It's pretty clear that everyone educated themselves on this topic (by visiting the website, reading the provided materials, and attending the town halls) and all of us came to the same conclusion. This wasn't hysteria - it was legitimate concern about a (probably well meaning yet) lousy proposal. No amount of you trolling these forums to claim we're all crazy is going to change that. That said, I think your above point is correct - they didn't get it past the public reviews and it lost any support it had from the GA/governor because it was hugely unpopular (because of the lousy components). Keep in mind - when you're claiming it was "all about giving people extra choices" - nobody was really balking at that. I mean sure, there were some legitimate complaints about how you can't really teach data science without a good calc background, but let's ignore that for a minute. In general, people had some questions about logistics (how are you going to find the teachers to offer all of these) but nobody really hated the idea of 'here are some extra math options for kids who don't want calclus' What people hated was the heterogeneous classrooms - the 'tracking is bad', 'teachers can just differentiate' - and the elimination of a standard path to calculus (sure, schools could have offered calc, but logistically there wasn't time to teach the alg2/trig/precalc content without summer classes under the 8-10 esentials concepts system) |
Just because the thread was deleted doesn't mean it's gone. I remember what you posted, and probably have it saved in my notes. |
Sure, Tina. Sure. |
but the premed and prelaw bachelor degree subjects require calculus. |
The only Social Science that I can think of that would require calculus is Economics. I taught Political Science, heck I taught research methods for Political Science, and all anyone needed for a BA was basic Algebra. Some graduate schools that are more quant based require a knowledge of basic calculus but those programs are not all that common. Realistically, you can learn regression and maximum likelihood estimation and the like without knowing Calculus because you are using the computer to crunch the numbers. You do need to have a good understanding of Probability and Statistics. I cannot think of a Pre-Law program that would require Calculus or why a Pre-Law program would require Calculus. Calculus is known for being a gatekeeper course in colleges for Engineering majors and for Science majors. It is not that easy and it is used to weed out students who are not willing to attend class, complete homework, and put in some effort. Most of the science majors have a second gatekeeping class, think Organic Chemistry, but Calculus is on that list for a reason. Not every school or program uses it that way but a good number do. |
Did you listen to the webinars they did on it and email them follow up questions? I did. Making all the kids do the same math classes until 10 was a core part of what they were talking about doing. |
+1 This. Exactly. All of it. |
Way off. Calculus is a service course provided by math department to other majors. It's required because it's necessary material for those majors, not as a weed out. |
The math department offers the class, yes, and plenty of other majors include it as a requirement to weed students out of specific majors. This is not exactly new information. |
Calculus is not required at community colleges. But any decent university college, first level calc is required. Law schools see that as taking on rigor instead of shying away from it. As the saying goes, a student was afraid of blood and scared of math, so they joined a law school. |
Harvard and Yale undergrad do not require calculus. They have excellent law school admissions from humanities majors. |
I taught at 3 Universities and none of them required every student take Calculus. Calculus is not a graduation requirement for all students at any University that I know of. There are specific majors that require Calculus but that is limited. |
FCPS doesnt require anything more than Algebra 2 to graduate. There are many career pathways that dont need taking anymore math. But why restrict access to others who want to pursue advanced and accelerated math for equity reasons? Especially URMs. |
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And on the flip side, there are plenty of (STEM) majors in which not having calculus puts students at a disadvantage. |