The essay's thesis is that math is an unusually useful art form that we typically teach by diktat. Students are asked to memorize formulas, but they would learn more effectively (and have more fun) if teachers could work closely with them to derive and understand the solutions. Or better yet, encourage and guide them to find their own interesting formulas and patterns.
We should teach engineering classes and students would learn math to solve engineering problems. That solves the “when are we going to use this?” problem.
How much do school districts in California spend (as a percentage of total budget) on staffers who do not teach children directly?
If it is (for the sake of argument) a quarter of the budget, then I ask would 33% more funding be able to shrink class sizes to a degree that would meet your approval?
If instead it were half the budget, would a 100% increase in funding not be able to shrink the class sizes enough?
Does anyone know what the actual percentage of staffers vs teachers is, or what proportion of funding goes to each? Not just payroll, but also the office buildings for staffers vs school buildings for classrooms, etc.
> How much do school districts in California spend (as a percentage of total budget) on staffers who do not teach children directly?
Probably over half.
I downloaded the 2020 data for SFUSD from https://transparentcalifornia.com/. According to those data, only 45% of SFUSD's spend on pay & benefits goes to people whose job category contains the string 'eacher'.
Another 4.5% do to people whose job title contains the string 'incipal'.
