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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35889 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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If you combine this reasoning with e.g. Bryan Caplan's Against Education, you might notice that there's a lot of money being poured into inner-city schools to try to lift them above miserable failure, and it doesn't work. The Obama administration demonstrated this extremely well by pouring billions of dollars into "fixing" failing schools, with no substantial impact. You can't pay teachers more to fix kids who are constitutionally incapable of learning algebra. No amount of money will give them cognitive capacities they lack at a genetic level. Frankly, it's cruel to try.

Has it actually been demonstrated that most of these students are actually incapable of learning algebra? Or is it more that the school needs to slow down, separate out the high achievers and the actually retarded, and maybe adjust the teaching strategies(all things that the Obama admin strongly rejected trying in favor of doing the same thing, but more expensively).

Has it actually been demonstrated that most of these students are actually incapable of learning algebra? Or is it more that the school needs to slow down, separate out the high achievers and the actually retarded, and maybe adjust the teaching strategies(all things that the Obama admin strongly rejected trying in favor of doing the same thing, but more expensively).

I mean, some of the kids we're talking about in the public school system are profoundly mentally retarded, so you can't just discount them entirely.

But after that, it depends on what you mean by "demonstrated" and "incapable," I guess. Suppose, for example, there were someone who actually could learn algebra, but only if they have one-on-one tutoring for eight hours per day for five years? Of course, you have no way of knowing that's true at the outset, so: at what point between just "send them to a standard high school algebra class for a semester or two" and "expend every possible resource teaching this person algebra" do you conclude that they are "just not capable?" Or if "incapable" is just an off-putting word for you here, at what point do you conclude, "we've made every reasonable effort, at this point if they want to learn algebra they're just going to have to find the time and resources on their own?"

Slowing down and adjusting teaching strategies may not be what the Obama administration favored, but I know many schools have taken that approach anyway. I'm not aware of any impressive results that didn't experience regression to the mean in pretty short order, but naturally I'm not aware of every experiment anyone has ever done! But I've discussed educational experiences with a lot of students, and a large number of them manage to master just enough algebra to squeak out a "C" so they can graduate. The movement to abolish algebra requirements seems like some evidence that many educators have concluded, yes--some people are just never really going to get it, or at least not in a reasonable enough timeframe to justify the effort of teaching them.

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