[e40]

> The USA brings in 50 million or so people from other countries. Often they are bloody minded, stone cold, hard workers that will sacrifice everything to give their children the opportunity to be Americans. These people are some of the best in the world in my opinion.

Over the last 40 years I've known and worked with some of these people, and I marvel at their tenacity and the sheer force of will they have to succeed. It just blows me away. Sadly, it seems to disappear from the next generation. I'll admit that I have a small sample size.

[foxyv]

I've worked with a lot of people like that as well. It's always a bit awe inspiring.

I don't know what component is responsible for the difference between immigrants and natives. Maybe it's the selection, the change of environment, the adversity, or sheer diversity of individuals. If we could manage to build an education system that produced students as dedicated, creative and hard working as our best immigrants, the USA would secure a place in history that would make the 1400 years of the Roman Empire seem like a blip in comparison.

[asadlionpk]

Tough times make tough people. But their next generation is usually soft sadly.

[systemvoltage]

Meanwhile here in Oakland, this is what Mathematics teaching looks like in schools [PDF]: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...

These people are actively undermining the American spirit - I am saying this as an immigrant to USA and a person of color. I am fine with understanding racism in USA, it is completely unacceptable to inject this into STEM education. The next generation is going to grow up learning more about race at the expense of learning mathematics.

This isn't just my opinion - professors from UC Berkeley/Stanford and many major universities have written an open letter to the California Governor: https://www.independent.org/news/news_detail.asp?newsid=2287

Apparently, the message was clear and the California government is pausing this initiative: https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr21/agenda202107.asp

[rpmisms]

There was also a recent incident in Virginia: (Virginia Drops Advanced Math)[https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-to-drop-adv...]

This disgusts me. Some kids are stupid (Apologies for blunt language, but it's true, life is unfair.) or have poor home lives, so let's remove education that can help them have better lives because some of the struggling kids are black. Counterintuitive, oversensitive, and directly hindering

Dragging everyone down because some diversity quotas aren't met is awful. Unless there's clear evidence that teaching advanced math directly contributes to racism, teach it, make it harder. Make our kids work and succeed and fail again.

[908B64B197]

> because some of the struggling kids are black

What about the black overachievers? Princeton certainly didn't lower the bar for him [0]

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/10/us/princeton-first-black-vale...

[rpmisms]

That's super cool, good for him. It's also an anecdotal example and relatively meaningless in the scheme of things.

I'm not even saying that black kids have any inherent disadvantages, but that people have become so sensitive to that perception as to seriously hinder actual education.

Seriously, people are worried about racial sensitivity in math. These two things do not go together, should not go together, and have almost zero reason to interact.

[908B64B197]

Come on, they are right next to a world class math department (Berkley).

Instead of paying for a committee of bureaucrats (with generous pensions!) to write about "racism in math", why not hire a couple of undergrads as extra tutors for students of color struggling with math?

[specialist]

Public education is the front lines of the culture wars. I've observed many waves of reform (fads).

Overcorrection is the norm.

Probably because incrementalism simply isn't possible. So when reform does happen, it releases decades of bottled up pressure. Like a dam bursting.

I don't have a dog in this fight. I've seen too many of these spasms to care too much.

That said, my hot take on bias training is two fold.

1) Bias training for teachers (and every other profession) is long overdue. This is indisputable.

2) I'm unaware of any validation which shows bias training for students is worthwhile. Maybe it is. But hippocratic oath dictates that we figure this out before committing.

Teachers et al should dog food their own training for a while. Lead by example. See how well it works.

My hunch is that students will pick up most of the important lessons thru osmosis.

Simply removing teacher-born biases, those negative role models, certainly couldn't hurt.

[richk449]

I just skimmed through that document. Based on your description I was expecting a polemic. But actually about 90% of what they recommend looks like really good ways to improve math instruction.

The big problem to me is that teaching math is hard, and teaching math well, as recommended in that booklet, is really hard. You can write all the pamphlets you want, but in the end the answer will be about the same - get really good teachers. Which probably means paying teachers a lot more than we do now.

[systemvoltage]

I suggest to read the open letter (signed by more than 600 professors and professionals including 2 Nobel laureates) before you make conclusions: https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13658

[richk449]

The letter appears to be criticizing a different document: The California Mathematics Framework. That framework appears to be around a thousand pages, which I don't have time to read right now, unfortunately.

It is strange that you think that letter would change my opinion though. It doesn't really contain any analysis or arguments. It just says that the changes are bad, and here is a long list of people that agree. After having read the actual document, why would you think reading that letter would change my mind?

[systemvoltage]

Respectfully, the onus is on you to understand what are the perils of such policies that erode the future of our kids, for those that oppose such policies are respected leaders in Mathematics education - perhaps you should question your stance based on what apparently is a marketing pamphelt precisely designed to pursuade people. Based on what you said i.e. "90% of what they recommend looks like really good ways to improve math instruction", I am pointing you to additional information that might convince you otherwise.