Reforms to Ease Students’ Stress Divide a New Jersey School District

Parents Forum
921

@ucbalumnus
"It is true that if the student knows calculus, a calculus-based statistics course will allow a better understanding. "

No kidding! To my great disappointment, my M Ed program wouldn’t allow me to take Stats in the Math department rather than the watered-down version in the Ed department (please don’t judge all teachers or all teacher preparation by this fact, though as a curiosity, the college is a popular CC elite). It would have been so much more accessible to me if someone had alerted me to the calculus connections in real time, instead of presenting magical formulas. :wink:

(And no, bizarrely, my engineering education had not included a solid Stats course either, even with a bunch of extra math courses I took for fun and love. I just checked again and they still do not require one:)
https://cee.mit.edu/undergraduate/1ENG-degreerequirements
http://math.mit.edu/academics/undergrad/major/course18/general.php

I fear that my Stats background is still not what it could be, to be honest, though don’t worry, I understand newspaper articles. :wink:

922

Re #918

The transfer requirement in math for UC and CSU does not require statistics specifically, but allows non-calculus-based statistics to fulfill it.

923

Re #918

The transfer requirement in math for UC and CSU does not require statistics specifically, but allows non-calculus-based statistics to fulfill it.

924

In the course of following this discussion, I’ve taken the time to look at US News’ “Best High Schools” ranking.

It seems to me that districts vary widely in the opportunities afforded to the non-rich. There are some highly ranked high schools which have surprisingly large gaps between “disadvantaged” and “non-disadvantaged.” The “College Readiness Index” is also useful.

Many families stretch to get into the “best district possible.” With this data, I would amend that to the best district possible “for my family.” If my family income were below the district average, I would pay particular attention to the Disadvantaged Student Performance category and the College Readiness Index, and the Quality-Adjusted Participation Rate (in APs.) It does no good to send your child to a “great” district, if he or she will be edged out of appropriate placement by more affluent families gaming the system through private investment.

Some more affordable districts in our state seem to be doing a better job in preparing ALL engaged students for college, rather than creating a narrow caste system though inappropriate tracking.

925

No, a handful of students take Algebra in 7th grade, the advanced track is 8th, the “normal” is 9th. So only the most advanced kids, or those who double up on Geometry and Alg 2, or take a summer course (very very rare) can get to BC even as seniors.

Cal isn’t done with a summer - it’s summer work they refer to, like maybe a worksheet or similar. I don’t think D had anything the summer before though. Our HS requires AB before BC, which isn’t all that unusual, I’ve gathered. The HS has 8 periods a day (plus lunch and an optional 0 period) and most students fill all periods (they’re allowed one study hall if they want it), so I don’t think covering a semester of college work in a semester in HS is realistic.

The HS also requires regular (or pre-AP) science before AP science and doesn’t offer AP anything before 10th grade and that’s just one class - Euro instead of the regular Euro or world history. It doesn’t have what you call the “AP Lites” - Psych, Human Geo, etc.

As an aside, I, a sociology major in college, took statistics and loved it, and it definitely wasn’t Calc-based because I chose not to take any math past Algebra 2 in high school.

926

Wow. My D and I both struggled with proofs in geometry then both of us had light bulb moments and “got” it. Seems like a pretty important part of geometry, learning to think like that.

927

Proofs were the only thing that made geometry the Un-Math for me. My first time ever not struggling in math.

928

I loved proofs; we did them the whole year. DS’s geometry class in 8th grade only had 2 chapters on proofs. But, they did some proofs in other math classes, and I only recall them from geometry.

929

I thought AP Calc was meant to be either AB or BC but it seems many schools have kids take both? Is this overkill for a kid that is very good in math? Would BC alone not be ok?

930

Yes, I think taking 2 semesters of college calculus over 2 years of school is way too slow for kids who are good at math. Our school lets kids choose either AB or BC, but you wouldn’t take both, because BC repeats the AB material.

931

If your goal is to really master 2 semesters of college level calculus, say you are going into engineering or the like and need to get through a rigorous Calc 3 class and then use all the calculus to understand say partial derivatives in fluid flow . taking two years in high school doesn’t seem like a waste of time or school district money.

Way too slow for whom, the 0.05% of students who will go to MIT and not take Calc 1-3 ?

Actually our district serves them by providing a free district PhD mentor for Saturday instruction starting as early as 4th or 5th grade, and these are individualized programs. Every year, maybe 1% or less of the class needs or wants this.

I think if you are really incapable of doing say difficult algebra problems … maybe you should step off this max accelerated path or consider … OMG … tutoring or self-study. A bit of review when you realize your algebra skills are a bit weak while collecting up the terms in a triple integral - that is fine - and does not define a poorly tracked student.

A lot of the acceleration in some high school districts is to expedite the ill-defined 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th grade math, which in the dim dark days of my youth were spent waiting for other people to “get math”, not to gain some special understanding of lower level math concepts. Or to add supplemental material … even maybe something controversial like the dread bridge building project, that involves some math, some creative thinking, some hands-on, etc.

Math seems fadish, like every 10 years they come up with a New, New New, New^3 way of trying to make math easier to understand … but this is really for kids who do not “get” it.

To me, the high level math that takes you to physics, engineering or even math degrees … .hasn’t changed since Newton, LaPlace, etc. Certainly the same as 30 years ago …

Our district also shortchanged proofs, at least compared to my inspired geometry and calculus professor.

And, algebra greatness is not synonymous with being a great mathematician in classes beyond algebra.

I would be careful to judge a school district by USNWR rankings, many of these school districts have very few disadvantaged students, which is the subject for another thread, so I am not sure if these are statistically significant. They can also include students who are in their McMansions and dad lost his job, so they qualiify for free or reduced lunches, not people who come from traditional disadvantaged backgrounds. And being in these school districts does help.

I would also question whether any of the AP antics described in this thread really have any relevance to a student who is not in the top 25% of ANY school district.

A Questbridge type applicant who is highly academically qualified but poor … maybe … but I think most of those kids are stuck in poor performing schools where they are lucky if there is any calculus, high level science or anything remotely close to the AP classes we are discussing.

932

The students who reach calculus in 11th grade are presumably the top students in math, who should be able to handle calculus at full college speed.

Essentially, it makes no sense to say that the top students in math need a slow-paced calculus sequence, while the non-advanced students in math have to take calculus (as college frosh) at full speed. A slower paced sequence for the top students in math only makes sense if it goes into far more depth and rigor than a typical AP or college calculus course.

Of course, if the students reaching calculus in 11th grade were inappropriately advanced or accelerated, then that may be why the school has to make calculus a slow-paced course to accommodate them. But the situation is a disservice to both the genuinely good-at-math students as well as the inappropriately advanced or accelerated students.

When I was in high school, calculus BC was the normal 12th grade course for students who finished precalculus in 11th grade. Students did fine in that course, the AP test, and more advanced math courses in college later.

933

One drawback of creating a top track too early (such as 4th grade) is the scheduling consequences. The top track would tend to have classes together, which may be fine for the early bloomers, but not so fine for the rest of the class. It reinforces stratification–which would tend to run along SES lines.

I do think that high schools need to use tracking.

934

The problem with not creating the top track in say 4th grade is that you will have students that are ready for more and very bored sitting in class without learning.

935

@PickOne1 :

“Actually our district serves them by providing a free district PhD mentor for Saturday instruction starting as early as 4th or 5th grade, and these are individualized programs. Every year, maybe 1% or less of the class needs or wants this.”

Oh, my. This sounds wonderful. Wonderful.

“Math seems fadish, like every 10 years they come up with a New, New New, New^3 way of trying to make math easier to understand … but this is really for kids who do not “get” it.”

Well, I think we’ve all seen this and said this, so, yes.

936

“The problem with not creating the top track in say 4th grade is that you will have students that are ready for more and very bored sitting in class without learning.”

I suspect there are plenty more parents who believe their special snowflakes will be oh so bored, than there are special snowflakes who would actually be bored.

Intellectually curious people don’t get bored, anyway. It’s not as though they are sitting in classes where students are learning how to add 2+2 while they are doing calculus.

937

How many districts have credit courses for standardized test prep? After reading this thread I started to check course listings at various high schools to compare the quality of public education and was surprised at the differences I found. I knew more well to do districts have more options, but the amount of those options is staggering. It’s not just the courses devoted to standardized test prep that are surprising, but the multiple tracks (college prep, STEM specific, and honors), and depth and breadth of programs (oceanography, meteorology, discrete math, aviation science, probability, statistics, etc, etc) that is startling. How is a smart kid from an average or low income district (that offers only regular or honors chem, earth science, bio, and physics, and alg I, alg II, geometry, pre-calc, and calculus) supposed to compete with a kid from a district like that? I wonder how colleges can compare standardized test scores of kids who come from the first district with scores of kids who come from the second. The quality of the education isn’t comparable at all.

938

Do you mean course specifically for test prep or courses with content that prepares kids for the tests? We offer none of those and limited math science electives outside of APs because kids are required to take the intro science class before the AP. I recall taking an intro geology class and feeling like I was the only one that didn’t know the difference between a sedimentary and an igneous rock, having never taken earth science but I muddled through.

I agree that taking AB calc and then BC. Makes no sense unless the BC class is really designed to nit reparations the AB stuff. Some districts offer what they call BC but only teach enough for the kids to take the AB test. I thought BC included AB but went more quickly and covered mire material in greater depth.

939

@austinmshauri : “I wonder how colleges can compare standardized test scores of kids who come from the first district with scores of kids who come from the second. The quality of the education isn’t comparable at all.”

And there’s the rub. The colleges have stated that they compare students only to students within their high school, and, I think, within the district from which they hail. A comparison across the vastly different programs offered at different schools would indeed prove futile to all but those who skills were honed in the schools with the greatest offerings. On the whole, anyway.

940

I suspect that the non-advanced math students won’t take Calculus in college at all (I didn’t, I also didn’t take math as a HS senior because I chose to double up on subjects that interested me more). It’s not necessary for all majors or careers, dare I say it’s useful for very few.