1/14 More than 150 scientists & educators signed open letter raising alarm on efforts to water down K-12 math education
scottaaronson.blog/?p=6146
Signers include Fields, Nobel & Turing laurates, and also founders of HS STEM educational initiatives (eg , ).
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2/14 Specifically California proposed changes to its CMF that encourage schools to drop algebra from middle school, and put obstacles on reaching calculus in high school. They also de-emphasize calculus&algebra in favor of shallow "data science" courses.
bit.ly/cmfanalysis
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3/14 These well-intentioned but misguided changes will hurt all students, but mostly those without resources to work around them, as already was the case in San Francisco edsource.org/2021/one-distr
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4/14 See blog for more, but some personal comments are in the thread below. These of course don't represent the other letter signers.
I think the CMF authors are well-intentioned, and some of their proposals may be good, but on the whole their effect will be negative.
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5/14 Some criticized CMF for introducing "social justice" to curricula. To the extent "Social Justice" is connecting students with math, I support it. (e.g. in , I used Abebech&Bruk instead of Alice&Bob)
What we *didn't do* in AddisCoder is water down content.
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6/14 Same with initiatives such as the Algebra Project
nytimes.com/2001/01/07/edu or Calculus Project thecalculusproject.org . All about "raising the floor" rather than lowering the ceiling.
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7/14 I am also not a "calculus fanatic" - I think probability, discrete math, logic, can all be great ways to get math maturity needed for college STEM. But these topics are conceptually as hard or more as calculus. They do not require less math skills or preparation.
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8/14 Am not against data science, but courses promoted by CA don't build lasting foundations, but rather teach to eyeball data and use spreadsheets & other tools that will likely be obsolete by the time students finish college.
Try to find an equation in
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9/14 The CMF itself describes skills in a high school data science class as "learn to clean data sets" "download and upload data" and develop something they call "data moves".
These vocational skills are no replacement to basic mathematical ways of thinking.
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10/14 The CMF states that "the data science field provides opportunities for equitable practice, with multiple opportunities for students to pursue answers to wonderings and to accept the reality that all students can excel in data science fields."
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11/14 There is nothing special about "data science" that makes it more equitable. In fact, it is well known that it can replicate and amplify the biases that already exist in society. Data fluency is good, but making it is a solution to equity is magical thinking.
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12/14 STEM has become more mathematically sophisticated. You now see a gradient in every other CS talk, not to mention bra's, ket's, or elliptic curves. No one knows what math we'll need in future, but the best way to prepare students is to give broad & deep math foundation.
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13/14 I agree with this quote that access to math education *is* a social justice issue. But decreasing access to advanced math, and offering shallow alternative, will do nothing for equity. We need to do the work of reaching more students with quality math instruction.
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14/14 This is what set as a goal for 2025, what is doing with the calculus project, and done by other initiatives such as the algebra project and . (10x match if you donate! beammath.org/beam101 )
It is hard work but yields lasting impacts.
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