Reply to VADOE adjustments to advanced math track

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[quote=pettifogger][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Also, even if none of the kids who take an intro to data science course go on to become data scientists they will still gain skills and general knowledge that will be helpful across many industries/careers. Much more so than calculus. 
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The problem is that it would be so superficially done that none of the kids will retain a thing.  If you aren't requiring advanced math and you also aren't requiring programming skills, then the class would amount to a lot of copying code snippets that the kids don't understand to make graphs for which they would then give a superficial, general "analysis."  It really is garbage.  It's also not comparable to the UVA class, since that's a college class with college level expectations, and the supposed data science class is a high school one presumably targeting the kids weaker in math.  They won't be able to cover anything of any real substance.

AP stats is a lovely class for the kids who are good at math but don't intend a STEM major and don't want calculus.  Probability and Stats is a fine class for the kids weaker in math who don't want pre-calc or calc.  A high school data science class that does not require calculus, stats, or programming as a prerequisite will just provide a weaker option than the already existing ones, albeit with a trendy buzzword attached.  [/quote]

Data science may be "weaker" than AP stats/calculus, but it offers a lot of practical skills/knowledge that kids are [i]more[/i] likely to retain. I look at data almost every day in my professional and personal life. I never use calculus.

For most kids, these courses seem way more interesting and practical than AP stats. 
https://curriculum.idsucla.org/scope/
https://hsdatascience.youcubed.org/curriculum/

Penn & Columbia think it's a worthwhile subject for HS kids:  
https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/data-science-academy/
https://precollege.sps.columbia.edu/highschool/summer-immersion-new-york-city/courses/3-week/big-data-machine-learning-and-applied-analytics

And, finally, here is a great explanation for the importance of data science for HS kids: 
https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/wtzfot43/release/2
[i]"Even if one is not aiming to become a professional in the field, being a data-literate person is extremely important for everyday life. Data helps us be well-informed citizens and make decisions, from choosing a career path or school, to understanding the news, to knowing how we receive our music, movie, and product recommendations, and even to understanding how social media news reaffirms our political beliefs."[/i]

I would have thought that a state with thriving tech industry like VA would be trying to stay up-to-date on tech skills. But maybe we aren't as forward thinking as I assumed.
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It will depend on the curriculum and goals they come up with for the course(s). I'm skeptical at this point without that information; at a minimum I'd like to see a list of course objectives. They can definitely come up with a good and rigorous data science course, but it will likely need some prerequisites, which implies that it would go against the aim of it being an alternative for kids who don't want calculus.

It would be pretty unreasonable to suggest that one can take a data science course without any programming experience; there is no way a typical high school student could properly learn both programming and math/stats needed in the same course. An ideal data science course focused on practical programming using data should be at the level of a second CS course. This is not an unreasonable prerequisite, given that many kids these days take a programming course early on in high school. [/quote]

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