Unconventional teacher builds top math program at ordinary FL school

[Anonymous]

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:
I don't want to detract from Buchholz and his math team's achievements (which are still impressive), but calling them greatest by the WSJ is not only meaningless without specific measures, but also just plain misinformed when compared to other elite high school math contests such as the AMCs and HMMT. Even at the middle school level, one will find many challenging questions on recent years of the national Mathcounts round that are significantly more difficult than what is found on the MAT.

I agree with everything you've posted, but it is worth noting that Buchholz had a very impressive performance on the AMCs, as well. They had over 20 AIME qualifiers from the AMC 12A alone.

Greatest math team in the country? No. Greatest math team in a low-middle income smallish town? Quite possibly.

Given the size of their math team and the amount of consistent, targeted practice, I'd definitely expect them to have multiple AMC qualifiers. Studying for the AMC would also provide benefits to improving on the MAT, and vice-versa, so it's in their best interest to tackle problems at the AMC level. However, I would not expect there to be very many kids that can pass the AIME and have some significant score at the olympiads. There should likely be a few, but not a significant number, unless they also target it (which requires additional skillsets than what's on the MAT, and significantly more time to learn more math).

If you have access to professor's kids through this, I'm less impressed. Also the low-middle income town factor makes it more likely to work in some ways because there are fewer competing activities so you can have this intensive focus.

[Anonymous]

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, to sum up, a math teacher who can “scout” his own students from a bunch of college professors’ kids wins math competitions? Wow. Call me when he gets a random group of kids and can do the same thing.

You are missing the point. Why is his team dominating all the other teams who also have top talent?

The answer is because he taps that potential at an early age, pushes those kids to maximizes and reach their full potential at every stage. Rinse and repeat.

Same as in the movie Stand & Deliver, which was based on an actual teacher. He achieved crazy impressive results with kids that most others had written off.

I'm quite surprised that given how interesting and catchy this article is, nobody here seems to have bothered to do a bit of research and just simply believed the headline "How a Public School in Florida Built America’s Greatest Math Team" :

When someone claims something is the greatest, one should instinctively ask, by what measure(s)? Reading the article it seems obvious that is based on their teams winning the national championship of Mu Alpha Theta. What does that mean exactly? Or, by what measure exactly is winning Mu Alpha Theta equivalent to being the greatest? Well if we assume Mu Alpha Theta is the most difficult math exam given to high schoolers, then we can conclude that... or can we? First off, if one looks at sample questions from past MAT exams and does a comparison with sample questions from other top high school math contests, one finds that MAT questions are significantly less challenging on average. But let's assume for a second that MAT questions are right there at the top of the challenge level. We still cannot conclude anything meaningful about the greatest without checking who actually participated in these competitions which the Gainsville team won. (It turns out that not many top math teams at elite high schools are that interested in MAT, their normal target is the AMC exams (because they lead to the Olympiad and ultimately the IMO), as well as HMMT, ARML and a few other contests that are historically ultra competitive, prestigious, and known to be difficult). Additionally, if you look at MAT participation rates, most schools come from Florida; it is something that is very popular there, but not necessarily in the whole country.

I don't want to detract from Buchholz and his math team's achievements (which are still impressive), but calling them greatest by the WSJ is not only meaningless without specific measures, but also just plain misinformed when compared to other elite high school math contests such as the AMCs and HMMT. Even at the middle school level, one will find many challenging questions on recent years of the national Mathcounts round that are significantly more difficult than what is found on the MAT.

The rest of the information about how he did it is now easy to piece together. They were obviously able to win so much because not only were they not competing at the highest levels as described above, but they also dedicated an incredible amount of time to practicing MAT questions/topics. For those who have not looked into the details, Buchholz shortly after finding success was at some point given thousands of dollars in funding by private individuals to continue the ability to win, and has consequently used that funding to grow and build a math culture over the years at the school (not unlike what a competitive sports team coach would do). That means that once he became well known for winning, he used that to tap into the most promising students from elementary and middle school to ensure they attend his math team via tryouts/tests, he regularly runs quite long summer camps that meet for multiple weeks and multiple hours a day working on math contests, and he has even been allowed to offer high school courses taken for credit at the school which literally are built from MAT problems (i.e a precalc course would teach the same topics a normal standard precalc course does, but using MAT problems and similar other contest problems, one can see these course descriptions in the school handbook). Additionally, many of these kids are from well off families, which is no surprise, as others above have mentioned, so this is not even close to a Stand and Deliver situation with "written off" kids.

This is all available on the web by googling and is quite interesting, so I'm still surprised nobody filled in these details. Again, I don't want to detract from what he has achieved which is still quite hard to do, as well as the fact that these kids obviously have learned a lot of math beneficial to them later in life, which is a great thing. (I would love to have my kids attend his program instead of FCPS, if I had the choice). But people should in general in this country call out meaningless comparisons and fill in the details more, otherwise we run the risk of continuing to become a misinformed society.

Take a look at what the racial composition is, from this news article's picture:

https://www.mainstreetdailynews.com/education/buchholz-math-wins-national-title

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would call Buchholtz a pretty average high school. Buchholtz High School does not offer AAP or IB curriculum. Eastside High School in Gainesville offers the AAP and the IB curriculum. Oak Hall, a private high school also has a lot of the professor's kids.

Kids attending Buchholtz are not on the AAP or IB track.

When I was in Gainesville, Buchholz was the wealthiest of the three public high schools.

[Anonymous]

More evidence in support of the AAP center model. Sticking smart kids together will help them. Level 4 at every school will not produce the best results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would call Buchholtz a pretty average high school. Buchholtz High School does not offer AAP or IB curriculum. Eastside High School in Gainesville offers the AAP and the IB curriculum. Oak Hall, a private high school also has a lot of the professor's kids.

Kids attending Buchholtz are not on the AAP or IB track.

When I was in Gainesville, Buchholz was the wealthiest of the three public high schools.

I'm the Prior prior poster. I forgot to mention GHS, Gainesville High School. I agree that Buchholtz pulls from wealthier families than GHS.

Eastside High School has the AAP kids, the IB kids, the culinary school kids, and the poors. The low incomes from the poor families skew down
the family wealth numbers of the AAP kids and the IB kids at Eastside. The highest achieving professor kids are at Eastside not Buchhotz.

Another high school in town is PK Yonge the lab school associated with the University of Florida. It also draws a lot of professor kids and you have to be accepted to attend PK Yonge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always thought tracking was a good thing. It’s what they had when I was in school.

Yep. And proof that SES is not the sole determinant for academic success that people on here like to claim it is.

Research says tracking benefits high achievers but not low achievers, generally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, to sum up, a math teacher who can “scout” his own students from a bunch of college professors’ kids wins math competitions? Wow. Call me when he gets a random group of kids and can do the same thing.

Holy Stand and Deliver!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More evidence in support of the AAP center model. Sticking smart kids together will help them. Level 4 at every school will not produce the best results.

Sticking the smartest kids from each school together might benefit them a little but at everyone else's expense.

[Anonymous]

Would love to see the racial makeup of their team. Lots of wheat-colored skin and dark hair.

[Anonymous]

Ha ha! Yes, Asians do very well. So the unconventional White teacher basically did what APlus and Dr. Li do here? LOL!





The Buchholz High School (BHS) math team earned its 14th national championship at the 2022 Mu Alpha Theta Convention held in Alexandria, Virginia, last week.

According to an Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) press release, Buchholz claimed the title scoring 7,157 total points. Runner-up American Heritage-Broward tallied 6,964 points. Teams earn points based on their members’ performance in both team and individual categories that cover advanced topics such as Analytic Geometry, Logs and Exponents, Open Probability and Combinatorics, and Calculus.

BHS won a total of 304 trophies—both a school and a Mu Alpha Theta competition record— with many of the team members bringing home first-place awards.

Coach and Buchholz math teacher Will Frazer said the team got off to a poor start on the first day of the competition.

“I think we had a lot of complacency,” he said. “We had a team meeting that night and after that everyone really elevated their attitude and focus and we kicked it into high gear.”

The older team members in the Calculus/Mu division performed as well or better than any group he’s ever had on the team, Frazer said.

The Buchholz team earned a spot in the national competition after winning its 15th Florida championship in April. BHS has now won 14 out of the last 15 national championships and the team’s win came just a day after an article in the Wall Street Journal chronicled the success of the Buchholz math team and its outreach to younger students under Frazer’s leadership.


The Buchholz students earning first place awards at the national competition include:

Sweepstakes (Relay): Kevin He, Hailey Lin, and Eileen Lai

Poster–Alpha Division: Katie He, Andrew Xing, Philip Matchev, and Thomas Wu; Mu Division: Jake Frazer, Kevin He, Samuel Kim, and Nicholas Dang

Vijay Hans-Theta Logs and Exponents

Vijay Hans-Theta Gemini

Ben Zhang-Theta Geometry

Ronald Zhang-Theta Circumference Perimeter Area and Volume

Katie He-Alpha Sequence and Series

Katie He-Alpha Complex Numbers

Katie He-Alpha Analytic Geometry

Hailey Lin-Alpha Gemini

Philip Matchev-Alpha Monumental Math

Thomas Wu-Alpha Equations and Inequalities

Andrew Xing-Alpha Trigonometry

Andrew Xing-Open Mental Math

Andrew Xing-Alpha Ciphering

Jake Frazer-Mu Integration

Jake Frazer-Mu Sequence and Series

Jake Frazer-Mu Ciphering

Jake Frazer-Mu composite

Jake Frazer-Mu Comic Sans

Terrence Han-Open History of Math

Kevin He-Mu Individual

Kevin He-Mu BC Calculus

Alan Qiu-Open Comprehensive

Tucker Shea-Open Probability and Combinatorics

Daniel Wang-Open Physics

Jeffrey Xue and Keen Zhang-Open Gemini

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, to sum up, a math teacher who can “scout” his own students from a bunch of college professors’ kids wins math competitions? Wow. Call me when he gets a random group of kids and can do the same thing.

It's disturbing that people don't realize this is rigged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, to sum up, a math teacher who can “scout” his own students from a bunch of college professors’ kids wins math competitions? Wow. Call me when he gets a random group of kids and can do the same thing.

It's disturbing that people don't realize this is rigged.

and are using this to promote the idea that the slow kids need to be kept away from the bright kids.

I have a bright kid with an IEP who was always stuck in the lowest level classes. They got the worst teachers. His freshman english class was useless. He said they learned nothing and repeated the same grammar lesson again and again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha ha! Yes, Asians do very well. So the unconventional White teacher basically did what APlus and Dr. Li do here? LOL!





The Buchholz High School (BHS) math team earned its 14th national championship at the 2022 Mu Alpha Theta Convention held in Alexandria, Virginia, last week.

According to an Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) press release, Buchholz claimed the title scoring 7,157 total points. Runner-up American Heritage-Broward tallied 6,964 points. Teams earn points based on their members’ performance in both team and individual categories that cover advanced topics such as Analytic Geometry, Logs and Exponents, Open Probability and Combinatorics, and Calculus.

BHS won a total of 304 trophies—both a school and a Mu Alpha Theta competition record— with many of the team members bringing home first-place awards.

Coach and Buchholz math teacher Will Frazer said the team got off to a poor start on the first day of the competition.

“I think we had a lot of complacency,” he said. “We had a team meeting that night and after that everyone really elevated their attitude and focus and we kicked it into high gear.”

The older team members in the Calculus/Mu division performed as well or better than any group he’s ever had on the team, Frazer said.

The Buchholz team earned a spot in the national competition after winning its 15th Florida championship in April. BHS has now won 14 out of the last 15 national championships and the team’s win came just a day after an article in the Wall Street Journal chronicled the success of the Buchholz math team and its outreach to younger students under Frazer’s leadership.


The Buchholz students earning first place awards at the national competition include:

Sweepstakes (Relay): Kevin He, Hailey Lin, and Eileen Lai

Poster–Alpha Division: Katie He, Andrew Xing, Philip Matchev, and Thomas Wu; Mu Division: Jake Frazer, Kevin He, Samuel Kim, and Nicholas Dang

Vijay Hans-Theta Logs and Exponents

Vijay Hans-Theta Gemini

Ben Zhang-Theta Geometry

Ronald Zhang-Theta Circumference Perimeter Area and Volume

Katie He-Alpha Sequence and Series

Katie He-Alpha Complex Numbers

Katie He-Alpha Analytic Geometry

Hailey Lin-Alpha Gemini

Philip Matchev-Alpha Monumental Math

Thomas Wu-Alpha Equations and Inequalities

Andrew Xing-Alpha Trigonometry

Andrew Xing-Open Mental Math

Andrew Xing-Alpha Ciphering

Jake Frazer-Mu Integration

Jake Frazer-Mu Sequence and Series

Jake Frazer-Mu Ciphering

Jake Frazer-Mu composite

Jake Frazer-Mu Comic Sans

Terrence Han-Open History of Math

Kevin He-Mu Individual

Kevin He-Mu BC Calculus

Alan Qiu-Open Comprehensive

Tucker Shea-Open Probability and Combinatorics

Daniel Wang-Open Physics

Jeffrey Xue and Keen Zhang-Open Gemini

Unconventional teacher by butt.

[Anonymous]

As I posted earlier, the national championship comes from the total score of all students. They benefitted from having a large team. When my school went to a regional, we had 6 students on our team, while some other schools had close to 100. We were nowhere close to the championship despite having several first place trophies in individual events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As I posted earlier, the national championship comes from the total score of all students. They benefitted from having a large team. When my school went to a regional, we had 6 students on our team, while some other schools had close to 100. We were nowhere close to the championship despite having several first place trophies in individual events.

It's clearly rigged. What a boat load of bluster for this "top" math program in Fl.