Your mileage may vary.
My primary and secondary education looked pretty much like this: 
Posted on 07/22/2017 5:15:30 PM PDT by grundle
The chancellor of the California community college system has stated that institutions’ algebra requirements are “the biggest barrier” for “underemployed or unemployed Americans,” and as such is … a civil rights issue.
According to NPR, Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley is “among a growing number of educators who view intermediate algebra as an obstacle to students obtaining their credentials — particularly in fields that require no higher level math skills.”
In an interview with the chancellor, NPR’s Robert Siegel pointed out the low graduation rate in the community college system (48% for an associate’s degree), and then asked Oakley if ditching algebra wasn’t just the “easy way out.”
Oakley retorted “I hear that a lot and unfortunately nothing could be farther from the truth. Somewhere along the lines, since the 1950s, we decided that the only measure of a student’s ability to reason or to do some sort of quantitative measure is algebra.
“What we’re saying is we want as rigorous a course as possible to determine a student’s ability to succeed, but it should be relevant to their course of study. There are other math courses that we could introduce that tell us a lot more about our students.”
From the interview:
[Q]: Bob Moses , the civil rights activist, started the Algebra Project, teaching concepts of algebra to black students in the South. He saw the teaching of math as a continuation of the civil rights struggle.
Rates of failure in algebra are higher for minority groups than they are for white students. Why do you think that is? Do you think a different curriculum would have less disparate results by ethnic or racial group?
[A]: First of all, we’ve seen in the data from many of the pilots across the country that are using alternative math pathways — that are just as rigorous as an algebra course — we’ve seen much greater success for students because many of these students can relate to these different kinds of math depending on which program of study they’re in. They can see how it works in their daily life and how it’s going to work in their career. …
[Q]: Do you risk a negative form of tracking? Depriving a student of the possibility of saying in community college: “Wow, that quadratic equation is the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen. I think I’m going to do more stuff like this.”
[A]: We’re certainly not saying that we’re going to commit students to lower levels of math or different kinds of math. What we’re saying is we want more students to have math skills that allow them to keep moving forward. We want to build bridges between the kinds of math pathways we’re talking about that will allow them to continue into STEM majors. We don’t want to limit students.
The last thing I’d say is that we are already tracking students. We are already relegating students to a life of below livable wage standards. So we’ve already done so, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
Here’s a good debate on the merits of taking algebra, and this site provides good examples of when you use algebra … and don’t even realize it.
Drop it. Don’t allow them to learn it. Don’t give them that opportunity. If they learn, they might get out of poverty and they might advance. Then we won’t have a permanent, expanding underclass. And that’s unacceptable.
Minority means: non-white, non-asian.
Nope. In my neck of the woods (L.A.) Latinos are crashing and burning too.
They do algebras. We be STEM wid’ no algebras. They old school. We new school.
However a great teacher would point out that in the real world government taxes are withheld from lottery payouts. Winning just one ticket will leave Bob's legs short by that amount. So he'll need to win both tickets to cover the loan shark, a 10^-12 = 0.0000000001% chance. And even that chance depends on not being in a delayed pay jurisdiction (loan sharks are too smart to accept Illinois IOUs) or if someone like Bernie wins and decides to withhold more than 50% gambling taxes so even a double win wouldn't leave you with enough!
80 years ago, our mental status exam was "A bounded function on a compact set is Riemann integrable if and only if the set of its discontinuities has ___________________." And that was in, like, 3rd or 4th grade.
Things just keep sliding...
Anyone within one standard deviation of the mean for intelligence can do algebra. We just aren’t trying to teach it.
Your mileage may vary.
My primary and secondary education looked pretty much like this:
So we've now gone from whipping blacks to keep them from becoming educated to having bigots in our school systems do the same thing with a more facile rationale.
I have a bunch of right-angle measuring things! I also have a couple slide-rules from when I was young; something we had to learn to use in high school way back then. Carpentry is one of my hobbies, and my being a math major helped with that hobby.
As for the bathroom remodel, I paid the contractors for the labor but I had to buy the materials and supply it to them. I've been remodeling an entire house and needed the extra labor to get the bathroom completed while I focused on other work. Just put the house on the market and am glad it's done. Now I can go back to making furniture for fun.
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I am an industrial electrician covering both high voltage drive systems and microprocessor machine control programming. It is a non college degree job. It pays more than $30 per hour. I have to use algebra every day. We can’t find qualified new hires to replace us as we come closer to retirement.
They already have those.
They shouldn’t drop it. Offer the remedial math necessary to build up to it. I aced all my math classes in college and all I had to begin with was a 9th grade education over 25 years before, prior to going to college. I enjoyed the algebra..fun puzzles, but I struggled with the college level algebra. I maintained a strait D average throughout the class. I struggled with the instructors approach, it didn’t work for me. Plus, I had a concussion from a car accident so my brain wasn’t wanting to do the arobics necessary to grasp it.
But I sought tutoring, worked hard, and pulled a B on the final exam.
I am not a math person as I struggled with it all my school years, but if I can do it, others can too. The just might need some prep and some tutoring. Intermediate was fairly easy. Got an A in that.
The mental gymnastics required for an older woman of less than highschool formal teaching is work with a capital W. But the satisfaction gained, as well as the additional skills was rewarding. By taking it away, they steal that reward and sense of accomplishment.
The real problem is lack of stimulation during the growing years. There seems to be a cultural instance on being dim whitted. Only a few really boost their kids to be hungry for learning, and stimulate them during those formative years.
If folks can’t handle college or university level classes, they simply don’t belong there. But don’t Rob those who can do it.
But....but.....I was told the Muslims invented Algebra, so isn’t getting rid of it considered to be Anti-Muslim?
"Idiocracy" was a documentary.
LOL...some of them can’t even do that right. Pitiful.
That gif is only the tip of the iceberg! Heaven forbid that the Sister called home.
*That* is what it would look like at home, for me.
Looks like we survived. :)
I hear ya...something similar happened to me in college. School required frosh to take science credits. Choices were chemistry, physics or biology. Since I had done so well in Chemistry in HS, I opted for chemistry.
Unbeknownst to me, Chemistry 101 was FULL of science majors from biology and physics majors, who had to get Chem 101 to get their required major.
So there I was, the *only* student who did not have a large science background. Most everything went right over my head; I was a fish out of water; The professor did not slow down the pace for lil’ ole me...she kept up the fast pace for the others science majors. At one point, I was failing the course; but ended up with a B-; that was b/c I prayed a lot. :)
No, now that I recall, it was my A in the lab portion that pulled my grade up. That was it.
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