Reply to VADOE adjustments to advanced math track

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[quote=pettifogger][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know how to properly use Logits, Probits, Regressions, and can run simultaneous equations with the best of them. I know the diagnostic tools to run, what questions to ask to use the best fit and most approrpiate method, how to correct various issues. I never had calculus and I cannot do the proofs for the various probability distributions and applications but I can still understand the stats and how to use them properly.

There is a lot you can do in this world without calculus.

DS is on track for Algebra in 7th grade and will take Calculus and other advanced math because he loves math. He loves the competitions and he wants to do math. Which is great. More power to him.

There is already a math track that includes data and stats that is not Calculus based so I am not so certain why we need to adjust this. Maybeit is more about adjusting parents expectations and how we guide students then changing the existing tracks.[/quote]

As the skeptical person you were probably responding to, it's not that I don't think someone can do data science without calculus, [b]it's that I think a high school class in data science without calculus isn't going to be worth anything[/b]. The "data science" pathway, as described, was intended for populations like pre-nursing students, and was not intended to require a stats background. The course would have to be *really* watered down in order to not fail the significant fraction of the students who couldn't make heads or tails of e.g. using Python to clean up a dataset, and it would have been. [/quote]

Really? I'd say that stats and programming are core skills for "data science", but not calculus. The vast majority of work does not involve calculus. 
[/quote]

Once can certainly do plenty of stuff without calculus, but the main problem is that it's very hard to understand what anything really means without a good understanding of statistics. And it's very hard to understand statistics without a good grounding in probability. And it's very hard to understand things like continuous probability distributions without calculus. I think the point is that the students are very likely going to be taught by rote in a data science class, to the point where they will likely not have much of an idea about what they are doing. Additionally if the focus would be less on data science and more on the practical aspect of working with data (due to the lack of mathematics/calculus experience mentioned above), then they will have to teach the students how to manipulate data effectively, which is not a trivial task to teach to students without some good prior programming experience.

It's a tricky thing to try to effectively teach data science and they should have a solid plan for doing that, otherwise it could be a completely watered down experience. I would suggest that having some sort of programming background/class should be a prerequisite as a minimum.[/quote]

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