GREAT article that basically affirms a lot of what I and others have pointed out in this thread.
I would “like” it 100 times, but for some reason, my “like” gets reversed every time I try it.
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Way back in post 3 of this thread, on Nov 19th, I wrote:
And in the Nov 29th Slate article that bluebayou linked to above, it says:
I was not making a profound statement in my first post, but rather the opposite. I was making a statement that is well-understood by anyone who deals with data regularly. Data scientists learn early on that nearly all indicators are biased, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. In fact, once you learn how to properly disentangle the biases, they can often be very useful.
There is much more in the Slate article that paints a damning picture of the decisions made by the political leaders without any understanding of what they were doing.
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I wonder how they’re going to correct the biases in essays or ECs? It’s trickier, to put it mildly.
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In these discussions and articles, there is no clear argument for the reasons for grade inflation. Private schools and affluent public schools have a higher rate of GPA increase but why?
In my opinion, grade inflation in private and fluent HS might be the result of failure in the public high school system. Those who can afford to move will move for their kids’ education. If you care enough to move or pay private school tuition, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that they have better grades overall as a student body because kids get attention and help.
As the public school struggles, you will see more self-segregation into a private school or affluent HS. Parents in those schools will have more resources to help their kids do well in school.
Unless every school is forced to implement their grades on a bell curve, I don’t see why grade inflation would stop.
When I mention the average GPA of college I went to was 3.7, no one is surprised and people expect that. Grades in private schools and affluent HS will become more and more like that.
Wait until CA implements the new math curriculum… more people will move to private schools. Those who can’t afford will be left without an opportunity.
What is the new math curriculum?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/04/california-math-class-detrack-race-equity
Basically forcing everyone to take up to Algebra 1 at 9th grade because some kids are taking too advanced math in HS compared to their peers. and it’s not equitable.
It might be just a proposal but I find it crazy.
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SF Unified has students start in algebra 1 and geometry in 9th and 10th grade, but strong math students are offered an algebra 2 + precalculus course in 11th grade, so that they can take calculus AB or BC in 12th grade. High School Pathways
From what I have read numerous times around these forums, it looks like lots of students, parents, and schools have put the math accelerator to the floor even for good-but-not-great-in-math students. The result seems to be students on the +2 or +3 math track who are struggling in calculus in 10th or 11th grade (or precalculus in 9th or 10th grade), even though students that advanced should be the strongest students in math who should find all high school math through calculus and college sophomore math (multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations) to be easy A courses. The common idea seems to be that being on “only” the +1 math track or (horrors) the +0 math track means that the student is somehow “behind” in math and will never get into a decent college, etc… But the result is inappropriate acceleration to +2 or higher tracks of many students, instead of just the strongest-in-math students. In contrast, a generation ago, the norm was that the good students in math (maybe ~10%, or about a third of the four year college bound students) got on the +1 track, and it was a rare top student in math who got on the +2 track (and got easy A grades in the hardest math courses and an easy 5 on the calculus BC test).
Perhaps that is related to observations that tracking decisions are often made not on the basis of student academic strength, but on factors like pushy tiger parents, assumptions based on race, gender, SES, etc., so that track assignments mismatch actual student academic strength in many cases. Ending tracking before 9th grade completely may be an overreaction, but is there a way to keep tracking from becoming the overdone caricature that is seems to be in so many places?
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Except that the article isn’t accurate. I realize Slate Magazine isn’t as reputable as the NYT, but I’m still puzzled why multiple publications including this article state that the Faculty Senate report recommended keeping SAT/ACT. I’ve previously posted actual quotes from the report. A partial summary is below. It clearly recommends ceasing consideration of existing standardized testing such as SAT/ACT and developing a new “assessment system.” There are other similar types of issues elsewhere in the article.
Recommendation 6. Develop a new assessment system that will be continuously accessible to students and that will assess a broader array of student learning and capabilities than any of the currently available tests.
…
Members of the Task Force differed on the question of whether to recommend that UC cease consideration of standardized test scores sooner — in all likelihood before availability of the replacement suite of assessments.
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That is nuts. Thank goodness my last kid is a senior (who did Calc BC as a junior and did fine) and now doing AP Stats.
And this new proposal is coming at the heels of the Common Core math revolution that was implemented less than 10 years ago and that did not go as well as planned. The data of the last article I read did not paint a very bright picture of the state of math education in California. I’ll try to find some data (or maybe @Data10 has some readily available).
Both my kids tested into accelerated math in middle school. We opted in with our first and out with our second. I think one of the benefits of acceleration was dealing less with the weird and wonderful common core teaching practices that changed almost monthly. The kids in our district that did not have access to tutoring, either through math literate parents or paid tutors, did not fair well with the latest fad in math. I’m not optimistic for the newest one either.
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Not a proposal but actual policy. (Note in the Results section, there is no mention of the improvement in Calc AB/BC take/pass rates, or even Precalc/Trig for taht matter.)
Sure, only offer Alg 1 in 8th grade – not Geom – to the fifth of the students who can demonstrate proficiency; enrollment requires an A in 7th grade ‘Honors’ math (which is really 8th grade material) and/or a pretest.
But such a mechanism is math tracking, and that is no longer cool.
fwiw: about a quarter to a third (depending on year) of our high school kids take Calc, and this is in a high achieving suburban public HS. We have plenty of Tiger parents.
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That page says that “In the 2018–2019 school year, 4660 high school students are taking courses beyond Algebra 2, which is 10% more students than the previous school year.” Courses beyond algebra 2 would normally be precalculus or calculus*, except for students who want to get off the math mainline and take statistics.
*Not sure how they classify the accelerated algebra 2 / precalculus course that is offered to strong-in-math students who can then take calculus the following year.
It also says that they “saw a drop in Algebra 1 repeat rates from 40% to 8%.” I.e. far fewer students failed Algebra 1 (probably due to inappropriate math acceleration).
Although it looks like a sledgehammer overreaction to eliminate math tracking before 9th grade entirely, it looks like the previous math tracking scheme was done quite poorly if so many students failed Algebra 1 and had to repeat it. However, offering an accelerated path for those who show academic strength in math while in high school means that strong-in-math students can still move up to the +1 math track by high school graduation. Perhaps that is the point in that math tracking decisions may be made more accurately in 10th/11th grade rather than 6th/7th/8th grade.
I didn’t realize SF was already doing this.
The point I was trying to make is a policy like that would cause parents to move or send their kids to private schools further accelerating GPA rise at those schools.
When the rigor of the classes and grade matter the most in UC admission, many parents will see the SF math track as a disadvantage, especially for the STEM major.
http://www.ed-data.org/district/San-Francisco/San-Francisco-Unified
If you look at SFUSD’s enrollment number, you see a slight increase in total enrollment numbers between 2015 to 2020.
| Cumulative Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Indian or Alaska Native | N/A | 356 | 354 | 339 | 283 |
| Asian | N/A | 19,781 | 19,466 | 18,892 | 18,386 |
| Black or African American | N/A | 7,817 | 8,099 | 7,869 | 6,769 |
| Filipino | N/A | 2,801 | 2,761 | 2,654 | 2,485 |
| Hispanic or Latino | N/A | 22,952 | 25,400 | 26,229 | 25,730 |
| Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander | N/A | 761 | 737 | 680 | 576 |
| None Reported | N/A | 4,842 | 2,951 | 3,059 | 3,017 |
| Two or More Races | N/A | 2,901 | 3,447 | 3,834 | 4,073 |
| White | N/A | 9,745 | 10,601 | 10,465 | 10,187 |
I suspect we will see a further decrease in the Asian population in SFUSD.
If you are going to start quoting from the report, don’t ignore the most important parts:
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How prevalent is the hyper acceleration outside of CA (and private HS)? I’m in MA and +1 is the typical acceleration path (Algebra 1 in 8th grade) at our HS - an occasional kid will be +2 but it is uncommon. I’m always surprised at the math arms race I read about here on CC.
I brought this up earlier, but it is worth revisiting:
If the University of California going test-blind is all about getting more people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the U of C system, how come the University of California application has a question asking for Adjusted Gross Income from the parents last 1040?
Do you have to answer that if you aren’t looking for financial aid? Not in CA and kiddo not applying to CA schools . . . just curious as I haven’t seen that anywhere.
My S filled out the application, and it was a question. We aren’t applying for financial aid.
It is very prevalent in the Chicagoland area in affluent high schools. A substantial minority of students are taking Advanced Algebra 2 or Trig/Pre-Calc in 9th grade.
It used to be that getting to AP Calc was the goal for many families by senior year in high school (which required being in geometry by 9th grade). The the goals shifted to AP Calc B/C, now the goal has shifted even further to trying for either Multi-Variable or finishing out senior year with having to take a DE class (if Multi taken junior year).
I have seen quite a few hyper math accelerated kids in NC that do very well and have no issues with the acceleration. Many of these kids are taking Calc in 8th or 9th. The issue is the ones that are being pushed by parents to try and do the same, yet they either do not have the ability or desire to do the math. These kids are typically doing the advancement o/s of the regular school, via AoPS or similar.
Why not allow anyone to be accelerated in math, yet if your test avg falls below 80-85 then you are bumped down? Math ability does not seem to really follow age.
The issue is then college as only a select few seem to put these kids in the appropriate classes.