
Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? (2016) - jelliclesfarm
https://priceonomics.com/why-did-san-francisco-schools-stop-teaching/
======
rdtsc
This seems so strange to me, this sharp distinction between algebra and non-
algebra. I might have gone to school in the Soviet system so everything was
backwards and such but we were introduced to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_algebra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_algebra)
very early and just did simple expression transformations, variable
substitutions. That was a lot early than 8th grade. I even taught my 2nd
grader a few of those.

I have observed the curriculum so far in US, at least up until the 2nd grade
and it's a hot mess. Even for double digit addition problems they jump right
into "cool tricks" and "mathematical thinking" while there are just really a
few steps to memorize and, guess what, kids are great at memorizing stuff.
Later on it's time to show a few short-cuts and kids even discover those
themselves.

Now going back to algebra, I am firm believer that a simplified version of
this has to be introduced much earlier. It's a bit like a spiral, do basic
arithmetic, geometry, number line manipulation, simple word problems, next
year do the same but more complicated, add some algebra in there and so on.

But I guess that's just too boring and teachers, and probably higher level
authorities, decide that they need to do "something" so they start making
changes just to they can slap something on their resume. Developers do that
too some extent, "here let me rewrite all this..." we can certainly understand
that, but doesn't mean it's a good thing.

~~~
jey
Why are you advocating memorization? That just gets people to treat
mathematics as a set of magical spells you have to receive from the holy
scriptures and priests, and that problems just can't be solved without having
received the appropriate spell from the masters. (It also encourages strange
beliefs like that mathematics is a subjective human construction, like art and
music.)

Conveying that there's a deeper conceptual "mathematical thinking" seems much
more important than memorizing the algorithm for "completing the square" or
whatever.

~~~
rdtsc
> Why are you advocating memorization?

Because it's something kids do really well and it's something to take
advantage of when learning at that age. In other words, it's better to
memorize the multiplication table then find insights into how it work later,
and do proofs and make connections with calculating an area of a rectangle
etc. A lot of the tricks and insights don't mean anything to the children if
they didn't already do many examples the rote, repetitive way and in a lot of
cases the "insights" are often a distraction as well. Those should come later.
Even more interesting is when children see or discover these tricks or rules
on their own, then they become really memorable to them.

I don't have many samples work with, but I have observed this over the years
based on my own experience, my kids and my extended family members and I have
noticed the same patterns.

~~~
jimmaswell
Memorizing the multiplication table is a useless waste of time and I
recognized as much when they tried to make me do it and I refused. Nobody
needs to know 8x7 off the top of their head. What's really important is
estimation techniques to tell if something passes a sanity check, like
reducing things to powers of 10/etc and seeing if they're close to the result
you got on a calculator, like how 123x456 should be close to 50000 (100x500)

~~~
CharlesColeman
> Memorizing the multiplication table is a useless waste of time and I
> recognized as much when they tried to make me do it and I refused. Nobody
> needs to know 8x7 off the top of their head. )

Me too! I thought I was so smart as a kid, realizing that stuff I didn't want
to do was useless.

However, _I was wrong_. An over-dependence on calculators due to a lack of
arithmetic fluency has sabotaged all my encounters with mathematics ever
since. I had a hard time understanding and developing any kind of fluency
because I was forced to push everything through a black box that also
distracted me.

I now realize that memorized facts are the foundation for knowledge and
advanced thinking. Dismissing memorization, especially of fundamental facts,
is like choosing not to use RAM because you can always swap to disk.

~~~
jimmaswell
Except memorizing multiplied numbers is not foundational knowledge for any
higher math, knowing what the concept means is. Learning this involves working
through some examples but it doesn't mean you need to know an entire table.
Not knowing 7x8 never held me back in higher math/math-relevant classes like
Calculus I-III, Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Physics I-II, Chemistry,
Macroeconomics, Computer Science (anything from basic programming to language
processing or algorithm proof), Music Theory. Had a fun and mostly easy time
in all those. Once in a blue moon on a test I'd have to do a multiplication
and count it out (8x5, add 5 8 times) because it was a product in a derivative
or something and that class had an (unrealistic for the real world) no-
calculator policy. In fact I'm pretty sure mathematicians are notorious for
poor arithmetic.

Additionally to your point, I think forcing arithmetic memorization on
students is harmful because it makes math seem boring and hard.

~~~
rdtsc
> Except memorizing multiplied numbers is not foundational knowledge for any
> higher math

But my point wasn't that it's foundation in general, category theory, set
theory, etc are foundational, but that it's important to start from it. Just
because something is foundational doesn't mean it's a good starting point.

> it doesn't mean you need to know an entire table.

Kids at an young age are usually very good at memorizing things and once they
have memorized then they can build on that and learn new tricks,
relationships, abstract and foundational principles.

> Not knowing 7x8 never held me back in higher math/math-relevant classes like
> Calculus I-III,

Neither did me either. Embarrassed to say, I had forgotten a lot of it. But I
would have been struggling early on in the 4-9th grades if I didn't know how
to add or multiply numbers then. I would have been wasting time on tests doing
it the slow way, instead of thinking of more interesting problems.

So to summarized, yes, it is not foundational but it all depends on age, it's
better to take advantage of what the brain already knows how to do well at
that particular state in time.

> In fact I'm pretty sure mathematicians are notorious for poor arithmetic.

Could be but if they are poor they would be left behind in early grades and
might never becomes the mathematicians they are. There is also a bit
survivorship bias in the sense that if there mathematicians who are poor ar
arithmetic, they'd stand out and become memorable, but those that are good are
not noticeable because they are expected to be good with numbers.

------
if_by_whisky
Something feels off about this whole debate. I took algebra in 7th grade, so I
naturally lean towards the "push it earlier, not later" camp. But the more I
think about it, the more I'm convinced that the way we group mathematical
concepts together in grade school is fundamentally boring for students. It
seems like nit-picking to fall hard on one side of this "8th vs 9th" dichotomy
when I actually suspect the whole math cirriculum could use a revamp from the
ground up. Maybe we should consider basic discrete math in elementary school.
Maybe basic calc in 6th grade. How can we get substantive, critical thinking
skills earlier into the curriculum so we don't have to just assure students:
"trust us, math will get interesting if you can just stick with it through
calculus and linear algebra".

~~~
FakeComments
When you try to understand math education, remember that it’s basically what
would happen if foreign language classes were designed and taught by people
who only spoke English and had no training in formal language theory.

Of course it’s largely a disaster: it’s taught by people who brag about hating
the subject!

Algebra education can (and does) safely begin in first grade, with the
introduction of workbooks: “4 + [ ] = 7” is a common exercise, and involves
the implicit solving of a basic linear equation, where you solve for the value
which goes in the box.

That you can teach algebra to first graders, but math education is so abysmal,
only speaks to the complete disregard mathematics is given in education.

But what else would you expect when you leave it up to people who hate math?

~~~
ams6110
I remember that, and hated it. Why? Because I had real trouble memorizing sums
and products. I still have to stop and think to do simple sums in my head. I
sometimes still count on my fingers when I add two numbers. And these types of
problems were taught as memorization. Four plus _what_ equals seven? You
either knew it or you didn't.

If they had taught us how to _solve_ these problems, I think I would have
enjoyed it more. "You can take away the four from both sides, and there's the
answer" somehow that would have been easier for me to work with.

~~~
mntmoss
I was frustrated in this way during my math education, but lately my opinion
about memorization has softened a bit.

The trick is that it has to be approached in the same way as in sports:
Demonstrate a technique, explain the principles, attempt in live play, then
return to drill muscle memory(now that the student has discovered how bad they
are at it). Music is very similar - you can play a song badly, then drill
scales and arpeggios a while, come back and suddenly you play the song better.

The point of memorizing is, in the end, to make the knowledge closer and more
available to you. But there are several ways in which this cycle drops the
ball during education and succumbs to rote learning as the sole factor:

* The teacher themselves doesn't understand the principle, and thus is poor both at explaining concepts and grading results. "You get a zero," they will shrug, when the student has misunderstood something and turns in a problem set with wrong answers.

* The principle isn't connected to "live play", making the technique unrelated to existing knowledge. It's the way in which education systemically fails most frequently, and it starts with having classes specialized per subject and limiting the crossover between them. All too often, all that happens is that you do some problem sets, get tested a little later, and that's it - and so all your focus as a student is on passing, not on learning.

* The drill focuses overly much on tricks and "gotchas" and not on developing confidence and long-term retention, making the student uncertain about how to generalize the technique to the tricks. In comparison, when I took judo, we drilled all techniques on one side only, for the entire semester. Is it useful to be able to mirror the techniques? Yes, but that doesn't mean that any study time needs to be allocated to it.

------
foota
As someone who graduated a couple years ago this policy change feels
ridiculous to me. The difference between someone entering college with either
one or two years of calculus and someone entering with precalc completed is
huge, and any policy that moves away from that is a bad idea.

The benefits imo are mostly around allowing more flexibility in scheduling for
taking classes that require prereqs of calculus, which you're blocked from the
first year otherwise. This can be compounded if you come in with many of your
school's general requirements met, as this can make it hard to find classes to
take that will be helpful towards your desired major. Additionally, some
programs have (poorly designed) hard pipeline dependencies that mean you're
set back from a couple quarters to a year if you enter without calculus
completed.

~~~
Consultant32452
This is just another nail in the coffin of public schooling. We've watered
down the high school diploma so much that 20% of high school graduates are
functionally illiterate. Based on the increasing requirements for bachelor's
degrees where it doesn't seem to make sense on the surface, it seems employers
have caught on to how meaningless it is.

~~~
duado
Who is “we”? Public schools at the local level in the US are very diverse. If
you have the money you can find public school systems as good as Ivy League
colleges, with a self-selected peer population of students with highly engaged
parents.

------
lordnacho
The only sensible reason to not teach algebra in middle school is because
you've taught it in primary school.

Moving it to high school sounds crazy to me. What do you do between doing your
times tables and fractions in maybe 3rd or 4th grade and 9th grade? Geometry?

I'm any case it's quite fortunate there's online resources like Khan Academy
where kids can learn on their own.

~~~
0815test
> What do you do between doing your times tables and fractions in maybe 3rd or
> 4th grade and 9th grade? Geometry?

Other countries do a sort of "pre-algebra", mostly focusing on non-trivial
word problems which are then solved by setting up the equivalent to an
algebraic equation, but in natural language arguments as opposed to symbols.
AIUI, this sort of onboarding towards algebra is lacking in the U.S. system,
and much of the difficulty that folks seem to experience w/ algebra and
higher-level math might have something to do with that. (Of course, Geometry
could also play a role in filling that gap. Euclidean geometry has
traditionally been studied quite early, as a general introduction to
mathematical rigor.)

Edit: Discussed in Andrei Toom, _Word Problems in Russia and America_ [pdf]
[http://www.de.ufpe.br/~toom/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-
NEW.pd...](http://www.de.ufpe.br/~toom/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-NEW.pdf) The
reference to Russia is a bit misleading - of course Russian math education is
traditionally among the strongest and most effective, but the same approach to
using word problems as an introduction to algebra is found in plenty of other
places.

~~~
Mirioron
In Estonia basic algebraic equations are part of the mandatory mathematics
course at age 12-13 (grade 6 here).

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Isn’t 12-13 grade 7 if schooling begins at 5?

~~~
Mirioron
Schooling begins at age 7 here.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
What you meant by here was ambiguous to me before, but now I understand.

------
danbard
It seems that an excellent predictor of policy in SF is: will it increase
inequality and the advantage of the very rich while being presented with
liberal rhetoric? Then do it. This is a great way to keep smart but poor kids
from competing with private school kids.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
This is also across the board in most California districts. Not just SF. (This
article is dated 2016)

I posted this because in our Bay Area school district, algebra and geometry
was an accelerated course with just 35 students. (In just one school of the
district) Selected by lottery.

It costs 7500/year but they want to get rid of it. Teachers are also planning
to strike. To me, it looks like funding in CA public schools is no longer
about education but about the care and feeding of public sector unionized
employees.

Parents are horrified but in the same neighborhood thread, teachers are using
it to ask the parents to support them. Students are given extra credit if they
show their support for work the rule(only school work hours and no more clubs
and extra classes like this) and strikes and walk outs.

It’s all mind blowing to me(I don’t have kids in the public school system) and
I can’t wrap my mind around this. I have been approached by friends who are
parents and don’t want to be vocal about their kids children in the community
forums as I don’t have the vulnerabilities of parents whose kids are already
in the system.

Certain Asian/Indian parents send their kids to tutoring classes which is seen
as elitist and reactions have been borderline racist.

I just tell my friends to pull their kids from public school if they can
afford it or homeschool them. I am very impressed with khan academy. I looked
into it and I find myself learning from their classes.

I have to ask ...what is the point of public education in CA anymore? Should
educational methods change and the way we teach subjects change? Conformity is
tyranny at this point.

Teachers overload kids with useless assignments and the real learning happens
after school in tutoring centers. And then the kids have to learn extra
curricular subjects especially as they get closer to applying for
universities. This is supposed to make them ‘well rounded’ but it only makes
them depressed, stressed and uninterested in education. They become cynical
and jaded and entirely unprepared when they go to college. It’s worse for the
smart kids as they are bored but still have to go through the motions.

Maybe it’s time to revamp public education.

~~~
coredog64
California has made home schooling more difficult than most states. The cynic
in me says that it’s done that way on purpose to protect the position of the
public school employees.

------
shawndrost
(I sit on an SFUSD community board.)

There are many strong opinions (ITT and elsewhere) about how algebra should
obviously be taught in middle school.

The data I've seen does not support those conclusions. Eg [1][2].

This is kind of an interesting article, but it really does not convey the
essential facts at hand. Middle school alg harms student achievement.
Many/most students end up retaking it anyway (!!!) and there is a simple and
effective fix. SFUSD should be lauded for braving the political heat.

Maybe there is a kind of educational system where middle school alg is a good
idea. But our system is not that kind of system. If you live/vote in SF please
support evidence-based practices and common sense. <3

[1] [https://www.edweek.org/media/2018/06/11/v37-35-algebra-
chart...](https://www.edweek.org/media/2018/06/11/v37-35-algebra-chart600.jpg)
[2] "But in a 2015 study, the University of North Carolina's Thurston Domina
and colleagues tracked how California's uneven 8th grade algebra-for-all
rollout played out across districts. In a surprise finding, they discovered
that higher enrollments in early algebra were linked to a decline in students'
scores on a state math test."

[https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/13/a-bold-
effort-...](https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/13/a-bold-effort-to-de-
track-algebra-shows.html)

~~~
SiVal
_Maybe there is a kind of educational system where middle school alg is a good
idea. But our system is not that kind of system. If you live /vote in SF
please support evidence-based practices and common sense. <3_

Indeed, your system is not that kind of system. On the other side of the
Pacific, Asian kids are routinely prepared for algebra by 7th grade, and their
scores on international math tests in later years lead the world. That's Asian
"common sense".

One can't help wondering why it is that their cousins, the Asian kids in the
SFUSD, are so poorly prepared for algebra even by the 8th grade. The fact that
San Francisco-style "common sense" decides that the solution is to declare
that even those who _are_ prepared will no longer be allowed to take algebra
until high school says a lot about the fraught relationship between San
Francisco and common sense.

Non-SF common sense might conclude instead that the fix should involve making
elementary school better rather than making middle school slow down to match
the failing elementary schools. Maybe expand your "evidence-based" thinking
beyond your own failing districts and look at statistics and practices from
the rest of the world. What is it that Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, ML China,
Korea, and Japan do with primary-age Asian kids that your SFUSD doesn't do
with its Asian kids? Why not start with that?

~~~
kaitai
"What is it that ... do with primary-age Asian kids that your SFUSD doesn't do
with its Asian kids? Why not start with that?"

Because that's culture. That's respect and reverence for education and
teachers. And then there's the after-school and weekend tutoring.

There's always this discussion in comparison with Finland, as well, which
takes a very different approach to education than China. Yep, again culture. A
commitment to children. In Finland, a commitment to funding schools and social
services as a society.

It's way easier to mandate a change in the curriculum. As a mathematics
educator in the US, I'll make this claim: the curriculum is almost irrelevant.
It's the teachers and the attitude of society toward education that matters
the most. If teachers are good & have the freedom and training to teach,
they'll adjust the curriculum, whatever it may be.

~~~
droithomme
The average salary for primary education teachers with 15 years experience in
Finland is about $37,500, compared to $45,225 in the United States.

SFUSD starting salary for a teacher with no experience is $52,657, average
salary is $69,572, $90,000+ compensation is not uncommon. That salary does not
exist for teachers in Finland.

Finland does require all teachers to have Masters degrees though. Teachers are
also allowed a great deal of autonomy and trust in designing their curriculum
and teaching approaches.

------
nickysielicki
I went to a parochial grade school and _hated_ it. I begged my parents to take
me out, and by the time 7th grade came around, they gave in. Unlike my
siblings, I went to public school for 7th and 8th grade. In retrospect, if I
ever have children, I would make every sacrifice imaginable to ensure they go
to private schools. No amount of complaining from them would ever make me
reconsider.

I believe that actively working to prevent top students from making too much
progress over the median student is the norm in all public schools.

It is wrong that we primarily divide the thousands of students in a given
school district by the year they were born.

~~~
snarf21
I agree with your last point whole-heartedly. We need to start adjusting for
ability and proficiency as early as 2nd grade.

The big challenge with all teaching is that you must teach to the "middle"
ability child. Instead of splitting by age we should be splitting into groups
like the top 45% in one class, the next 35% in the next and the bottom 20% in
the last. This lets each child have more or less time based on the aptitude
and creates smaller deviance between the "middle" and top/bottom of each
group.

~~~
soVeryTired
The stigma of being in the bottom 20% is hard to get rid of, though.

~~~
snarf21
Absolutely true. However, _everyone_ knows who the kids are that got an F on
the test anyway. In this structure, they get more help and may be more able to
get a C- instead. It is even more so with math since everything builds on
previous knowledge unlike something like history.

------
geebee
I read this article with a lot of interest a while ago, since I have a kid in
middle school in SFUSD.

Having been through the system, I think the whole thing is pretty stupid.
People, seriously, the problem with math achievement in SFUSD is _not_ a
function of whether we favor concept development or technical approaches. The
problems are far deeper. We can only dream of being at the the point where
this sort of debate is actually what matters.

I think what happened is that US educators looked at Finland (among other
places that have high math scores) and saw that there is more development of
concept and less emphasis on technical drill. So they went back and made a
curriculum that does, like, the _concept_ thing.

Interestingly, they just don't seem to want to copy that part where math
teachers (well, all teachers) are a highly talented and respected group of
professionals, drawn from the upper tier of graduates.

I think that the US failed to understand that Finland does things this way
because it's how talented teachers who are good at math teach math. You can't
put this in a curriculum, hand it off, and get the same results without that
talent base. And if you have that talent base with autonomy to do the job
properly, well, they'll probably do it regardless of the curriculum.

Until we address this (it's not the only thing we need to address), this whole
debate is worthless.

------
WhompingWindows
The article restates a presumption that by offering advanced students harder
coursework, they are "leaving behind" the rest of the students. However, by
the very same logic, if 20% of the kids get ahead by one year, aren't we just
leaving behind 80% there, vs 100% in the no-algebra-offering scenario?

In most analyses of STEM, the top echelon of US students is NOT behind the
rest of the world's top echelon: it's only in the medians/means, accounting
for the vast number of poorly performing Americans, do we see the
international STEM education gap.

Therefore, I'd argue this policy is actually detrimental to the one and only
group of students we are doing well with in the USA, namely the top tier of
students.

------
ben7799
I wonder what level the public school 8th grade teachers are at with their
Algebra at this point and what that has to do with this. I get the impression
there are very few 8th grade math teachers who studied math in college as
their first choice and then transitioned to education. There are too many more
attractive STEM careers if you are inclined towards math, and the best math
teachers in a school district are likely to be teaching the advanced 11th and
12th graders.

I took Algebra in public school in 8th grade in 1990. The public school was
pretty bad, I remember how frequently we (the 8th graders) were correcting the
teacher, he was that bad he was screwing up the examples on the board almost
every class.

I got sent to Catholic School for high school. Everyone in the math department
had an advanced math degrees. Calculus was taught by a PhD. The curriculum
blended Algebra/Geometry/Trig/Calculus across all 4 years instead of the "one
thing at a time approach." I remember being very cognizant of thinking I was
probably better at algebra by the end of 9th grade than my public school 8th
grade teacher had been. The quality difference in the teachers for math was
mind blowing between the two schools.

------
cosmie
I'm conflicted on this. Having moved 18-20 times across 7 states before high
school, I'm intimately familiar with the inconsistencies between curriculums
that existed before common core. I was taught some things 3-4 times while
others I missed entirely. I also, through a series of (in hindsight)
unfortunate events, ended up at the point of taking calculus my freshman year
of high school and had three years of no math before college. While it was
convenient as a high schooler, it really bit me when I started college and
dropped straight into advanced calculus after a three year hiatus of all
things math.

Harmonizing with the common core is fantastic. But school districts should
also strive to harmonize with surrounding districts when it comes to "extras"
like this, as well.

------
duado
Lowering educational standards to meet the needs of the 20th percentile
student is preternaturally stupid and is why we’ll be moving out of San
Francisco before our kids are in school.

------
jccalhoun
The article really buries the relevant info:

>the CCSS Math 8 course that eighth graders are now expected to take includes
60% of the material from the old Algebra I course. This includes linear
equations, roots, exponents, and an introduction to functions. The new course
also offers students a taste of geometry and statistics—hardly your typical
middle school fare.

So it isn't really that big of a deal...

------
chaboud
This feels like a joke. As a San Francisco parent, this almost certainly
drives us towards private school, a luxury that not everyone has.

I took algebra in sixth grade, and I'd learned the material in fourth from
mother. Holding until 9th grade is baffling.

~~~
shawndrost
If you're worried about social justice/equity, I have great news for you: the
SFUSD "joke" created dramatic and positive improvements across student
demographics, including (and especially) black and Latino students.

In most districts, private school is often better than public school. This is
especially true in California for a variety of reasons (first and foremost
Prop 13). You may wish to send your kids to private school (makes sense to me)
but from the data I've seen, these changes significantly improved SFUSD's math
offerings.

Source: I am on an SFUSD community board and have read up on this a bit (eg
[https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/13/a-bold-
effort-...](https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/06/13/a-bold-effort-to-de-
track-algebra-shows.html)) but I'm always interested in learning more!

~~~
geebee
Thanks for your reply, and for the links. I followed them and read through
them, but I did it quickly, I'll take another look later.

I don't think the data supports the change as an unqualified success. The
article you posted (again, I quick read it) doesn't compare calculus
enrollment before and after the change. This article from the chronicle
provides that data:

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/SF-schools-
mov...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/SF-schools-move-to-
delay-algebra-shows-13518860.php)

"While more students are taking precalculus now, the enrollment in Advanced
Placement calculus courses has declined by nearly 13 percent over the past two
years. Enrollment in AP Statistics, which requires only Algebra II as a
prerequisite, has surged nearly 50 percent."

My understanding is that all courses other than calc that require algebra have
seen higher retention and enrollment. So we could view this as a qualified
success, a trade-off: better results pre-calc, at the cost of fewer students
taking calc. Keep in mind, we don't know how many of the students who are now
succeeding in Stats would have been succeeding in Calc, were it not for the
change. We are also only given percentage increases/decreases. Without
starting populations, we actually don't know if the increase in Stats offsets
the decrease in Calc.

Unfortunately, this is precisely the trade-off people were worried about.
Fewer of the top students are taking calc. Any claim of success must address
this.

FWIW, I do agree with that last bit from the article, about calc in high
school not being quite as essential as (some) people think. If an entering
college student has very strong algebra, trig, and pre-calc (let's say the
ability to solve elaborate algebraic equations involving trig functions, logs,
various exponentials, tricky multivariable quotients... and really _gets_ it),
then I don't think the lack of formal calc would be all that big a problem.

Then again, calc is a good way to get into those kinds of equations.

~~~
shawndrost
I wouldn't call this change an unqualified success either. There are probably
ways to improve from this new status quo. Maybe a 13 percent decline in calc
enrollment is a sign of overcorrection.

I would call it an improvement, though. That's all I'm on about. Basically
what you said about "calc in high school not being quite as essential as
(some) people think", together with a dash of "everyone thinks their kid is a
genius who's being held back by this change but most of them are wrong _" and
a heavy dash of "stats is obv better than calc anyway".

_ calc enrollment goes down by 13%; alg re-dos go down by 30%; seems like most
people are winning or breaking even right?

~~~
geebee
I disagree that “a heavy dash of stats is obv better than calc”. Not saying
there’s no case for it, but it isn’t obvious at all.

I also don’t think the line about everyone thinking their kid is a genius is
productive for this discussion. I think there’s a reasonable point in there,
but I think it’s needlessly caustic and fails to recognize legitimate concerns
about the effect this will have on aspiring STEM students in college.

------
Mirioron
What do they mean when they talk about _algebra_ here? Is it simply equations
with variables or something more?

~~~
barry-cotter
The aim is to get the standards low enough for everyone to pass. It’s
equations with variables.

~~~
Mirioron
I see. I find that odd, because kids already do basic algebra in primary
school. The exercises are simply written a different way.

4 + x = 9

is considered algebra, but

4 + ___ = 9

(fill in the blank) isn't.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to teach this same thing with symbols to
kids in grade 8.

~~~
barry-cotter
Abstraction is really hard. An economics professor of my acquaintance said he
started requiring calculus for his game theory class so he could be sure
everyone was competent with algebra. Every time you increase the level of
abstraction you lose some people. Some of them can be taught it but some
can’t, no matter how hard they or their teachers try.

~~~
SilasX
Interesting. That’s probably the best reason I’ve heard for why calculus and
computer science prerequisites should be similar, even when the latter doesn’t
use the former: if you don’t have the abstraction capacity for calculus, you
probably won’t have it for programming.

------
gumby
What an interesting article. I ready it for a bit of morning outrage and now
find the issue far more complex and subtle than I had thought.

My own child entered the US system in grade 8 as it happens and due to
language issues was tracked into algebra, which was mostly stuff he’d had a
couple of years before (not because he was an advanced student, simply how his
German system had worked). He wasn’t able to get back on track until the end
of the year.

So I of course assumed this change would be a disastrous concession. Now I’m
not yet sure what to think.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I am curious if you are in CA and if your child was picked because english
wasn’t ‘spoken at home’.

CA has a funding formula that takes money from all districts and put it in a
common pot. Better well funded schools are no longer assigned according to
affluence of neighbourhood.

Funding for schools is then redistributed act to principles of no child left
behind..which means that if there are more kids in a school that avail free
lunch/meals or if they don’t speak English at home(English not native
language), then the school can ask for more $$ from Sacramento.

In my school district, kids fluent in English are often tracked to non English
speaking/English as second language streams to tap into these funds.

It’s a bit of a mess because affluent areas don’t get enough funding but
teachers need salaries for standard of living costs in said affluent
areas...so most of the funding goes to salaries and then to cover unfunded
pension liabilities of staff.

Eventually students perform due to parent involvement and extra tutoring
classes after school hours. They do end up over worked and stressed out.

~~~
gumby
I'm a fan of "common pot" but it doesn't work as well as one might like: in
the public schools here in Palo Alto the parents routinely hold auctions that
raise multiple millions of dollars which goes into paying for things that I
think every kid should be getting (art, PE, music, an aide in the classroom
etc).

PTA donations got so extreme that the school district had to implement the
same "one pot" approach just to spread the money around the schools _in the
Palo Alto school district_.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Palo Alto district is a basic aid district. This means that they get no money
from the state...they have parcel tax to fund their schools. Palo Alto is a
wealthy enclave in CA. They don’t have to deal with the restrictions of other
counties and school districts.

[..]Some districts, known as “basic aid” or “excess tax” districts, fund their
revenue limit entirely through property taxes and receive no general purpose
state aid. They also retain any excess property taxes within their district.
... Basic aid districts are generally more advantaged than other
districts.[..]

------
hmahncke
FWIW, students in SFUSD who want to get calculus as a senior are required to
“double up” on math one year - for example, taking algebra and geometry
simultaneously.

------
halfnibble
""" ...unequal access to high quality education is a comparable injustice to
unequal access to the ballot box and is "the clearest manifestation of the
nation's caste system." """ The _real_ caste system in education is those who
can afford to send their kids to a high-performing private school vs. those
who cannot. This solution only exacerbates that problem.

~~~
droithomme
> the real caste system in education is those who can afford to send their
> kids to a high-performing private school

Is the problem here is not with the public school system, but rather with the
existence of high performing private schools? Should these schools be banned?
Perhaps along with private tutoring? Such policies might well lead to
increases in equality of outcome.

------
tanilama
This mentality is just regressive. I find funny such evil and stupidity can be
carried out in the name of fairness and equality. Well done.

------
SubiculumCode
I would not advocate for removal of algebra from middle school. But I would
consider advocating removal of add/subtract/multiply/divide facts from grades
1-5, and replace the time with learning of how to reason.

I feel like learning you math facts, rules for multiplication, etc challenge
children early on, but could be taught to a naive middle school child within a
couple of weeks or less. Thus teaching this to young children seems like
waited effort with little transfer benefit. On the other hand, getting
children interested in learning, learning how to organize thoughts into an
argument, etc...there is clear benefit for that, I wonder.

------
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1
I hear so much moaning about students with "poor math skills" when it's really
poor arithmetic skills. The moaners typically wouldn't recognise a
differential equation if it hit them in the face.

------
jimhefferon
It'd be good to hear from some Middle School teachers. Any here?

------
sanxiyn
What is so abstract about Algebra I? Isn't it pure rote? I mean, it's so rote
that I am confident everything in Algebra I can be solved by Mathematica (or
Maple) automatically.

~~~
Ericson2314
The roteness is different than arithmetic. It's rote constraint solving and
they don't teach you the algorithm in full generality.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945033).

------
grawprog
They started teaching us algebra in grade 5. It took me until my first year
university to really fully understand it. A lot of this was due to my own lack
of efforts but also due to lousy teachers. The math teacher I had university
was probably one of the best teachers i've ever had for any subject. I pretty
much owe my ability to understand math to that teacher.

~~~
rtkwe
It's an unfortunate fact that teachers that really enjoy and understand their
subjects is a rare treat and most people won't have the chance to encounter
one in all subjects till college.

I think there would be a lot of use for teachers to get additional training in
whatever field they're teaching so they have a deeper understanding than just
what they remember and what's taught by the book. I don't even really blame
the teachers so much because they got into the work to teach generally not to
teach a specific subject they may get stuck with.

------
AngryData
People were only learning algebra at 8th grade?! That is garbage! My school
introduced algebra in 5th grade, legit algebra I was in 6th grade.

------
MagicPropmaker
So because not all kids are able to grasp these concepts in middle school,
nobody can learn it in middle school.

------
fmajid
It has more to do with the left-wing ideology of the San Francisco school
district, and its loathing for anything that might resemble elitism. There's a
reason why private schools are so expensive in SF. Parents are abandoning
public schools faster than new private schools can expand to meet demand.

------
KorematsuFred
Why should some pen pushing bureaucrats get to decide what is good for
American kids ? Shouldn't that be left to parents ?

