
Why Did San Francisco Schools Stop Teaching Algebra in Middle School? - hintymad
https://priceonomics.com/why-did-san-francisco-schools-stop-teaching/
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hintymad
> "While SFUSD insists that its new approach does not compromise the rigor of
> its education, but ensures that all students enter high school with the same
> mathematical foundation, many parents see the district’s new standards as a
> dumbing down of the curriculum."

So to ensure equality is to lower the bar? Isn't this going to create more
inequality? We know that economically-challenged families would not,
statistically speaking, be able to afford tutoring, so they depend even more
on public school teachers to teach their kids. Yet the answer of the SFUSD was
to push students _less_ in school. Guess who will eventually suffer?

I find it insulting and outrageous.

~~~
somethingsome
Is it really a bad thing to not know algebra at the 8th grade?

I understand what you are saying, but I cannot reach the same conclusion as
you that they are lowering the bar.

Even if at the moment a lot of people are exposed to algebra at a very young
age, a very few people understand the maths behind, they use it as a set of
rules to apply, which is very far away from how maths works..and then, leads
to a bad use/generalization in unknown problem.

I didn't follow precisely the common core thing, but if I remember correctly,
the idea behind is to teach to the child's to 'think' instead of having a rule
based system. Ultimately leading to understanding algebra better and faster at
a later stage, when it becomes only a corollary to one's thought.

When you can think more deeply and more abstractly at a young age, this may
lead to better thoughts power, better logic, and ultimately better skills at
math and in life. At least, I think this is the true idea behind the core,
please if there is an expert on math education here correct me if I'm
mistaken.

Of course, this is often difficult to accept for adults, as we want our
child's to have 'at least' the same education of ourselves. But it is not
obvious that the way we larned math, is a good way. If it is: why so many
people do not like/understand maths? Isn't it a good thing to try newer
teaching methods that we think are better?

I may be doing a big shortcut here: but from what I remember the core was
worked out by very capable mathematicians in both mathematics and education
and they were inspired by Korean/Japanese math systems that encourage the
child's to think. If someone has references to this I would be interested as
well :)

~~~
medee
> Is it really a bad thing to not know algebra at the 8th grade?

Knowing it is a better thing

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mcswell
Where have I seen this before? No algebra in 8th grade, try to get the
students to develop an intuition for math...ah, yes, I remember: my own 8th
grade, in 1967. It was called The New Math, and we got a smattering of set
theory (enough to distinguish intersection from union), trivial geometry
(nothing about axioms and theorems, afair), and number base systems.
Ostensibly this was to make us think about the basics of math; afair, it did
nothing of the sort.

My Junior High went the New Math route, but some of the other Junior High
schools that fed into the same High School did not. The result was that I, and
all the other freshmen from my school, were a year behind the freshmen from
these other schools. (The New Math helped us not at all.)

I did well enough in math over the next few years that one of the High
School's math teachers persuaded me to take Algebra II and Trig both in my
junior year (everyone else who was in to math took them in sequential years).
That allowed me to take calculus in my senior year, along with a dozen or so
students from the Junior Highs that had not dabbled in New Math. The rest of
the students from my Junior High were not so lucky.

The excuse that not teaching algebra in 8th grade "ensures that all students
enter high school with the same mathematical foundation" sounds like something
someone who felt threatened by math must have come up with.

BTW, I did not become a mathematician, but it did prepare me for other STEM
disciplines. Geometry in particular was a revelation in a way of thinking that
for me bled over into many other disciplines.

------
sytelus
SFUSD's defense: [http://www.sfusdmath.org/secondary-course-
sequence.html](http://www.sfusdmath.org/secondary-course-sequence.html)

It basically says that they are including more stuff in 8th grade curriculum
so Algebra 1 gets pushed out to 9th grade.

