The Algebra Problem

[Jazzy]

From suburbs in the Northeast to major cities on the West Coast, a surprising subject is prompting ballot measures, lawsuits and bitter fights among parents: algebra.

Students have been required for decades to learn to solve for the variable x, and to find the slope of a line. Most complete the course in their first year of high school. But top-achievers are sometimes allowed to enroll earlier, typically in eighth grade.

The dual pathways inspire some of the most fiery debates over equity and academic opportunity in American education.

Do bias and inequality keep Black and Latino children off the fast track? Should middle schools eliminate algebra to level the playing field? What if standout pupils lose the chance to challenge themselves?

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That's the new American style of learning. Lower the bar to help the worse students instead of trying to lift those students to clear the bar. So now all kids who can handle advanced coursework will sit around bored waiting for the slowest learners to catch up (which will never happen).

Your thoughts?

 

[Lamb]

When I was growing up in elementary school, kids were sorted into groups in classrooms of different levels of learning for math. I think that's the best solution instead of forcing an entire class to all learn at the same pace. I learned faster than the other kids, so sometimes I was in charge of helping the kids who struggled and that gave me leadership qualities, and it helped the teacher who couldn't be in 30 places at once. Sometimes kids can learn from other kids easier.

Now onto the question about middle school, it was called Junior High for me, and I had pre-algebra in 7th grade and algebra in 8th. There are some friends of mine who are mathematicians and scientists who needed the higher levels of math learning, so it makes sense for them to take algebra at a young age. I hated algebra personally because I didn't have parents who could help me at that level, unlike my friends who went on to be mathematicians and scientists whose parents were geniuses.

I think choices need to be given to students and their parents. Not a government mandate.

 

[Forgiven1]

Waaaay back in the 70s, some of us were fast tracked in math. I was one of them. Took Algebra a year earlier than many. This whole needing to even the playing field so some don't feel left out is not good for those who excel. Slow everyone down and then you will get kids who are bored. In fact, we had 3 different tracks for students in high school. With those tracks came different science classes and different math classes. Each took classes based on their interests and what they were planning to do following high school. You could change tracks if you changed what you were doing. It wasn't something fought about, it just was as different students had different needs.

 

[tango]

It seems more and more that people are looking for racial issues rather than useful issues. As one commentator put it, the demand for racism exceeds the supply.

I was very good with numbers as a child because my parents taught me my numbers and letters early on. When I went to school we were put into streams based on random assignment from ages 11-13 and then from age 14 we were put into streams based on ability, subject by subject.

At university the hall I lived in was just shy of 50% populated by foreign students, many of them from African nations and the Indian subcontinent. So obviously the problem isn't that black people in general are less intelligent - we had many black people at university level. Maybe the problem is a lack of ambition among some communities. If that's the case the worst possible outcome is to hold everybody back until the least willing to work decides to do something useful.

 

[Josiah]

Liberal Approach: Dumb down everything to the lowest level possible, so that everyone achieves the worse.
Conservative Approach: Lift everything up to the highest level possible, so that everyone can achieve their best.

IMO, schools should offer the highest level of academics appropriate to that age level, encouraging excellence, encouraging students to "go for it." Sure, they should also offer remedial academics for those who NEED it but the purpose should be to RISE them up, not keep them down... to encourage and empower them to be their best rather than to enable them to be substandard.



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