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Jo Boaler is a controversial Stanford professor of math education who helped craft a new California education plan that, among other things, recommends holding off teaching algebra until high school, because it’s not fair to let smart kids start tracking away from others in the 8th grade. This was a policy she helped convince San Francisco to adopt about a decade ago, and which it’s now suspending… because it didn’t work.
Jo Boaler is a controversial Stanford professor of math education who helped craft a new California education plan that, among other things, recommends holding off teaching algebra until high school, because it’s not fair to let smart kids start tracking away from others in the 8th grade. This was a policy she helped convince San Francisco to adopt about a decade ago, and which it’s now suspending… because it didn’t work.
Delaying math education for the bright and interested on behalf of others are less bright and/or less interested is a losing logical play.
I agree. In our middle school gifted program, we offered math at the level the students needed. In fact, we had quite a few elementary students who would come from their schools in the morning to attend our advanced math courses. The only problem -- although not one that we had -- was that you have to have a satisfactory number of students eligible for a particular math class in order to "afford" offering that class. In many schools that would be a problem.
I agree. In our middle school gifted program, we offered math at the level the students needed. In fact, we had quite a few elementary students who would come from their schools in the morning to attend our advanced math courses. The only problem -- although not one that we had -- was that you have to have a satisfactory number of students eligible for a particular math class in order to "afford" offering that class. In many schools that would be a problem.
My school system in the late 60's / early 70's (rural regional school in a town of 750, so maybe not typical) did not offer algebra until grade 9, nor do I recall middle school algebra being a "thing" for my kids in the 90's. But I think teaching it in middle school makes sense today; higher math is increasingly important. For the first time in my career I find myself wishing I knew discrete math (I never went beyond algebra and geometry in HS and have never needed it until now, as I have built line-of-business apps all my life, which gets by just fine on HS algebra). But now calculus would be handy to master AI, and I would be at a disadvantage if I needed to build ML systems at a low level.
On the other hand I have a bespoke AI that helps me occasionally with coding so there's that. Although mostly it just amuses me with the way it's clearly guessing about 2/3 of the time. It just barely justifies the $100/yr subscription fee. I suppose it will get better at some point, but it certainly doesn't live up to the hype right now.
I feel that taking algebra in grade 6 was the most important opportunity afforded to me in my K-12
education. Very sad to hear that it is being held until grade 9.
I think you could have a student re-take algebra or geometry doing the harder problems in the text and they'd get something out of it. I don't think the same is true for pre-algebra. Without algebraic logic, the possibilities are much more limited.
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