Is FCPS ending advance math for students who are not in AAP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s crazy that a teacher posted and provided helpful insight and someone decided to post more political talking points. Ugh. Don’t even pretend this thread isn’t just a political bashing.

There's no Democratic or Republican way to do math. As the Stanford and Berkeley STEM professors who led the push against the CMF have repeatedly pointed out, Boaler and the folks who push math reform want to try to wrap their ideology in some sort of political veneer and brand the other side as Trumpers (they don't want to talk about evidence because then you'll see the lack of any). But it's BS and folks tons of progressives oppose this non-evidenced based ideology too, like Ro Khanna.

And a teacher's stories are nice to hear, but let's see the actual data. San Francisco's most ideological math teachers were proclaiming how great of a success that their Algebra for None policy was, and their math faculty head toured the country, touting its success. Lo and behold, they were lying and pushing false data. Political pressure caused SFUSD to have a Stanford ed professor do research on it, exposing it for the fraud it is. SF's school board will vote in February to bring back Algebra for 8th graders. Here's that Stanford study:
https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai23-734.pdf

And groups like NCTM (and their allies at E3 and the Dana Center) are generally silent even though they pushed that false data for years - you can still watch this PD webinar from December 2022 on the "Success Story" of San Francisco's Algebra for None policy (SF parents raised issues in the press about that data in May 2021). The Stanford study came out in March 2023, but NCTM is still going with it.

NCTM was a huge pusher of VMPI - the SOLE CITE for VMPI was NCTM's Catalyzing Change, which is full of misleading cites similar to the CMF. In the first video, the Virginia Math head solely cited a Tweet of Jo Boaler for why heterogenous classes are supposedly better (a 100% misleading statement) - then proceeded to do an online poll of the teachers on the video conference, who overwhelmingly voted that heterogenous classes aren't better. NCTM then had executive appear in the 2nd video conference for VMPI.
https://www.nctm.org/online-learning/Webinars/Details/629

FCPS has this great focus on and push for Algebra readiness for 8th grade this school year. I had heard their math heads were opposed, but got overruled.

Opposed to Algebra readiness for 8th grade so kids can take Calculus by senior year to be eligible for STEM careers? The only people who are opposed to this are people drinking the Boaler Kool-aid.

Speaking of politics, Cory Booker and Joaquin Castro have proposed a great bill to push for expansion of Algebra readiness by 8th grade.
https://castro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/castro-booker-introduce-bicameral-bill-to-expand-advanced-coursework-opportunities-for-underrepresented-students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s crazy that a teacher posted and provided helpful insight and someone decided to post more political talking points. Ugh. Don’t even pretend this thread isn’t just a political bashing.

There's no Democratic or Republican way to do math. As the Stanford and Berkeley STEM professors who led the push against the CMF have repeatedly pointed out, Boaler and the folks who push math reform want to try to wrap their ideology in some sort of political veneer and brand the other side as Trumpers (they don't want to talk about evidence because then you'll see the lack of any). But it's BS and folks tons of progressives oppose this non-evidenced based ideology too, like Ro Khanna.

And a teacher's stories are nice to hear, but let's see the actual data. San Francisco's most ideological math teachers were proclaiming how great of a success that their Algebra for None policy was, and their math faculty head toured the country, touting its success. Lo and behold, they were lying and pushing false data. Political pressure caused SFUSD to have a Stanford ed professor do research on it, exposing it for the fraud it is. SF's school board will vote in February to bring back Algebra for 8th graders. Here's that Stanford study:
https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai23-734.pdf

And groups like NCTM (and their allies at E3 and the Dana Center) are generally silent even though they pushed that false data for years - you can still watch this PD webinar from December 2022 on the "Success Story" of San Francisco's Algebra for None policy (SF parents raised issues in the press about that data in May 2021). The Stanford study came out in March 2023, but NCTM is still going with it.

NCTM was a huge pusher of VMPI - the SOLE CITE for VMPI was NCTM's Catalyzing Change, which is full of misleading cites similar to the CMF. In the first video, the Virginia Math head solely cited a Tweet of Jo Boaler for why heterogenous classes are supposedly better (a 100% misleading statement) - then proceeded to do an online poll of the teachers on the video conference, who overwhelmingly voted that heterogenous classes aren't better. NCTM then had executive appear in the 2nd video conference for VMPI.
https://www.nctm.org/online-learning/Webinars/Details/629

FCPS has this great focus on and push for Algebra readiness for 8th grade this school year. I had heard their math heads were opposed, but got overruled.

Opposed to Algebra readiness for 8th grade so kids can take Calculus by senior year to be eligible for STEM careers? The only people who are opposed to this are people drinking the Boaler Kool-aid.

Speaking of politics, Cory Booker and Joaquin Castro have proposed a great bill to push for expansion of Algebra readiness by 8th grade.
https://castro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/castro-booker-introduce-bicameral-bill-to-expand-advanced-coursework-opportunities-for-underrepresented-students

E3's efforts are all about Algebra readiness for 8th grade, actually. The same people who were pushing delaying Algebra until high school a few years ago because heterogenous classes were better are now the ones pushing "heterogenous classes are better for Algebra readiness for 8th grade" for younger kids too. The ideas aren't changing, just the packaging.

[Anonymous]

8th grade is two years too late.

[Anonymous]

If FCPS truly wants more kids in Algebra they also need to do the following:

Make sure all ES have a Math Resource Teacher.

Go back to basics.

The amount of kids who come to 6th grade and don’t know how to do multiplication, division, work with fractions is problematic.

Besides the advanced math kids the Gen Ed kids are extremely below grade level in math. There are probably a few who could move to 7H next year but the gaps are large for the majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

You think all kids should take Algebra in 6th?

Go homeschool your kids and leave everyone else alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

You think all kids should take Algebra in 6th?

Go homeschool your kids and leave everyone else alone.

Algebra is an abstract math concept, best taught after children have developed abstract thinking skills usually about 10 or 11 years of age.

Although as I look around my community today, it appears that many have never developed abstract thinking skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

You think all kids should take Algebra in 6th?

Go homeschool your kids and leave everyone else alone.

Algebra is an abstract math concept, best taught after children have developed abstract thinking skills usually about 10 or 11 years of age.

Although as I look around my community today, it appears that many have never developed abstract thinking skills.

It’s more like 12 years old. You are two years too early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

what’s the rush for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

what’s the rush for?

Friend child trying for college admissions.

Stem college very competitive and many people want the college but college not increasing student body size at top school

Thus to get into the school, you need high scores with more math classrooms.

Thus people want more advance math to get into same school all people want

Race for top!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

what’s the rush for?

Friend child trying for college admissions.

Stem college very competitive and many people want the college but college not increasing student body size at top school

Thus to get into the school, you need high scores with more math classrooms.

Thus people want more advance math to get into same school all people want

Race for top!!

So race to nowhere

[Anonymous]

Take this with a huge grain of salt because it hasn’t even fully started yet, I’m relying on the word of a 3rd grade boy, and my DS has a student teacher through December (along with the regular classroom teacher) so this may allow for things to be done differently than in the past. But there is advanced math at his LLIV school this year, we got the official email from the registrar that he was selected and we have a certain amount of time to opt out. His classroom teacher is the advanced math teacher. DS said that around ~10 kids, maybe a little less, leave for math - presumably these are the on grade level math kids - and that they would be getting additional students from other classes just for math.

No clue how other schools are doing it especially centers or if you have a well established LLIV program. Our school has a pretty new LLIV and not too many families elect to go to the center as it’s a much longer bus commute.

[Anonymous]

Our 5th grade math teacher mentioned that 15 of the 75-80 kids were in the pull-out class, which is effectively a grade bump to 6th grade math. They were going to reevaluate after a round of testing. Seems reasonable to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8th grade is two years too late.

what’s the rush for?

What rush? I took Algebra in 8th grade in the 1970’s and it was the normal time, not the accelerated class. It isn’t a new thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Opposed to Algebra readiness for 8th grade so kids can take Calculus by senior year to be eligible for STEM careers? The only people who are opposed to this are people drinking the Boaler Kool-aid.

HS Math teacher. Not interested in the Boaler Kool-aid and I'm opposed to Algebra in 8th grade for all, as are many of my colleagues.
The reality is that a few kids are ready in 6th grade, some are ready by 8th and many should take an extra year to beef up their arithmetic skills and number sense and start Algebra I in high school. Instead, they're being pushed into Algebra too early and getting increasingly dismal grades. The acceleration doesn't do any good when they end up failing courses and trying to make it through Algebra II by 11th or 12th grade--we're seeing increasing numbers of students in this situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take this with a huge grain of salt because it hasn’t even fully started yet, I’m relying on the word of a 3rd grade boy, and my DS has a student teacher through December (along with the regular classroom teacher) so this may allow for things to be done differently than in the past. But there is advanced math at his LLIV school this year, we got the official email from the registrar that he was selected and we have a certain amount of time to opt out. His classroom teacher is the advanced math teacher. DS said that around ~10 kids, maybe a little less, leave for math - presumably these are the on grade level math kids - and that they would be getting additional students from other classes just for math.

No clue how other schools are doing it especially centers or if you have a well established LLIV program. Our school has a pretty new LLIV and not too many families elect to go to the center as it’s a much longer bus commute.

This is pretty typical for smaller FCPS elementary schools.