Roe v. Wade is going down

[Red]

I can tell that you don't have a school-aged kid in the system right now and therefor do not know of what you speak.

The last department I worked for, quite awhile ago, used anonymous surveys where students rated….me. I’m sure that’s a common enough practice. These surveys, which obviously I was expected to read, were very helpful to me, in coming to terms with shortcomings the students were in a better position to judge. My classes were likely a bit out of the ordinary, as the students ranged from fresh out of high school to retirees. We were all teachers, as I learned as much from my students as they hopefully learned from me.

Otherwise, in my reply I simply pointed out there are likely many factors playing into test scores, and the role individual teachers play in the education of their students. I noticed you did not address those factors at all. Obviously, you have a very low opinion of the profession of teaching. You seem very ignorant in that respect.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

There are political leanings against calculus?

There is in my state, but I live in California so does that really surprise? The effort being pushed now is to have all kids, from the gifted to the remedial, take the exact same math classes through their sophomore year in the name of equity.

California's controversial math overhaul focuses on equity

Critics say California's proposed math framework waters down content in pursuit of equity. Defenders say social awareness will accelerate learning.

www.latimes.com

My kids, who is in public school, is taking extracurricular math classes because what they "teach" him he learned 2 years ago and my kids is not freakishly smart.

As for budgets, they way you paint the struggle implies you live in a very different world. Our local district is huge with over 121.000 kids and 239 schools. Funding has nothing to do with test scores and is instead set purely by enrollment weighted inversely by property values. Schools in expensive neighborhoods get little money while schools in run down areas get the most money. The schools in the expensive neighborhoods make up their budget shortfalls by getting corporate sponsorship and fundraisers through a satellite organization that is sort of like a cross between a PTA and a private school board. For instance, at my kid's elementary school the librarian is not a district employee but is employed by the satellite organization. The satellite organization built the STEM lab in the school and bought Promethean interactive displays for all the classrooms. The satellite organization pays to send teachers to training classes over the summer. The school is technically a public school but in practice is a hybrid of public and private. The school isn't as impacted by district funding but is a slave to mandates in curriculum coming from the district office or state department of education.

 

[LogGrad98]

I can tell that you don't understand a thing about education and have no hesitancy to speak with confidence.


This might be true for a handful of educators or even the occasional administrator, bur for the vast majority, the single most important principle is making sure there's enough money to keep the lights on and the salaries going out.



You'd need to have a wide swath of evidence to back up the notion that people who have devoted their lives to education are suddenly insisting on diseducation.


Schools are willing to sacrifice their budgets by reducing their overall test scores? I scoff heartily.


There are political leanings against calculus?


Truly gifted children will learn anyhow; you can't stop them. They'll read ahead, get sent to the library, help the other kids with their homework, etc. They learn to use their gifts to help others. They grow socially and emotionally (which is also something educators needs to provide as the elementary and secondary levels).

Mainstreaming the Gifted

www.ascd.org

My daughter moved herself up 3 grades when she was in elementary school. She got bored in 1st grade, and had a few friends in our neighborhood in 4th, so one day after recess she just went with them. After the teacher talked to her and the principal and they let her stay in that class for a day, they found out she was nearly on that level in almost everything they were doing. They had no gifted program, per se, but they ended up letting her spend half her day in 3rd grade and half her day in 1st, where she helped other kids with reading and math.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

The left is anti calculus!
Make america calculussy again!

What happens in California today will happen in your state soon enough. We have more The Thrillers out here so we get it faster.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curriculum-guidelines.html

 

[Al-O-Meter]

My daughter moved herself up 3 grades when she was in elementary school. She got bored in 1st grade, and had a few friends in our neighborhood in 4th, so one day after recess she just went with them. After the teacher talked to her and the principal and they let her stay in that class for a day, they found out she was nearly on that level in almost everything they were doing. They had no gifted program, per se, but they ended up letting her spend half her day in 3rd grade and half her day in 1st, where she helped other kids with reading and math.

No gifted program and teaching stuff two grade levels behind where she needed to be. Weird. Was that in Riverside County, California?

 

[One Brow]

There is in my state, but I live in California so does that really surprise? The effort being pushed now is to have all kids, from the gifted to the remedial, take the exact same math classes through their sophomore year in the name of equity.

Did you even read that article?

California's controversial math overhaul focuses on equity

Critics say California's proposed math framework waters down content in pursuit of equity. Defenders say social awareness will accelerate learning.

www.latimes.com

The guidelines call on educators generally to keep all students in the same courses until their junior year in high school, when they can choose advanced subjects, including calculus, statistics and other forms of data science.

“For a significant number of students, the rush to calculus can have a significant detrimental effect on the necessary deep-level understanding of grade-level mathematics to succeed in subsequent coursework, and districts should be aware of this research to make well-informed choices,” said Brian Lindaman, a member of the math faculty at Cal State Chico and part of a team of heavy hitters from academia who wrote the framework together.

“We are seeking to elevate students and to bring them up,” Lindaman said. “We’re not bringing anyone down. We’d like to bring everyone up.”

As someone actually teaching calculus to the occasional student still struggling with square roots, rational expression addition, and difference-of-squares factoring, I completely understand the point about deep-level understanding. As a double-math major who never took calculus until I hit college, I also recognize that the rush to calculus is unnecessary.

My kids, who is in public school, is taking extracurricular math classes because what they "teach" him he learned 2 years ago and my kids is not freakishly smart.

Repetition builds memory. I remember encountering this every single year of school in almost every subject.

As for budgets, they way you paint the struggle implies you live in a very different world. Our local district is huge with over 121.000 kids and 239 schools. Funding has nothing to do with test scores and is instead set purely by enrollment weighted inversely by property values.

Do Standardized Test Scores Factor in to How Much Money a School Will Receive?

Teacher salaries were based only on years of experience, but changing legislation has introduced the idea of paying teachers for their performance. To earn performance pay bonuses, teachers have to be rated highly effective, which is largely determined by how their students do on standardized tests.

www.theclassroom.com

https://gunnoracle.com/13476/news/low-test-attendance-rates-affect-additional-school-funding/

Schools in expensive neighborhoods get little money while schools in run down areas get the most money.

I presume you mean from the state. Has California abandoned local property taxes entirely for funding?

8.3 Who Pays for Schools?: Where California's Public School Funds Come From | ED100

Where does the money for public schools in California come from? What is the role of property taxes in education? When did income taxes become the biggest source of school funding? Does the lottery provide a lot of money for schools?

ed100.org

In California, only a quarter of the operational funding of K-12 schools comes from property taxes.

So, property taxes do make up a some of the difference.

The schools in the expensive neighborhoods make up their budget shortfalls by getting corporate sponsorship and fundraisers through a satellite organization that is sort of like a cross between a PTA and a private school board. For instance, at my kid's elementary school the librarian is not a district employee but is employed by the satellite organization. The satellite organization built the STEM lab in the school and bought Promethean interactive displays for all the classrooms. The satellite organization pays to send teachers to training classes over the summer. The school is technically a public school but in practice is a hybrid of public and private. The school isn't as impacted by district funding but is a slave to mandates in curriculum coming from the district office or state department of education.

Great for the expensive neighborhoods. I guess you've just explained why they don't need as much funding.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

I presume you mean from the state. Has California abandoned local property taxes entirely for funding?

No, the reverse weighting is done by the district. Like I said, it is huge. The district takes in all the property tax money, state money, Mello-Roo money, etc., and pools it. Then they allocated to schools in the district based on their own internal formula which inversely weights local property values. The neighborhoods with mansions pay for the schools in the slums while the apartments in the slums pay for the schools near the mansions.

I don't mind the funding scheme. If the hindrance was limited to poor funding of high-performing school, there is a way around it. It is when the hindrance comes in the form of government and district mandates to forbid the teaching of an advanced curriculum to students ready for that level of rigor that I start to chafe. It is also why so many of my neighbors are now sending their kids to private schools where they can learn advanced subjects and won't have to return to school this fall all masked up. My local areas has some of the highest performing schools in the state and enrollment is plunging from the new district interference.

 

[LogGrad98]

No gifted program and teaching stuff two grade levels behind where she needed to be. Weird. Was that in Riverside County, California?

Fernley, NV. No big surprise. It was a good elementary school with some of the best teachers we had for our kids, but rural and moderately funded. They did the basics right, imo. But no advanced stuff like that really. They started a gifted program when my daughter entered 3rd grade but then we moved to Utah.

 

[Red]

The inside story of how John Roberts failed to save abortion rights

It appears unlikely that Roberts' best prospect -- Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- was ever close to switching his earlier vote.

www.cnn.com

 

[Deleted member 365]

And we all know what red states will do if marriage isn’t protected federally.

1 in 4 Republicans Oppose Protecting Interracial Marriage

Politico flagged a stunning poll result showing that a quarter of Republican voters oppose Congres passing a federal law to protect interracial marriage.

www.mediaite.com

 

[Deleted member 365]

The inside story of how John Roberts failed to save abortion rights

It appears unlikely that Roberts' best prospect -- Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- was ever close to switching his earlier vote.

www.cnn.com

I think there’s a strong argument to be made that it’s no longer his court. It now belongs to Alito and whatever the most extremists from the Federalist Society want. SCOTUS is literally just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Gun regulation? Nah states can’t be trusted to do that. Federal government!

Abortion! Ew. Gross. Let the states handle that cuz we know that red states will outlaw it.

EPA regulation? We really don’t like that, so it’s gone!

It’ll be funny to see how they rule on this upcoming case:

Supreme Court to take on controversial election-law case

At issue is a legal theory that would give state legislatures unfettered authority to set the rules for federal elections, free of supervision by state courts and state constitutions.

www.npr.org

Especially since Ginni was involved in attempting to overturn the last presidential election.

Proponents of the theory argue that that clause gives state legislatures power to regulate federal elections uninhibited by state courts or state constitutions. If a majority of the Supreme Court agrees, that would hamstring state courts, removing judicial oversight of state elections.

"Taken to its extreme, the independent state legislature doctrine could be an earthquake in American election law and fundamentally alter the balance of power within states and provide a pathway to subvert election results," says professor Richard Hasen, an expert on election law from the University of California, Irvine.

Like I said, it’ll be funny to see how they justify ruling in favor of state legislatures here. It’ll mean that whichever party controls the legislature can determine election results.

To see how reactionary they’ve become, just watch how they’ll rule on contraception and gay marriage (they'll be a state rights) but interracial marriage will probably be protected federally cuz Clarence and Ginni say so.

 

[Red]

It’ll be funny to see how they rule on this upcoming case:

Supreme Court to take on controversial election-law case

At issue is a legal theory that would give state legislatures unfettered authority to set the rules for federal elections, free of supervision by state courts and state constitutions.

www.npr.org

Yes, it’s going to be a huge decision.