in no way correlated to math ability.
- nickff 12y ago
  Do you have any direct evidence of this? I ask because it is well known that math ability is correlated with educational achievement, and level of education is known to be correlated with income. Putting these two together, I would suppose that math ability is correlated with income.
  - mikegioia 12y ago
    I'm not saying that greater math ability doesn't correlate to greater wealth. That could very well be true (and it probably is). What I meant was that the public school system is funded by tax dollars. Wealthier neighborhoods contribute more tax money and have better public schools. I obviously don't have any direct evidence, but I would sat there's almost no correlation to wealthy neighborhoods and their residents being good at math. If you don't believe me, we could go knock on every door in my parents' neighborhood and ask them what they got on their SAT math section :P Joking aside, I'm basing that on the fact that not every high-paying job requires math skills, and not every rich person got rich because of math.
    - aurelian 12y ago
      Direct evidence against your belief: http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2013/TotalGroup-2013.pdf http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2...
      - mikegioia 12y ago
        What an annoying response. You link me an 18 page PDF and call it direct evidence? Did you even read what I said? I'm not arguing that greater math ability doesn't correlate to greater wealth! This issue boils down to wealthier neighborhoods getting more money to invest in better math education for their students. That's it! Are you claiming that all rich people are good at math? Or that only people good at math are rich? In your world, can there exist a neighborhood of wealthy people who are not good at math? I have no clue and frankly I'm done explaining myself here.
        aurelian 12y ago
        Your belief is wrong. All research on the subject tells us that spending has at most a small impact on test scores. I'd link you to PDFs but I know how you feel about that.
        esbranson 12y ago
        I think you're wrong, and that spending does have a huge impact on test scores; the PDF you link even supports that higher family income correlates with higher test scores. My argument assumes that wealthier families spend more than less wealthier ones.
        aurelian 12y ago
        The evidence is not on your side. http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/04/07/study-no-link-between-school-spending-student-achievement/ http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/04/07/study-no-link-betw... You can downvote me but you still have no evidence for your beliefs.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
psychometry 12y ago
If that's a component, it's a relatively insignificant one. Regression to the mean would likely take care of that advantage across generations.

at-fates-hands 12y ago

I totally agree and am depressed that places like inner cities have such a hard time getting more charter schools and competition that would give these kids and their families a shot at a decent education. Is it politics? Teachers unions? Getting good admin people? What's holding back these places from getting ahead? As a comparison, my sister lives on the outskirts of a large metro area and their school has been teaching STEM for almost 10 years now.

mikegioia 12y ago
Honestly, the problem is a collection of so many problems that it's very difficult to really even assess the situation properly. It could be the overemphasis on standardized testing. It could be the lack of support teachers get in inner cities and the fact that they have to babysit 50% of the time. It could be the public school system's unwillingness to adapt. It could be the unions fighting tooth and nail to prevent more charter schools from opening. It could even be the charter schools not actually working! Personally, I think the problem is that the public school system can't work well enough in poor areas. I think those children need a completely different education system to work for them (longer hours, after school programs, school uniforms!, etc).
Jtsummers 12y ago
I'm curious what you mean by "teaching STEM", do you mean a particular emphasis on STEM? Because most schools at least cover the science and math part, with varying degrees on the technology and engineering (often limited by teacher availability and financial resources). If they don't cover those things then they aren't really covering any state's high school curriculum.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  Sorry, bad wording on my part. Yes, they have an emphasis on STEM. My niece is in 4th grade and they're already learning algebra, something I didn't start learning until 3-4 years later. They also are learning about programming and other really technical stuff I was surprised to hear about. The other thing which was nice to hear is how they foster kids to learn and enjoy math - something I missed out on until I was in college and had a professor who really gave me a sense of how wonderful mathematics can be, not just a means to an end.

noobermin 12y ago

I think the interesting thing was even middle class kids demonstrated poor performance too. The problem us spread wider across the distribution rather than abysmal performance by a minority such so that it pulled down the average (to me, that never really made sense in my intuition).

josephschmoe 12y ago
I definitely agree. There are some high-performing schools but they're a minority. There's also a minority of very, very low performing schools. What makes us unusual is how wide the spectrum is, even if the average is bad.

stillsut 12y ago

Having gone to school in MA, I know educational spending ($/student) here is inversely correlated with performance. But I'm not really worried about national average, state average, even school average: there just needs to be the opportunity to succeed for individual students, wherever they're located.

noobermin 12y ago
I think it is very much worth caring where the average is. This average person will grow up to become a voter and taxpayer and we need intelligent citizens to vote in competent representatives. Philosopher kings never happened, otherwise, just making sure the smartest get smarter would be okay; we have a democracy and the only way to make it work is to have informed citizens.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Arbitrary education standards and comparisons to other countries aren't going to change the way people think. (Implicit in the above is the opinion that for loads of national political issues, the biggest thing stopping "the masses" from being informed is that they simply don't care.)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

vraid 12y ago

Incidentally, both Sweden and Turkey are ranked below the US average. Swedish education is in a sorry state at the moment, dropping fast in the rankings and already well below the level of any other nordic country.