Posted on 11/23/2008 8:11:47 PM PST by CE2949BB
Nov. 23 -- BURLINGAME -- California's largest teachers union will back a fight in court to overturn the state's new eighth-grade algebra requirement.
The Burlingame-based California Teachers Association has joined the lawsuit by the California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators against the state Board of Education's decision to require all middle school students to be tested in Algebra I by the end of eighth grade starting in 2011.
The state board "acted abruptly, imprudently and without fully understanding the consequences of its actions on our schools, teachers and students," said David Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member association. "For our schools to begin now to prepare all eighth-graders to take the Algebra 1 exam, they must immediately hire about 3,000 more teachers and properly train about a thousand more who are either underprepared or teaching in another field."
State board spokeswoman Regina Wilson declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Proponents such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger believe the algebra mandate will raise student achievement.
"I have always been a staunch supporter of high academic standards in California," Schwarzenegger said before the board voted for the new requirement in July. "I am asking the state board to do away with the below-grade-level General Mathematics test and chart California's course to lead the nation in eighth-grade math. I stand committed to ensuring schools have the resources needed to prepare every eighth-grader to take an Algebra I standardized test."
But critics argue that the mandate is unworkable and unfunded.
In August, state schools chief Jack O'Connell proposed a plan with an estimated cost of $3.1 billion a year to try to address the policy, but such funding is unlikely given the state's continuing fiscal problems.
In late October, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ordered the state board to hold off on the policy until it can be heard formally.
The next court hearing on the requirement is scheduled for Dec. 19.
Pathetic. I wonder if California voters could submit a proposition to b***h slap the teacher unions.
What kind of funding do you need to teach Algebra?
Textbooks? No problem.
Don’t by the social engineering indoctrination books and use that money for Algebra textbooks.
Or is is that the problem — the teachers prefer to indoctrinate rather than educate?
Back in the 1960s I had Algebra I in seventh grade.
Precisely. They know about 'climate change' but cannot solve for 'x'.
Had it in ninth, then geometry in 10th, then algebra 2, then study hall, while the smart kids took calculus.
I’m with you on the question of funding. I teach Algebra, and I’ve always said,”give me a piece of chalk and a black board and I can teach anybody how to do Algebra.”
As the cliche goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The teachers’ union is probably right on this one. It’s unrealistic to think that ALL kids can handle algebra in 8th grade. Hell, we have kids graduating high school in California who can barely do addition and subtraction, and they’re going to all suddenly be competent math students in 8th grade? Yeah, right.
Where I went to school, there sometimes weren’t ANY chalk. And the teachers sometimes went without salaries for months. And once I got to the states I could sleep in my classes in a US Highschool and come out with 5.5 out of 5.0.
Noone can convince me that more money will solve anything.
Algebra was a waste for me. I always liked writing and English. I wish I could have chosen something that was a better match for my skills. It would be nice to let kids have more choice in some of what they learn. jmo
Well, if they can’t do algebra, they should FLUNK, and repeat the year. But noooo... we can’t have anyone’s feelings (students or teacher’s) hurt by FAILURE, which is failure in and of it self.
You’re kidding, right ? You’ll excuse me if I doubt one can be a functioning adult without knowing how to do most basic of basic mathematics. It’s doing a horrifying disservice to kids NOT to teach them basic mathematics properly. I got news for ya - ENGLISH will mean diddly squat in the new global economy.
People are welcome to explore Arts, Writing, and languages, but everyone needs to know how to work basic math.
from “War Against the Schools’ Academic Child Abuse” by Siegfried Engelmann:
In the summer of 1966, the Anti-Defamation League expressed interest in making a film showing the achievements of the disadvantaged black preschoolers we had been working with at the University of Illinois. Two years earlier, these kids had been selected for the project as four-year olds on the basis that they came from homes that were judged particularly disadvantaged and nearly all of them had older siblings in classes for the mentally retarded. These kids came to our school half-days as four-year-olds and as five-year-olds.
The school, The Bereiter-Engelmann preschool, received a lot of bad press. It was called a pressure cooker. Sociolinguists took shots at it on the grounds that we ostensibly did not understand “black English,” or even know the difference between “thinking and speaking.”
Despite our alleged mental deficiencies, we managed to teach these kids more and make them smarter than anyboy else had done before or after. That was our goal, particularly with this first flight of kids—to set the limits to show what could be done. We felt that this demonstration was particularly important because Headstart was looming in the wings, and it was clearly moving in a direction of being nothing more than a front for public health, not a serious educational project. We saw this as a great contradiction because disadvantaged kids were behind their middle class peers in skills and knowledge.
We taught reading, language, and math to our preschoolers. And they learned these subjects. They also learned to learn well and therefore how to be smart. A film showing what these kids could do might moderate what seemed to be the inevitable mandate of the Office of Economic Opportunity to designate Headstart as a “social experience” based on the model of the middcle-class nursery school. It seemed obvious that the model would not work.
We rounded up seven of the kids who were in our top group. (We grouped kids for instruction according to their performance.) They were in the middle of summer vacation, and we didn’t have an opportunity to work with them before the film to “refresh” or rehearse them. A professor at the University of Illinois found out about the filming and asked if she could bring her class to view it. Why not?
So seven little black kids came into the classroom, sat in their chairs in front of the chalkboard with big bright lights shining on them, with two big cameras on tripods staring at them, and with a class of university students in the background. And these kids did it. There were no out takes, no cut sequences, nothing but the kids responding to problems that I presented, the types of problems I had taught them to work. These were not necessarily the problem types that one would present preschoolers as part of a 12 grade sequence, but they were good problems to show that these kids could learn at a greatly accelerated rate.
On the film, the kids worked problems of addition, subtrction, multiplication, and fractions. They worked problems in which they found the area of rectangles and problems in which they found the length of an unknown side of the rectangle (given the number of squares in the rectangle and the length of one side). They worked column-addition problems that required carrying and problems that did not require carrying. They even worked problems involving factoring expressions like 6A + 3B + 9C. And they used the appropriate wording: “Three times the quantity, 2A, plus 1B, plus 3C.”
The kids told me how to work a simple algebra problem: “The man at the store tells you that 1/4 of a pie costs 5 cents. You want to buy the whole pie. How much is the whole pie?”
After telling me how to work the problem by multiplying the reciprocal of 1/4, I wrote the answer as $20. The kids jumped up to correct my sign error, one boy observed, “Wow, you have to pay that much for a pie?”
And the kids did dimensional analysis involving the equation: A + B = C. They told me how to rewrite the equation so it told what A equals (A = C - B), what B equals (B = C - A), and what C equals (C = A + B).
The last problem type I presented on the film was the simultaneous-equation problem:
A + B = 14
A - B = 0
They had worked on similar problems in which A and B were the same size (inferred from A - B = 0) and they quickly told me that the numbers were 7 and 7. There was still time left so I presented them with a brand new problem type:
A + B = 14
A - B = 2
I pointed out that when you start with A and minus B, you end up with 2. So A is bigger than B. They frowned, they thought; and finally the little girl sitting on the end of the group — who is now an engineer — said in a wee voice, “8 and 6.” These were kids who had not yet entered first grade.
The film made no difference in deterring Headstart from becoming a program that produced no real gains. Nor did it give notice that failure with disadvantaged kids was a failure in instructional practices. We had shown , however, that all the disadvantaged black kids we worked with could learn to read and perform basic arithmetic operations in the preschool and that the average IQ gain of these kids was 24 points.
“What kind of funding do you need to teach Algebra?”
New York did a similar thing, and for some reason our local district’s teachers (teachers with good records btw) decided they could not find acceptable text books.
They made up their own curriculum, and the student’s notes were their textbook.
It was a hassle because you had to rely on every student taking accurate notes (yeah right), and every student obtaining notes on the days they missed.
“Or is is that the problem — the teachers prefer to indoctrinate rather than educate?”
Another problem is placing the same demand on “every” kid.
In NY there used to be 2 levels of diplomas - the local diploma, and the Regents diploma.
Regents was considered a higher level taken by students on the college track.
Higher math - languages - sciences.
The tests used to be more difficult and you had to pass them with a higher percentage score.
Then educrats in Albany who don’t understand what life is really like in the schools decided every kid had to achieve the Regents diploma.
Did it really help matters?
ummm....no.
More kids drop out and go the GED route.
They dumbed down the tests and lowered the passing grade.
The lawsuit is designed to add 3,000 teachers to California’s largest teachers union.” End of story.
Or... we could expect a bit more of the 6th and 7th graders and have them ready then ?
I’m telling you in the late 80s in a communist country where I grew up by the time we got out of grade school (8th grade) (in which, by the way, there was almost no funding for squat), I was doing quadratic and logarithmic equations. My freshman year in a science oriented high-school we were doing abstract mathemathics proving theorems.
Take a look at where the Chinese, Indian, and Japanese kids are about at the same time.
A major problem is that most elementary teachers with whom I have spoken (family, friends, and others) with over the years don't like the subject matter and probably don't like it because they have poor skills themselves. In not liking math they give it only a kiss and promise in the classroom.
I taught HS math in the 50’s for a while, and found many kids were not ready for HS math and needed remedial work to get them up to speed.
Not "always". I have old California text books that I saved from being burned by the school back in 1959. I (as well as some class mates) also used them as supplements in 6th & 7th grade, and they had algebra, plane geometry, AND basic trig. Our teacher let us, IF we mastered the standard curriculum, move forward. Sort of AP, before AP classes existed.
I saved them because they were some of the same books my father had used in 7th & 8th grade, back around WWI.
“What kind of funding do you need to teach Algebra?”
Since many of these so called teachers don’t even have a 9th grade proficiency in math you need to fund some program to get them to at least understand what they are supposed to be teaching.
I could not agree with you more!!
But to expect 8th graders, who have not been required to work hard in 6th and 7th grade math, to pass an algebra course is somewhat unrealistic.
Yes I believe 8th graders should start being exposed to algebra and most if not all of them can do well, provided we demand more of our students in the earlier grades.
The way they teach it is so different than when I took it back in the 20th century that I couldn't understand their methods.
I could solve the problems, but not the way they wanted it done.
ladymac, I wish you were the teacher.
The teacher this kid had couldn't teach it.
No I’m not kidding. You see, I never said I didn’t take algebra, or finite math/ calculus in college, just that I would have gotten more out of writing oriented classes. Basics are fine, but why keep stressing an area that a kid may not want to go in - I am thinking mainly of high school students. People have different strengths and mine isn’t math. Sorry if I offended you.
Anybody who isn’t mentally disabled can do what California calls algebra in 8th grade. Labels are deceptive - most of what is taught around the country as Algebra I is really mostly what used to be 5th and 6th grade arithmetic. If CA kids can’t do algebra in 8th grade it is because of a failed education system, not because all that much is being demanded.
We should completely defund government schools.
No offense taken. I’ll just respectfully disagree, in respect that ALL children should know and understand basic math. Especially the budding artists, lest they become victims of greedy agents skimming additional %-ages off the contracts.
Keep the kids stupid!
Don’t worry, California’s public school kids will be serving drinks and burgers to their Asian masters before too long
This is pathetic. In Singapore, by 8th grade their students are doing calculus AP. This is the huge Obama-scam supported public teachers unions while Hussein’s kids go to “Friends of Sidwell”-DC’s most elite private school. No to worry, let the burrito and banana crowd eat cake.
I had Algebra in 9th grade, geometry in 10th, trig in 11th, pre-calculus in 12th. My only problem with Algebra in 8th grade is by that time do kids have the basic mathematics that allows them to pass Algebra? Do not really know.
That was standard. As I said, we had a sort of AP before AP existed.
However, in the 19-teens, they darn sure did teach a LOT more sooner.
1950’s & 60’s standard, in the California districts I attended:
1st grade was simple addition & subrtraction
2nd was multi-place addition & subtraction...’carrying & borrowing’
3rd was simple multiplication & short division
4th grade was long division & complex (multi-place) multiplaction
grades 5, 6, 7, 8 more of the same, with plenty of word problems
9th Algebra I
10th Plane Geometry
11th Algebra II
12th Elementary Functions 1 semester; Probability & Statistics 1 semester
The problem is that the teachers most likely are not able to teach algebra nor should they be teaching it. Higher levels of math should be taught by those who are proficient in math. I am going to take a wild guess that such people are not found amongst College of Education graduates.
Because of this it makes sense for school districts to hire based on actual ability to teach the subject rather than ability to indoctrinate the children. I think this is the real reason the teachers are up in arms. They know they can not do the job and do not want to see those able to do so threatening their fiefdoms.
“The problem is that the teachers most likely are not able to teach algebra nor should they be teaching it.”
If you are talking about 8th grade math, you are talking about someone who did specialize in math during college.
It is a different program then - say - k-6 general education.
So - anyone certified to teach 8th grade math should definitely have seen more than a few higher math courses in college.
Same here and in California at that, 7th and 8th grade.
I do not know how the California system works. But I can tell you that in Florida some years ago teachers were shifted outside of their speciality. My sister in law who majored in home economics and who was hired as a home economics teacher was shifted to teaching 8th grade science because of increased enrollment and teacher shortages. This was quite a few years ago so maybe things have changed. But it would not surprise me if it still occured.
Teachers and kids are wimps nowadays.
Teachers and kids are wimps nowadays.
9th Algebra IThat's the way I 'member it.10th Plane Geometry
11th Algebra II
Only in 11th, it was Trig.
Calculus or College Algebra (probably Algebra 2?) in Jr. College
So none of the teachers there know algebra?? That’s what it sounds like. Good grief, I had algebra in 7th grade, too, (1952) and geometry in 8th grade. It wasn’t “middle school” then, it was Jr. High. We knew all the basic math before we got there. That was in Colorado. And if I could learn it then, any kid can; if they’ve already been taught anything to begin with. That’s the rub, isn’t it? Yes, pathetic.
LAZARUS LONG
I am not sure what else you could even use, other than your chalk and blackboard, perhaps an overhead projector so that you can graph a function quickly on the calculator to quickly demonstrate things they have already learned to by hand, a box of condoms, a diversity manual, and a few Obama campaign signs. A talented teacher could probably get by even without the last three items.
Florida is very lenient as to who can become a teacher.
A friend of mine lived there briefly and found out she could become certified with only a few workshops.
She has a bachelors degree - but no undergrad teaching courses at all.
She was amazed how little they ask.
NY is different...they make you jump through alot of hoops to stay in the classroom.
If Ca is more like NY - then an 8th grade math teacher should definitely have a solid math background -unless they paid someone to take their tests for them (always possible)
Perhaps an easier solution would be to have all California teachers pass competency exams in the subject areas they teach. I’m certain the teacher’s union would oppose that too.
Thanks for the information. Though I don’t think having a bachelor’s degree, especially if it is in the field you want to teach in, is less of requirement than having an education degree.
Math and I have signed a mutual non aggression treaty.
There's no need for math. Here ia a sample of a question that students should have to answer (for the good of the state):
A budding artist suddenly develops a market for his work and makes $150,000 this year. With the Bush tax cuts, he would owe $23,000 in taxes. Without them, he would owe $27,000. The artist feels that sales will remain up and he will make $170,000 next year. He hopes that the tax cuts remain in effect for his tax bracket.
Question: Why is the artist so greedy and unpatriotic?
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