Dumbing Down of America Takes Another Leap Forward
A friend of mine emailed an article the likes of which always prompts me to say “really?”
Please consider the Reason article In the Name of Equity, California Will Discourage Students Who Are Gifted at Math.
Culturally Responsive Framework
I like to verify things myself and you can do so as well by reading the California Department of Education Mathematics Framework.
In its framework, the Department of Education seeks “Culturally responsive mathematics education.”
Introduction Highlights
- Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking. [i.e. no advance classes].
- implementation of this framework and the standards, teachers must be mindful of other considerations that are a high priority for California’s education system including the Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) which allow students to examine issues of environmental and social justice.
Teaching for Equity Highlights
- The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.
- Teachers are encouraged to align instruction with the outcomes of the California ELD Standards, which state that linguistically and culturally diverse English learners receive instruction that values their home cultures.
Need to Broaden Perceptions of Mathematics
I did not go through all the chapters. Reason uncovered these gems.
- The inequity of mathematics tracking in California can be undone through a coordinated approach in grades 6–12.
- Middle-school students are best served in heterogeneous classes.
- The push to calculus in grade twelve is itself misguided.
- To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong.
Sabotage the Best
Reason concludes, and I agree “If California adopts this framework, which is currently under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students. The government should let kids opt out of math if it’s not for them. Don’t let the false idea that there’s no such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely.”
Instead, and in the name of “equity”, the proposed framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same dumbed down level for as long as possible.
The intention is clear. The California Board of Education intends to sabotage the best and brightest, hoping to make everyone equal.
The public does not support these polices. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of talk that nearly got Trump reelected.
Biden should speak out against such nonsense, but he won’t. He is beholden to Teachers’ Unions and Boards of Education.
Care to complain? If so the California Department of Education posted these ways.
Phone Number and Address
Phone: 916-319-0598
Instructional Quality Commission
1430 N Street, Room 3207
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-319-0172
Social and Mathematical Justice Q&A
Q: Who is the arbiter of environmental, mathematic, and social justice?
A: The California board of Education. They intend to cram it down your child’s throat and dumb down gifted kids no matter what their parents believe or how vigorous the objections.
If you wish to protest these absurd policies, phone or write the board of education as posted above.
Better yet, get the hell out of California.
Mish
America’s collective I.Q. has been
military father (General officer, DSC, so, the real thing) taught me one should
reinforce success – don’t pull troops from a winning battle to support a losing
battle; rather, abandon the losing battle and use resources to reinforce the
winning battle. We do just the opposite in the US now and will become a
third-rate power as a result. Can’t make Chihuahuas perform like Greyhounds at
the track. Sorry.
Wow. Just wow. The left won’t be happy until everyone’s an idiot not just them.
So instead of pushing students to do their best they are looking to obtain the lowest common denominator.
We need to push our best and brightest in order to keep this country at its best.
Also, they are relying on the DIE (diversity, inclusion, equity) ideology to justify “extreme affirmative action” in the workplace. Nuclear meltdowns are coming!
Watch ‘Idiocracy’ and all will become clear.
There are many precedents for this elsewhere without removing the curriculum. European and British schools assign you to a school that fits your abilities. If you love math,.and you do well, you get to focus on it. There are vocational schools that teach more hands in stuff. Not everyone wants to write.software code or sit in front of a computer all day. Specialization is a trend, then let’s help these kids specialize. If you are a SJW then specialize in social work. Forcing everyone to do the same stuff , this latest.crap.included, is the.same.solution as making creative writers take calculus. Nobody learns anything
Hollywood gone Fd up our schools too!!!
These posts about education in the era of the internet, where a kid can learn as much as he or she wants, seem outdated. No smart person in America is relying on just school to get their kids good at anything.
Dude is shows you don;t have children. Because home schooling in the past year has been the bane of many families. Creating massive tensions, and usually its the wife that has to take on the additional load. No internet schooling has its place but not in grade and high schools
For the lefties in the room: hope you’re happy all that Trump derangement syndrome drivel you echoed was heard and earned you this as a consolation prize.
If you voted for Biden you voted for this and more of it.
Coming to a school near you…
Hope you’re happy all that Trump derangement syndrome drivel you echoed got you this as a consolation prize. If you voted for Biden you voted for this and more of it.
Coming to a school near you.
The teachers don’t understand it so they would rather not try and attempt to teach it. It’s easier to teach social justice for infants
Remember what the great California philosopher, Barbie had to say: “Math is hard.”
“The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.”
Not everyone can be a brain surgeon. I was never much of a math student. There are people of color that can do math better than i ever could. I never felt a sense of inequity because i was not good at math.
Jaime Escalante took a group of low income students in East L.A. and made calculus
whizzes out of them, without any of the social justice/equity nonsense. He inspired them to work hard and as a result they aced the state test.
The key problem with your example and it’s incompatibility with California and woke culture in general are the words “work hard” – according to them that’s a dog whistle for white supremacy.
Bored students in California can enroll (free) in community colleges in California. Bored students can take on-line classes (for credit) in California. Bored students can in fact take the High School Exit Exam and start college early. Bored students need to talk to their counselors about moving forward some other way. I don’t mind offering calculus in high school, but to make it possible in public high schools to afford the course, it has to be at least minimally enrolled, so students are pressed into calculus classes who maybe aren’t ready. I really like the option of high school statistics courses, which even bright (bored) students can benefit from, and which helps all students learn to read blogs and news (fake and fact) with discernment.
Liberals will never permit statistics or economics to be taught at the high school level. People who are educated in those areas easily see through the lies and manipulations of the left. Just as an example, the LAWS of economics tell us what will happen when millions of new workers enter the labor force. Wages are depressed, of course. And statistical knowledge allows people to discover for themselves the outrageous lies being promoted by BLM and all their sycophants in the media, tech, and education regarding blacks and the justice system in America. These are dangerous times, though. One man got banned from Instagram for merely posting the FBI statistics on inter-racial crime. I believe he also got doxxed.
We will all be equal: equally stupid and equally poor.
Diversity advocates dont look beyond the borders when they diagnose what is “white” in America. The white oppression claims they make are easily falsifiable. All they have to do is travel to nonwhite countries that have made significant contributions to mathematics (or any). Then they will discover that every culture treats it as a rigorous discipline that appeals to the mentally agile. Not even communists were so crazy- my aquaintences from East Germany said government testing was used to isolate and separately raise the smarter kids.
Observation.
It seems here in slightly northern ca. My kid is in the third grade. When it comes to math it seems the school is teaching topics and concepts about two years ahead of when i was the same age.
Different way of solving problems also. Seems in my day math was a lot on memorization. Back when playgrounds were dangerous.
Yes this is what I notice. Actually much better as I was raised in Texas. Public schools in middle class neighborhoods there are poorer imo.
Everyone who voted for, or supported Democrats in 2020, put up your hand.
THIS IS YOUR FAULT!
It is better than insurrection. LOL.
May I ask, do you wash your hands 253 times a day?
No. Just 252.
Democrats have run radical progressives before, such as McGovern and Mondale, always with disastrous results (for them). Had the Republicans run anyone other than Trump, we wouldn’t be here, because Democrats would have been forced to the center. If you don’t like what is happening, blame it on the Republicans who backed Trump, because they are to blame. If Republicans run Trump again in 2024, expect Progressives to gain even more power, and to become even more extreme.
That’s a complete load of carp Carl_R. We are where we are because Democrats stole the election and the Republican leadership doesn’t have the spine to fight them.
Give it a rest. No one seriously believes there was a stolen election. It wasn’t even a particularly close election. Trump was simply a powerful polarizing figure who brought out an amazing number of people to vote against him.
Straight out of a short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
Straight out of a short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut.
Mish, Don’t get sucked into these articles that just want to outrage you and keep you angry. The Reason article was pretty biased – it cherry picked some excerpts. Read the curriculum. The chapter on data science was pretty good. I ay give them a chance to try something new. Mathematics is the language of science. It’s needed for everything. Passing Calculus in high school is meaningless if you don’t learn how to reason and solve problems.
My son graduated last year from a small (200 students, i.e. 50 freshmen, 50 sophomores, etc) California high school with at least 50% students of color. They still had AP Calculus which included students of color. My son, who doesn’t particularly like math, took the standard level calculus. There would be no reason for him to hold those back who really like the subject. I don’t remember any culturally insensitive information when I took differential calculus. The culturally insensitive part that I see is all the kids that make fun of the few kids that do really well in these difficult classes.
I am going to have to check this out further by asking the teachers in town.
This probably has less to do with cultural sensitivity than with school budgets not being able to have separate classes for higher achieving students. That is what we noticed in elementary public school in an upper class area here. So our daughter goes to charter school where they are segmented by achievement and test scores and challenged with next grade level work if they place in the top 1% nationally.
What you miss is the effect of difficult learning tasks on brain development–pathways get configured by trying to understand. Reasoning and solving problems should be in classes, from kindergarten on.
The goal should be to provide a mathematics education that provides the skills needed for computer science, economics, chemistry, etc. The framework looks fine to me – remember calculus is just one subject – for computer science, discrete mathematics is more important, for social science, its statistics. Use K-12 to give them the tools they need to take Calculus or any type of mathematics – that’s more important so whatever they major in they have the ability to reason, use mathematical models, etc. Remember those online articles are just there to promote anger and outrage. Don’t fall for it!
But as Mish reports, the introductory Word doc has these lines:
“Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking.”
“Option-limiting tracking” has been translated by Mish and others as “no advanced classes”. Is that not right?
The leftists make these assumptions that all differences in outcomes by race/gender must be due to some kind of unfairness. But as Thomas Sowell points out, there are always differences in outcomes between different groups, everywhere in the world, throughout history.
Here are some other lines from the introduction:
— The race-, class-, and gender-based differences in those who pursue more advanced mathematics make it clear that messages students receive about who belongs in mathematics are biased along racial, socioeconomic status, language, and gender lines, a fact that has led to considerable inequities in mathematics.
— The belief that “I treat everyone the same” is insufficient: Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities
It’s a 1200 page document and the Medium article picks out some of the obligatory lines that pay homage to equity. Time to get outraged! Read the rest of it, then post back.
The same Medium article also states this: “advanced math just isn’t that important. It would be preferable for schools to offer students more choices, and offer them as early as possible. Teens who are eager readers should be able to study literature instead of math; young people who aren’t particularly adept at any academic discipline might pick up art, music, computers, or even trade skills. (Coding doesn’t need to be mandatory, but it could be an option.)”
First of all, it loses all credibility with me by somehow implying that software development doesn’t require math skills. Second of all, it is important that K-12 students develop math skills that’s what the framework is about.
lol – Many of the people making these decision don’t send their own kids to public schools, they know what a disaster they are. MA did something similar for Exam Schools, forget test scores, now schools have to admit based on zip code. You know…”equity”.
How asinine. California’s public policy on education — as voiced by its Department of Education — isn’t focused on excellence; it’s more concerned about making sure that nobody’s feelings get hurt. California has the sovereign right to be idiotic, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the correct decision.
“Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities.”
If only education bureaucrats in CA could discover what other nations are doing to keep their ‘cultural forces’ at bay while they promote more comprehensive and rigorous understanding of the field of mathematics!
I feel like typing a bunch of 4 letter words. This is why we home schooled our daughter. She is going to be her law school’s legal review editor next year. When I ran one of the local little leagues here in LA I recommended to every parent a couple of good local charter schools. All of the kids that got put in the charter schools went onto college successfully. The public schools in Ca in the big cities and in working class neighborhoods suck beyond belief. And this type of stuff Mish reported on is why. All children are different, have different interests and learn differently, this dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator is insanity!!!
I have seen in France a huge change about what “science” and “elite” means in the mainstream medias. Probably it is the same in US . 40 years ago, it was mainly mathematicians, physicists, people of the real sciences (and many streets have their name). Now what is presented as “science” and “elite” is an army of “specialists” of many kinds of political and economical studies, claiming that their speech is “scientific”.
This comes together with the fall of real science in education.
I know what you mean. On TV you see a bunch of pseudo-scientists one after the other. The criteria to be on TV is not expertise but the ability to entertain so instead of scientists we get clowns.
LCI est pire que BFM ou CNEWS je trouve.
I thinked that the old movie “The second civil war” was prophetic, should I add “Idiocraty” ?
Just confirms what everybody suspected; minority and female children are dumb as hell. Couldn’t even count to 10 or spell cat. Their only hope is picking vegetables or cleaning rich folks houses. I’m surprised that the Board let this secret out.
Equality of opportunity is not equal to equality of outcome as Thomas Sowell would say.
Yes. Many people refuse to acknowledge that 50% of the population are dumber than the other half, instead wanting to believe that everyone is in the top 30%.
Classes SHOULD be divided by intellectual capability.
It’s unfortunate but a significant percentage of people are really only intellectually capable of working at jobs like cashier, digging ditches, holding up the stop/go sign for the guy digging the ditch, driving a bus, etc. What we will do with/for them when the robots take away their job is a big open question.
This is why the US needs more immigration. We, as a country, are poor at mathematics and STEM in general. We fair poorly in comparison to the students of other countries around the world in math and science education, skills where language is not a block to direct comparison. Advanced math is critical in a tech world, but, no worries, if we don’t teach it, we can always import it. American students can still get jobs at McDonalds, at least until they put in robots.
Are you sure that US will remain attractive ?
Probably. No immigrant has to live in California or a blue state. There are plenty of places where they still teach science and math. Our averages are now pulled by heavy immigration of non-English speakers with little schooling. The problem is now that some blue states want to keep the immigrant kids ignorant. Why I don’t know except sheer incompetence.
Give the US education system some credit. In one generation, they can dumb down the immigrants’ kids too.
Virginia is proposing pretty much the same thing. They have already started to ruin the #1 High School in the country by making admissions a lottery rather than meritorious. No advanced math programs will make it even worse. Just horrible.
By the way, this is anti-asian.
Yet another post. My kids’ education in grade school to college was vastly superior to mine (and I went to supposedly good schools). My point is, kids will learn what you require them to learn, even if it is difficult and takes more work.
For some time in a lot of school districts the thinking has been that if you keep the smart and slower kids in the same classroom it will help the slower kids along: at least in sports you play up to the competition…..
I suppose it does the slower kids no harm although I don’t see how it helps the quicker kids. On the other hand, separating the sheep from the goats at a very early age is not wise: any number of amazing scholars and scientists did very badly in grade school and keeping them ignorant would have done no one any good.
On the other hand, if everyone had to take advanced math it would have washed out the PhDs in Education who came up with this idiotic idea.
The No Child Left Behind policy of Bush Jr. gave us that. Everybody gets mainstreamed. It’s insanely difficult for teachers and it dumbs down the smart kids.
But it’s been around, this has been coming for some time.
I suspect Tiger Moms will still do what they need to do to get their middle-schoolers into AP calculus. lol.
The entire idea that math teaching should be designed for equity is a joke, imho. Ignore merit at your peril.
The future is for auto-didacts. You can now learn anything you want, if you don’t need a credential. And if you’re good enough at math and science, you won’t need much of a credential, imho.
Pretty soon you will (hopefully) be able to test out for a credential anyway and not have to “do time” in college to get the paper.
Challenging for Credit has been around for a long time. I’ve done it on a couple of occasions.
I agree that for those who want to learn there are plenty of ways to do so online for those who are motivated (I’ve taken a few free online courses and they are quite good).
I took Calculus 1 & 2 in high school, was still bored out of my mind, took Calc 4 in college (calc 3 was linear algebra, so a joke), and it absolutely whipped my ass. My point is that this rule is dumb, but it’s not the end of the world (or a reason to leave California), and it’s likely to continue that you’ll learn more in a semester of college than you will in 2 years of AP classes. And smart kids will always be bored in high school.
Depends on the AP class. My son learned more in his year of calc AP than I did in my year of calc at a Big Ten university…. Perhaps it was how the courses were organized: for me linear algebra was a separate non-calc course, and extremely difficult (it gets hard when matrices can’t be solved exactly). I ended up with a BS in math in addition to what I was really studying.
Linear Algebra has nothing to do with Calculus. One is discrete mathematics and the other is continuous.
I agree but that doesn’t impact the naming of the class. Random syllabus here. link to www2.math.upenn.edu If I knew that going in, I would have skipped Calc 3 (linear algebra) for my statistics classes. But hindsight is 20/20, and what I really should have done is plowed my tuition into Apple stock in 1999.
Education is just one specific area where the gov’t is dumbing everything down to the lowest denominator. It’s one huge reason that US ranks behind so many other countries, esp those in Asia that promote their best rather than their worst as we do.
Other areas include
I can list plenty more (and I bet most of you here can too) as the number of these things has exponentially increased since I was a kid in the 70’s.
The bigger the gov’t has gotten, the more they feel the need to dumb everything down to the lowest denominator in a misguided attempt at making everything equal for everyone even though people have vastly different capabilities both mentally and physically and at different stages of their lives.
Masks are the new bike helmets. If you spend your life scared of every little thing and also don’t want to look like a dork, the solution is to force everyone to look like a dork.
My Son took advanced mathematics classes in high school, he would have been bored out of his mind if he had not advanced. Another reason for parents of gifted students to escape from California.
Keep voting Democrat and this insanity is what you get.
Dumb and dumber. Hard to believe any so called board pf education can be serious about this.
Utah calling on line 1
If anyone hasn’t yet done so, you should read the famous short story ‘Harrison Bergeron’ (by Kurt Vonnegut), a portrait of a dystopian society where everyone must be equal, which is achieved by handicapping people to lower everyone to the lowest common denominator. When Vonnegut published this story back in 1961, I believe it was considered satire. So sad to see it coming true!
Thank you for sharing this link.
That is what came to mind as I started reading this post.
Dystopian literature can be intriguing and entertaining, but too often it seems to be used as a playbook by rule-makers a generation or two down the road.
Vonnegut is sometimes labelled science fiction author, which he was not. But he used it to contrast the stupidity of average Earthlings.
To bow down to equality, whatever that means, why teach anything at all? Then everyone will be equally ignorant. To really put some bite into making all people equal, penalize anyone that knows anything more than nothing. You have to have enforcement of this effort.
The Democrats function like the Catholic Church in the dark ages. Massive ignorance and squalor brings more people to the fold. It’s their business model. Except now Catholic Schools are way better in math and science than secular public schools. A joke
“Q: Who is the arbiter of environmental, mathematic, and social justice?
A: The California Board of Education. “
I was guessing the Department of Silly Walks.
Frankly I doubt that the Californian elites will send their children to those schools so the ones that make the laws will not suffer the consequences. It’s quite clear to large areas of the country already and perhaps it will soon become clear to enough Californians. Recalling elected officials and overturning school boards have been happening there and I would hope that we will see much more of them in the future. When people wake up the results can be surprising. Not necessary to turn Republican. Just vote in Democrats with common sense. There are some but they are out of power for the moment.
With all due respect, Doug78: Democrats and common sense are mutually exclusive. Before anyone on the other side of the aisle nods in agreement: The same goes for republicans as well. So actually, what I’m saying is: Politicians and common sense are mutually exclusive (with the very, very, very rare exception here and there like eg. Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore).
Biden is “beholden” to Satan and his demons. +++
Glad my children and grandchildren don’t live there. The weather is nice though although boring.
Of the most troubling trends in American society today, I find that the push to eliminate standards in the name of equity is the first, closely followed by false narratives that some american citizens (black, hispanic, asian) should fear other citizens (whites). The first paves the road to mediocrity and does nothing to improve the lot of the disadvantaged. In fact, it teaches them that the system is so stacked against them that they should not bother to compete at all, virtually guaranteeing underperformance. I can’t think of a way to hurt America more than this (except maybe the second trend I mentioned). What the heck happened to us?
Predatory central bankers damage society exponentially more than this. But yeah, eliminating standards in the name of “equality” is pretty dumb.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. At this point I’m just trying to enjoy the ride.
Those who cannot grasp science and technology which is based on math, choose soft artsy studies, and then cannot find real jobs. They flock into jobs where stupid blabberish and virtue signaling count.
But I am not worried. Asians in particular, don’t buy into this BS, and are laughing their azes off: welcoming reduced competition.
Agreed. We are actively crippling our children and rendering them incapable of competing on a world stage. While much of the rest of the world pumps out engineers, data scientists and the like, the US’ universities shift their focus to diversity initiatives and oppression studies.
You understand Asians well. I once told the story that in a restaurant if a kid misbehaves someone will protest to the parents and tell them to control the kid because the kid is disturbing him. In Asia no one says anything. That is the kids parents responsibility. If they do not control the kid everyone still says nothing. Reason is simple, that kid will grow up with poor self control in social settings, that is one less kid who will compete with their children in a social setting. The kid’s family is the ultimate loser if they do not stop the misbehavior, and everyone else kids will gain.
” false narratives that some american citizens (black, hispanic, asian) should fear other citizens (whites)”
Pretty sure you have that backwards.
?
American students are already crippled, as a managing scientist I dont think I’ve ever hired one in the last 20 years.
The most absurd thing is how whites are attacking asians. And yet every video of an asian being attacked shows a black person attacking them. Black people didn’t vote for Trump, so their behavior is always excused.
I know what you mean but I’m uncomfortable with that language. I’m not sure why we racialize assaults. Can’t we just say its wrong to assault people for any reason, including ethnic targeting? I don’t like the disproportionate accusations against white people yet I believe we must resist the counternarrative that points out assaults committed by black people. This blame game is the necessary outcome of Critical Race Theory and its rush to categorize and condemn. But I’m off topic and too wordy already…