Equitable access to advanced math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not true. The issue in SF was around when kids could take Algebra 1, not the content of data science. And even that is not a valid comparison because VADOE never proposed eliminating Algebra 1 from middle schools. In fact, they were discussing having all kids take at least Algebra 1 content by 8th grade.

Twisting the truth is certainly a Republican tactic.

VADOE was the one twisting the truth. They acknowledged in their later sessions that there would be prealgebra content in their 8th grade materials. Which was obvious as you can't take kids deemed not ready for algebra and suddenly have them taking algebra. The reality is they were following the SF path of putting algebra in 9th grade and hiding it behind blended classes called Math 8.9.10

False. They also never said that school districts couldn’t accelerate. They always included AP and IB which do require acceleration.

It’s ridiculous to extrapolate out that the entire state of VA would follow in the path of a single school district in CA. School districts in VA are very diverse and have always had a great amount of autonomy to craft a curriculum that best meets the needs of their community.

It’s also notable that the conservatives didn’t freak out when Alabama rolled out some concepts from Catalyzing Change/NCTM.
https://www.alabamaachieves.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2019-Alabama-Mathematics-COS-Rev.-6-2021.pdf

It’s all politically motivated faux outrage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pushing kids to advance in math earlier and earlier is a race to nowhere. 6th grade algebra should be a very rare exception.

Everyone is thinking about their own kid. What about equity? Parents of fast learners should be a little patient and allow the class to sail together. If fast learners all move into Algebra 1 class in 6th grade, then that would leave the regular 6th grade math kids relatively behind. There is a lot of equity research that says fast learners are able to learn fast because of their affluent parents.

Education research is all bunk.

This is not true. There is plenty of valid education research. Equity research is mostly BS.

For example, the theory that standardized tests mostly measure parental income is BS. We know this is BS because the test optional period forced on many schools by covid has given us a lot of information that we could not actually simulate. We now know that if you have a rich kid and a poor kid with similar test scores, they have similar college performance. If the test scores merely measured parental income then you would expect the poor kid with the good test score to outperform the rich kid with the same test score, but they don't.

I'm sure there are advantages to having well educated wealthy parents. But every kid deserves a years worth of education for every year of attending school, even the smart children of affluent parents.

Who is preventing the kids from taking advanced classes? You need to pass the bar of IAAT, SOL, and class prerequisites. The bar is high and rightfully so, because of crazy parents like yourself, motivated by ego to put their kids in a class far below their abilities and essentially screwing their kid up for the rest of their math education.

I am puzzled to where the URM, income, parental education etc come into play here. I fail to understand how the district holds those students back.

Holding grudge against parents of advanced learners? It appears equity brainwashing has made your mental struggles worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take a look at the E3 pilot. And Tina Mazzacane works for FCPS and was a major force for VMPI. 'Practice of putting kids in inferior classes must end'.

That doesn’t mean “reduce math for all”. That was an effort to expand options. Killed by Republican propaganda.

That is not true at all.

Parents across the political and racial spectrum opposed VMPI because it was terrible policy and would have severely damaged the quality of public education in Virginia.

Agreed. VMPI did have a component that was focused on potentially expanding math options at the 11th and 12th grade levels, but it was also stated that they wanted to deemphasize calculus in HS and up until 11th grade were going to have classes where everyone taking the same classes, no acceleration/different levels. When there was an outcry about that, they tried to backpedal and say they wouldn't prohibit districts from acceleration, but it couldn't recover and got killed with the Younkin administration.

Untrue. They always included AP/IB and never said districts couldn’t accelerate kids. Someone mentioned detracking was a trend in math and (politically motivated) people falsely claimed VADOE was going to “ban” acceleration. Even if that were true, they hadn’t even come up with a proposal yet for public review.

The “public outcry” was a political machination. Maybe some gullible people joined in but at the root it was a GOP attack on education.

This is always being claimed on here, but it ignores what Loudoun implemented after close discussion with Tina Mazzacane and the VMPI group. They published a new math pathways chart, with a video titled introducing VMPI. They eliminated 6th grade algebra, and county staff said their goal was to eliminate 6th grade prealgebra, and that they believed it was important to eliminate tracking for equity reasons. Somehow Tina Mazzacane didn't respond as you are doing that there is nothing here about eliminating acceleration.

Cutting 6th grade algebra isn’t eliminating acceleration. Kids could still accelerate by 2 grade levels.

This is true, but parent has to be college educated, leaving URM parents at a disadvantage. Since evidence shows 6th graders who have taken Algebra 1 have nothing but As, why not provide that option to all.

The kids getting Bs in 7th grade algebra or Ds in 8th grade algebra, you think would get As if they took in 6th grade?

Please avoid lumping advanced learner URM students with remedial URM students. While there's more than ample remedial support for URM students who need it, there's a lack of encouragement and pathways for URM fast learners. It appears equity politics purposefully label URM students as nothing more than remedial caliber, to justify the equity movement. It's disheartening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pushing kids to advance in math earlier and earlier is a race to nowhere. 6th grade algebra should be a very rare exception.

Everyone is thinking about their own kid. What about equity? Parents of fast learners should be a little patient and allow the class to sail together. If fast learners all move into Algebra 1 class in 6th grade, then that would leave the regular 6th grade math kids relatively behind. There is a lot of equity research that says fast learners are able to learn fast because of their affluent parents.

It's not just about learning the material, it's learning how to learn. By telling a set of students "nobody can learn new things until the very last person catches up" you're going to have some kids just sitting there all year learning nothing. If you put a kid in a multi-year educational time-out, what happens when it then becomes time for the kid to apply themselves? They've missed out on years of learning how to struggle through a problem and persevere. This happens to a lot of high-achieving children - when they finally find something they struggle with they flounder mightily, because they were never building up those skills.

Additionally, your post makes it sound like acceleration is a *reward*, which we shouldn't give to kids of affluent parents because it's not something they earned. You ignore the fact that it's what those kids *need*.

It's really sad, because there are structural barriers that an equity movement based on ensuring equal opportunity for all should really focus on (Like removing the fee to take the TJ test - that was a great move!) But the tactic of "all the kids need to slow down and wait for others to catch up" is a terrible way to address the issues. We should be focused on adding additional support to help kids who are behind catch up, not stopping high performers from reaching for their potential just because it widens the gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

People may not realize this, but only 5 or 6 AAP centers allow kids to skip up to 6th grade AAP math while in 5th. If your kid doesn't attend one of those centers, you're out of luck.

Which AAP centers allow it, if you don't mind sharing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not true. The issue in SF was around when kids could take Algebra 1, not the content of data science. And even that is not a valid comparison because VADOE never proposed eliminating Algebra 1 from middle schools. In fact, they were discussing having all kids take at least Algebra 1 content by 8th grade.

Twisting the truth is certainly a Republican tactic.

VADOE was the one twisting the truth. They acknowledged in their later sessions that there would be prealgebra content in their 8th grade materials. Which was obvious as you can't take kids deemed not ready for algebra and suddenly have them taking algebra. The reality is they were following the SF path of putting algebra in 9th grade and hiding it behind blended classes called Math 8.9.10

False. They also never said that school districts couldn’t accelerate. They always included AP and IB which do require acceleration.

It’s ridiculous to extrapolate out that the entire state of VA would follow in the path of a single school district in CA. School districts in VA are very diverse and have always had a great amount of autonomy to craft a curriculum that best meets the needs of their community.

It’s also notable that the conservatives didn’t freak out when Alabama rolled out some concepts from Catalyzing Change/NCTM.
https://www.alabamaachieves.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2019-Alabama-Mathematics-COS-Rev.-6-2021.pdf

It’s all politically motivated faux outrage.

They never said specifically the words "districts can't accelerate" but they did say things like, heterogeneus classes will be used, everyone will take math 8 in grade 8, 9 in 9th, 10 in 10th (which would be a reorganization of those courses current content); that advanced learners would be handled by teachers using "differentiation" instead of jumping ahead; that studies showed that some students that took AP calc would end up re-taking it in college anyways so it wasn't important to push high schoolers to take it;

Sure, they didn't explicitly say "no acceleration" or "no calculus" but they definitely implied and said that calculus in HS was not a priority/desirable; Also, for those of us who could think this through, it was pretty obvious that taking the current 8th, 9th (Algebra), and 10th (geometry) standard classes, then mixing them up for those grades, then giving you 11th and 12th grade to take whatever math classes you wanted, was not going to put you on a path to take calc in HS (because both Algebra II and Precalc are year-long courses - so you'd run out of time to take all the Calc prereqs unless you took a second math class somewhere, or took something over the summer, which would condense a year's worth of learning into 10 weeks.)

So sure. the words "districts can't accelerate" weren't uttered, but when they said "this is what we're doing" it was very clear that acceleration was not part of the structure; they weren't trying to hide this until there was public outcry, then they tried to be a little more sneaky and say things like "districts still can accelerate" but there still wasn't room for it in their plan.

The town halls might still be on youtube. Anyone can go watch them and see. It's not just republican extremists; there's lots of liberals on this forum who just happen to care about their kids' educations. Hell, there was a highly respected state university STEM professor on one of the Q&A sessions taking them to task over this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take a look at the E3 pilot. And Tina Mazzacane works for FCPS and was a major force for VMPI. 'Practice of putting kids in inferior classes must end'.

That doesn’t mean “reduce math for all”. That was an effort to expand options. Killed by Republican propaganda.

That is not true at all.

Parents across the political and racial spectrum opposed VMPI because it was terrible policy and would have severely damaged the quality of public education in Virginia.

Agreed. VMPI did have a component that was focused on potentially expanding math options at the 11th and 12th grade levels, but it was also stated that they wanted to deemphasize calculus in HS and up until 11th grade were going to have classes where everyone taking the same classes, no acceleration/different levels. When there was an outcry about that, they tried to backpedal and say they wouldn't prohibit districts from acceleration, but it couldn't recover and got killed with the Younkin administration.

Untrue. They always included AP/IB and never said districts couldn’t accelerate kids. Someone mentioned detracking was a trend in math and (politically motivated) people falsely claimed VADOE was going to “ban” acceleration. Even if that were true, they hadn’t even come up with a proposal yet for public review.

The “public outcry” was a political machination. Maybe some gullible people joined in but at the root it was a GOP attack on education.

This is always being claimed on here, but it ignores what Loudoun implemented after close discussion with Tina Mazzacane and the VMPI group. They published a new math pathways chart, with a video titled introducing VMPI. They eliminated 6th grade algebra, and county staff said their goal was to eliminate 6th grade prealgebra, and that they believed it was important to eliminate tracking for equity reasons. Somehow Tina Mazzacane didn't respond as you are doing that there is nothing here about eliminating acceleration.

Cutting 6th grade algebra isn’t eliminating acceleration. Kids could still accelerate by 2 grade levels.

This is true, but parent has to be college educated, leaving URM parents at a disadvantage. Since evidence shows 6th graders who have taken Algebra 1 have nothing but As, why not provide that option to all.

It's quite clear now that this person is just trolling.

Nah, I vote for some tiger parent taking the equity angle because they think it might be persuasive to some, but since they are not very familiar with the cultural context, they just spew racist cliches.

You have no credibility. Imagine if people referred to parents who don't pursue academics at home as "monkey parents" who want to play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not true. The issue in SF was around when kids could take Algebra 1, not the content of data science. And even that is not a valid comparison because VADOE never proposed eliminating Algebra 1 from middle schools. In fact, they were discussing having all kids take at least Algebra 1 content by 8th grade.

Twisting the truth is certainly a Republican tactic.

VADOE was the one twisting the truth. They acknowledged in their later sessions that there would be prealgebra content in their 8th grade materials. Which was obvious as you can't take kids deemed not ready for algebra and suddenly have them taking algebra. The reality is they were following the SF path of putting algebra in 9th grade and hiding it behind blended classes called Math 8.9.10

False. They also never said that school districts couldn’t accelerate. They always included AP and IB which do require acceleration.

It’s ridiculous to extrapolate out that the entire state of VA would follow in the path of a single school district in CA. School districts in VA are very diverse and have always had a great amount of autonomy to craft a curriculum that best meets the needs of their community.

It’s also notable that the conservatives didn’t freak out when Alabama rolled out some concepts from Catalyzing Change/NCTM.
https://www.alabamaachieves.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2019-Alabama-Mathematics-COS-Rev.-6-2021.pdf

It’s all politically motivated faux outrage.

They never said specifically the words "districts can't accelerate" but they did say things like, heterogeneus classes will be used, everyone will take math 8 in grade 8, 9 in 9th, 10 in 10th (which would be a reorganization of those courses current content); that advanced learners would be handled by teachers using "differentiation" instead of jumping ahead; that studies showed that some students that took AP calc would end up re-taking it in college anyways so it wasn't important to push high schoolers to take it;

Sure, they didn't explicitly say "no acceleration" or "no calculus" but they definitely implied and said that calculus in HS was not a priority/desirable; Also, for those of us who could think this through, it was pretty obvious that taking the current 8th, 9th (Algebra), and 10th (geometry) standard classes, then mixing them up for those grades, then giving you 11th and 12th grade to take whatever math classes you wanted, was not going to put you on a path to take calc in HS (because both Algebra II and Precalc are year-long courses - so you'd run out of time to take all the Calc prereqs unless you took a second math class somewhere, or took something over the summer, which would condense a year's worth of learning into 10 weeks.)

So sure. the words "districts can't accelerate" weren't uttered, but when they said "this is what we're doing" it was very clear that acceleration was not part of the structure; they weren't trying to hide this until there was public outcry, then they tried to be a little more sneaky and say things like "districts still can accelerate" but there still wasn't room for it in their plan.

The town halls might still be on youtube. Anyone can go watch them and see. It's not just republican extremists; there's lots of liberals on this forum who just happen to care about their kids' educations. Hell, there was a highly respected state university STEM professor on one of the Q&A sessions taking them to task over this.

Detracking was minimally discussed.

If detracking were such a critical part of the ideas they were tossing around they would have included it on the infographic. It wasn’t.

They did however include AP/IB on the infographic from day 1.

And they weren’t saying “this is what we are doing”, they said “we are very early in a years-long process that will eventually develop a proposal for public feedback. Right now we are just starting conversations with stakeholders”.

And they never define what or how districts accelerate. Even today. Go look at the current VDOE SOLs - it doesn’t lay that out for school districts. School districts have always had the autonomy to define their own classes and accelerate students as needed. The only thing defined by VDOE today are standards for Math 6, Math 7, etc. And yet those are not the only classes offered - many school district offer advanced and accelerated options.

Maybe some gullible people got caught up in it but the falsehoods and outrageous speculation around it were definitely pushed hard by the RWNJs. Including Youngkin.

[Anonymous]

Teach everyone on the same level and remove barriers like test and grades - both suppresses equitable access .

Anonymous wrote:What FCPS needs is a policy similar to what texas has implemented to encourage students to take on advanced math in middle school. The texas state law now requires school districts and charter schools to automatically enroll fifth graders who score in the top 40% on the state standardized math test in advanced math in sixth grade. Families can opt their children out of the advanced class if they choose.

"research has found that students who take four years of math in high school are twice as likely to get a postsecondary credential, such as a certificate, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree. Students whose fourth year of math is a college-aligned course are six times as likely to get a postsecondary credential."

https://www.kut.org/education/2023-06-28/kids-are-probably-better-at-math-than-they-think-a-new-texas-law-could-help-them-realize-it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teach everyone on the same level and remove barriers like test and grades - both suppresses equitable access .

Anonymous wrote:What FCPS needs is a policy similar to what texas has implemented to encourage students to take on advanced math in middle school. The texas state law now requires school districts and charter schools to automatically enroll fifth graders who score in the top 40% on the state standardized math test in advanced math in sixth grade. Families can opt their children out of the advanced class if they choose.

"research has found that students who take four years of math in high school are twice as likely to get a postsecondary credential, such as a certificate, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree. Students whose fourth year of math is a college-aligned course are six times as likely to get a postsecondary credential."

https://www.kut.org/education/2023-06-28/kids-are-probably-better-at-math-than-they-think-a-new-texas-law-could-help-them-realize-it

Why not go back to the one-room schoolhouse? Literally teach them all on the same level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems disappointing that the major of AAP kids do not get into Algebra 1 in 7th grade. Shouldn’t that have been the aim of AAP? Here’s this set of kids (many whom have had Kumon classes since Pre-K) not able to perform well enough to get Algebra in 7th.

+1. It’s very telling. These kids are in so-called advanced math, take lots of tutoring and outside math, and still fail to make the advancement from math6/7 to Algebra. Either the kids are not really accelerated/capable or the teaching is awful. Or both!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take a look at the E3 pilot. And Tina Mazzacane works for FCPS and was a major force for VMPI. 'Practice of putting kids in inferior classes must end'.

That doesn’t mean “reduce math for all”. That was an effort to expand options. Killed by Republican propaganda.

That is not true at all.

Parents across the political and racial spectrum opposed VMPI because it was terrible policy and would have severely damaged the quality of public education in Virginia.

Agreed. VMPI did have a component that was focused on potentially expanding math options at the 11th and 12th grade levels, but it was also stated that they wanted to deemphasize calculus in HS and up until 11th grade were going to have classes where everyone taking the same classes, no acceleration/different levels. When there was an outcry about that, they tried to backpedal and say they wouldn't prohibit districts from acceleration, but it couldn't recover and got killed with the Younkin administration.

Untrue. They always included AP/IB and never said districts couldn’t accelerate kids. Someone mentioned detracking was a trend in math and (politically motivated) people falsely claimed VADOE was going to “ban” acceleration. Even if that were true, they hadn’t even come up with a proposal yet for public review.

The “public outcry” was a political machination. Maybe some gullible people joined in but at the root it was a GOP attack on education.

This is always being claimed on here, but it ignores what Loudoun implemented after close discussion with Tina Mazzacane and the VMPI group. They published a new math pathways chart, with a video titled introducing VMPI. They eliminated 6th grade algebra, and county staff said their goal was to eliminate 6th grade prealgebra, and that they believed it was important to eliminate tracking for equity reasons. Somehow Tina Mazzacane didn't respond as you are doing that there is nothing here about eliminating acceleration.

Cutting 6th grade algebra isn’t eliminating acceleration. Kids could still accelerate by 2 grade levels.

This is true, but parent has to be college educated, leaving URM parents at a disadvantage. Since evidence shows 6th graders who have taken Algebra 1 have nothing but As, why not provide that option to all.

The kids getting Bs in 7th grade algebra or Ds in 8th grade algebra, you think would get As if they took in 6th grade?

Please avoid lumping advanced learner URM students with remedial URM students. While there's more than ample remedial support for URM students who need it, there's a lack of encouragement and pathways for URM fast learners. It appears equity politics purposefully label URM students as nothing more than remedial caliber, to justify the equity movement. It's disheartening.

The previous poster was suggesting that since 6th graders taking algbera get As, all students should be placed in algebra in 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe some gullible people got caught up in it but the falsehoods and outrageous speculation around it were definitely pushed hard by the RWNJs. Including Youngkin.

Gullible enough to listen to what they were saying and what they were pushing on their website. One person posted here an e-mail received from Tina Mazzacane explaining what they were doing.
"VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated."
She put up a poll in one seminar and when teachers objected to detracking, she said 'We still have a lot of work to do."

They only backtracked after Ian Serotkin posted Loudoun's math pathways graphic to Facebook, and it appeared on Fox News. And the governor realized it could hurt McAuliffe's campaign.
They also canceled the planned video of math and equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe some gullible people got caught up in it but the falsehoods and outrageous speculation around it were definitely pushed hard by the RWNJs. Including Youngkin.

Gullible enough to listen to what they were saying and what they were pushing on their website. One person posted here an e-mail received from Tina Mazzacane explaining what they were doing.
"VMPI proposals do promote equity and that the practice of isolating low-achieving students in low-level or slower-paced mathematics groups should be eliminated."
She put up a poll in one seminar and when teachers objected to detracking, she said 'We still have a lot of work to do."

They only backtracked after Ian Serotkin posted Loudoun's math pathways graphic to Facebook, and it appeared on Fox News. And the governor realized it could hurt McAuliffe's campaign.
They also canceled the planned video of math and equity.

Right. The RWNJs pushed falsehoods and wild speculation in an effort to garner votes.

Speaking of wild speculation…even if that email were true, that doesn’t mean VDOE would “ban” districts from offering advanced/acceleration options.

Instead of having a rational discussion about updating the math standards, the right made VMPI some kind of boogeyman that had to be destroyed. Even today people still think it’s a thing. Look at this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s ridiculous to extrapolate out that the entire state of VA would follow in the path of a single school district in CA.

They weren't following the school district. Both were following from common sources pushing detracking. They even had some of these sources on their website. And of course you support the same detracking.