[jon_dahl]

Yes - this discussion is kind of ridiculous. If San Francisco had announced that they were removing elective CS from the High School curriculum, Hacker News would be saying "How can anyone expect to succeed in a STEM world without High School CS?"

I was one of the advanced math kids and took calculus in 11th grade. Then I went on to Calc 2 in college, and it was a different league entirely. I would have been better off building a stronger foundation throughout High School and then doing Calc 1 in college.

...which is exactly what the new curriculum aims to do. I have a 6th grade daughter in SF, and the strength of the new curriculum is that they spend a lot more time making math more intuitive. Instead of learning one approach to long division, they learn multiple approaches. In theory at least, this pays off in the long run for a lot of kids.

What American schools need isn't more acceleration (Algebra at age 14 instead of 15) - it's a better understanding of what mathematics actually is and why it matters.

[alistairSH]

What American schools need isn't more acceleration (Algebra at age 14 instead of 15) - it's a better understanding of what mathematics actually is and why it matters.

While I agree with this sentiment, my problem is with the one-size-fits-all approach taken in San Fran. Lumping gifted children in a class with everybody else does them a huge disservice...

My personal experience in 7th grade (pre-algebra) was horrible. My school decided to experiment by placing gifted students in math with the rest of the kids, with the idea being that we'd magically bring up the average performance. Instead what happened was the nerds sat in the back bored out of our minds and lost a year of math education (and this was with an extra teaching aide in the class - the two teachers simply couldn't keep the non-gifted kids on track AND provide us any extra attention). This left us all behind when we entered Algebra in 8th grade.

I hate to be "that parent" - but gifted kids have different needs than normal students and deserve the opportunity to excel without waiting around for everybody else to figure out 2+2.

Edit - I don't care if the advanced math offering in 8th grade is called Algebra or something else, as long as there is an advanced offering. The linked article made it sound like there was not such a class.

[jelliclesfarm]

I think a solution could be to have classes based on age groups..giving kids 5 years to finish 5 years worth of curriculum so they can finish at their own pace and then grade them at the end of the five year term.

This way, if something is easy or interesting...or tough or boring, kids can choose how they want to tackle it. Having many different ages in the same class without the pressure to finish everything crammed within one year should help. Here is where maybe bright kids can teach kids that need help..or older kids can help younger ones.

Example: ages 5-10 study together in huge single room schoolhouses ..each one on whatever they want to learn. Ages 11-15 is another group etc. amongst them, they can be in sub groups according to interest or ability. A class can have 4-5 teachers who can tackle all of the subjects. Volunteer parents.

Test and grade them at the end of five years. Only test them every year or semester.

[magic_beans]

This sounds like a social nightmare. The needs and behaviors of a 5 year-old vs a 10 y/o and an 11 y/o vs a 15 y/o are astronomically different.

[jelliclesfarm]

They should eventually be able to form groups...and work as peers. Is there really a difference between a 12y/o and a 13y/o...as adults, we don’t always consort with those born within the same solar year. Why wouldn’t it work for kids?

[bzbarsky]

> Is there really a difference between a 12y/o and a 13y/o

There can be huge differences in social development there, and not even strictly tied to age. The variance is rather large.

But even if you just look at averages, as far as I can tell the average 13 y/o girl and the average 12 y/o boy are quite far apart in terms of their social interactions, starting with basics like "are you thinking about dating yet?"

All that said, getting 12- and 13- year olds to work as peers is a much simpler problem than the originally posed one of getting 5- and 10- year olds to work as peers. In _that_ context there are a bunch of problems, ranging from difference in attention spans to the basic issue that most 5-year-olds don't know how to read yet, and most 10-year-olds do, and so conveying information to both together in a way that's not frustrating to one or the other can be quite difficulty.

Now if we want to group students by ability (5-year-old who can read, great, let them work with that 8-year-old if they have an interest in common) instead of age, that might work much better than any sort of age-based grouping. Of course that can exacerbate the social aspects, but there are in fact ways of making this work well. Having the older student partially teach the younger one, for example, is a good way for the older student to significantly improver their own understanding of the material.

[jelliclesfarm]

Maybe they should learn a diverse group of children. Girls and boys are ‘different’ but we don’t segregate them anymore...why should we segregate them on the basis of one year age gap?

[em-bee]

5 year age difference may be a bit much but beyond that, montessori is doing exactly that. they group children in ranges of 3 years: 0-3,3-6,6-9,9-12,12-15,15-18

[em-bee]

we can probably argue about the exact age ranges (maybe follow the schools age-ranges: preschool/kindergarten, primary school, middle school, high school all sound like good age groupings).

but the concept is good. younger kids can learn from older ones. older kids internalize the material by helping younger ones.

and it turns out that this model is already proven too: it's applied in montessori, and it's practiced in scouting as well.

[WillPostForFood]

America doesn't need more acceleration, but nor does it need more deceleration, which is what this policy does. What they got rid of was: some kids are ready for Algebra in 8th grade, and they can take it. New policy is: everyone takes the same class, regardless of skill or preparation.

[linuxftw]

Everyone gets the same 'x' regardless of individual circumstances. Easy policy to prescribe if one holds certain political beliefs.

Unintended consequences: Wealthy and middle class kids will still have access to the same quality of education as they did before, those that rely solely on public education will have access to lower quality.

Inevitably, students from CA will be less prepared for college entrance exams. CA will have to institute a 'statewide college entrance examination' and, maybe they'll pass a law prohibiting using any other entrance exam in an admission process (because they're racist or something or other).

[WillPostForFood]

100% agree - the real intent here is to reduce the achievement gap, and the real effect is to increase it. High achieving wealthy parents make sure their kids get math outside of school. The kids who lose are the smart, poorer kids who would have thrived and advanced given the challenge.

[User23]

Plenty of extremely poor Chinese immigrants scrimp and save every penny to pay for top notch tutoring for their children. This isn't really about wealth, it's about culture and ability.

[WillPostForFood]

I half agree. Chinese immigrants strongly value education, and on average, have more inherent ability. So many overcome the disadvantage of being poor. That doesn't mean that the average poor kid isn't at a disadvantage, and that the smart poor kid is hurt by removing advanced math courses. That smart poor kid may not be getting the support at home like a Chinese immigrant, so support at school is all they are going to get.

[linuxftw]

Why not send them to private school then? Or is top-notch tutoring only available outside of a traditional school? In which case, why have a traditional school model at all?

[magic_beans]

> Why not send them to private school then

Top-notch tutoring still costs less than 4 or 8 years of private school tuition.

[tlear]

It is not only that, if you parent is a successful engineer, businessman or whatever. Not only they will hire tutors if needed they can often teach kids themselves.

I learned more math from my dad who has PhD in physics then from all of my teachers and tutors combined.

One of the reason home schooling works so well. It is much easier to teach few kids you care about then whole classroom of the ones you don’t.

[PebblesRox]

From the school district’s page justifying the new course sequence:

“Historically, rigor meant doing higher grade-level material at earlier grades, and equity meant providing all students equal access. The CCSS-M require a shift to seeing rigor as depth of understanding and the ability to communicate this understanding, and to seeing equity as providing all students equal success.”

If the goal is equal success for everyone, you have to hold back the high-achievers so the rest of the group can keep up.

http://www.sfusdmath.org/secondary-course-sequence.html

[tropo]

The problem is hinted at here: "equity meant providing all students equal access"

What they are saying is that they refused to keep unqualified students out of the advanced classes. Keeping those students out would have exposed the schools to all sorts of accusations of discrimination, so they didn't do it. Parents insist that low-performing students be in the advanced classes, and the school doesn't say "no", so the class becomes a mess of failure.