I expect this will change with the tech industry producing many millionaires. Who knew there’s money in math! 
@katliamom
I am not aware that the Seattle school district will allocate additional instructional/test hours for this curriculum so it will be taught at the expense of the regular math. Eventually it will displace the regular math because if
- The teacher is not in charge of the math classroom
- There are no right or wrong answers
- There are no students who make the wrong answers (Learners)
- There are no standardized tests because they are oppressive
what kind of math can you teach?
I agree that after the Internet boom and bust of 2000 and until the recent rise of Tech many better US-born students were looking at business and finance but it did not mean that most were any good at math or that most of these positions were very lucrative. However, the finance positions for the people really good at math (Quants) were and still are mostly occupied by the first and second generation immigrants. You can login into LinkedIn, do a search and read bios. I just did a “d e shaw quant” search and of the first 10 people at least 6 did not attend high school in the US. I got 5 Chinese names, 2 Russian names, 1 Armenian-American, 1 Jewish-American and a UK guy.
@Iglooo Well, most kids and parents know they’re not at the level where they’re going to earn a lot of money playing sports, and still spend hours every day training. It’s not so straightforward.
Want girls/women to do better at STEM? Want them to engage in the sciences, want them to come out of high school with a greater sense of self worth, confidence and abilities? Send them to same sex high schools. The evidence is there. However, the data goes against the social/political narrative which is considered ‘proper’.
The women in my family are case and point.
@dietz199 My son had quite a few friends in HS who were able, confident girls, doing great in STEM, went to great colleges. The catch? Most of them were Asian.
I know a lot of women in STEM, even my age, who aren’t Asian.
@Tanbiko, this why-don’t-more-Americans-go-into-engineering-math question is as old as College Confidential. But the truth it, in the US, being an engineer isn’t nearly as prestigious as it is in many parts of the world, in Central/Eastern Europe, etc. In America prestige of a profession is 99% linked to how much money you make. And engineering - while offering certainly good to very good salaries - just doesn’t have the cachet that draws the best and the brightest. And once young engineers enter industry they discover an ugly secret: very often, the non-engineering bean counters make more than they do. So they too phase into management and oversee other engineers. (many of them brought from countries that produce an overabundance of them, for example India or China) That certainly has been the experience in my family – we have 4 engineers in the immediate family, ranging from age 80 to 26. All are/were in management and working with H1B visa workers under them.
So to answer your question: Americans don’t tend to go into math-heavy fields NOT because math is badly taught. It’s because they don’t have to take a lot of advanced math to make a lot of money.
^But I think it’s a lot more rewarding to CREATE something than push papers around. And if you go into business for yourself, you can do quite well in engineering.
Isn’t that the problem in a nutshell?
“There are no right or wrong answers”
In non-oppressive math, there are no wrong or right answers and everyone can feel good about everything… Problem is that in REAL math, on planet earth, there are right and wrong answers and it’s important to learn why answers are right and / or wrong as critical problem solving skills are acquired. Otherwise planes fall out of the sky.
I’m still trying to understand what ‘oppressive math’ is…
@MaineLonghorn – I agree… but many people are driven more by economic arguments. Especially these days, when so many grads emerge from college saddled with debt.
@katliamom
So why are there so many complaints that there are not enough women and minorities in STEM if Real Americans really do not need this STEM? Real Americans can just move money from one pocket to another pocket and manage unsophisticated H1B people. Who needs this oppressive useless math?
@Tanbiko, STEM ecompasses many fields. If you look at all the various and varied STEM fields, you will find PLENTY of women. There are AREAS of STEM that are dominated by men. And other areas of STEM that are dominated by women. Generalizing about this very broad category doesn’t serve anyone well.
“My D, born in 2000, was told by an educator that the all girls HS she was touring didn’t have AP calc and AP physics because “girls don’t like those subjects.” She has also had to fight for lab time in HS and still in college. There are still plenty of people who subscribe that engineering isn’t for girls.”
As a counterpoint, my D, born in 2000, was told repeatedly by educators, college counselors and acquaintances that she really ought to do engineering in college (she got a 5 in Calc BC), and it would be a great disappointment if she did anything else, implying that science was intrinsically superior to arts subjects. Fortunately she was strong willed enough to say “no, I actually want to do a BFA in ballet.”
It’s been pointed out (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553592/) that the proportion of women doing math and science is highest in the most unequal and poorest countries, perhaps because in those places it’s the only way out of poverty. We are fortunate in the US that there are other routes to success and personal fulfillment. Of course none of that excuses deciding not to teach math to those who do actually want to pursue it.
^Good for your daughter for sticking to her guns! I had to choose between engineering and piano performance. I knew I wasn’t good enough to be a solo pianist, so I went with engineering.
Two of my three high school math teachers were women with PhDs in the field. 
I thought the statement about no right or wrong answers was referring to the method students took to get there. I’ve seen points taken off of correct answers on math tests because the students didn’t work the problem out the way the program said it should.
For example: Standard Subtraction vs Common Core Subtraction:
Standard Subtraction
325 - 38 = 287
We’d subtract by borrowing from the 3 to make 12, then borrowing from the 12 to make 15. That would lose points because the process isn’t “correct.”
Common Core Method
Start with 30. Add [color=red]2[color=black] to get to the next 10.
Add [color=red]40[color=black] to get to the next 100.
Add [color=red]200[color=black] to get to the 100’s place of the highest number in the problem. In this case the highest number is 325, so we add 200.
Add [color=red]25[color=black] to get to the highest number in the problem (325).
Add up all the [color=red]red[color=black] numbers.
2 + 60 + 200 + 25 = 287
If you want to solve subtraction by using this kind of addition you’re welcome to it, but standard subtraction should be allowed too.
I do wonder if the people who created this math as a social science course have ever been in a classroom. I was speaking to a parent recently who just pulled her child out of elementary school to homeschool. Classes are short and teachers already feel like they don’t have time to teach everything. Trying to teach 2 courses in one, including all the terminology that will have to be included, is going to leave little time for the actual math. People who can afford it will do something else.
I taught my kids how to use the standard subtraction method before they were taught anything at school. My middle child’s second grade teacher sent home a note that said something like, “Please don’t teach your kids subtraction the way you learned it, because it will confuse them…” Oops, too bad!
Much to my surprise, I got the SAME note three years later, from another teacher for my daughter! I guess the Everyday Math curriculum program included the canned note for teachers to use.
This was the one time I really did consider pulling my kids out and homeschooling them.
I tried to talk to the school board about the math curriculum at one point. Oh, my gosh, they were so condescending. After that, I just kept teaching my kids but gave up trying to help on a larger scale.
That common core math drove me bonkers because my D learned the “old” way.
It was even worse for my D’s friends who were exchange students from China. They really struggled because they didn’t show their work “the right way.” I’m with @austinmshauri that if you have a method for getting to the answer, that should be sufficient.
@MaineLonghorn - My D decided between piano performance and engineering as well. She was told everything from “you’re wasting your talent” to “you’ll starve as a pianist,” and everything in between.
I will also say that the numbers of naysayers around engineering were few but they did leave a lasting negative impression.
The way I remember it was in this order:
- (ones) 5 - 8 => 15 (borrowing) - 8 = 7
- (tens) 1 (2 minus borrowed 1) - 3 => 11 (borrowing) - 3 = 8
- (hundreds) 2 (3 minus borrowed 1) - 0 = 2
But then why can’t both (old way and common core way) be taught? It would show better how addition and subtraction are related, and there plenty of time in K-6 to teach the basic arithmetic that is taught then many times over.
The common core example makes my head hurt.
My kids did a lot of there are many ways to get to the same place. They did a lot of stuff with “friendly numbers” which I think is more or less what you are illustrating with the common core example. So if you are trying to figure out 162-8 for example, you learn that it’s the same thing as 160-6. My kids were much, much faster at figuring out stuff in their head because they did that naturally.
They learned a bunch of different ways to set up long division. I still like my way the best, but I remember when I lived in France I was fascinated that everyone there used a slightly different set up.
Kids in our elementary school regularly told the yearbook that math was their favorite subject (after recess! LOL) so I figure they were doing something right.