US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6349

On December 01 2016 14:19 Nyxisto wrote:
Also not everything in education policy is just intuitive, some teaching methods may seem weird at first but are actually backed up by testing. Making classrooms smaller is one such thing. It's a hugely popular policy in many countries but most studies show that it's actually not that helpful and resources are often better spend elsewhere.

On December 01 2016 21:06 Banaora wrote:

If you stick to the same teaching methods you use for 32 students yes the result will barely improve when there are only for example 10. You need to change the way you teach with 10 students to get better results.

In general every couple of years there seems to be a new way to teach math. Here is a 'fun' song by Tom Lehrer from the 1960s highlighting how 'new math' was taught back then.+ Show Spoiler +

In a campaign commercial that ran just before the election, Donald J. Trump’s voice boomed over a series of Wall Street images. He described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations.”

The New York Stock Exchange, the hedge fund billionaire George Soros and the chief executive of the investment bank Goldman Sachs flashed across the screen.

Now Mr. Trump has named a former Goldman executive and co-investor with Mr. Soros to spearhead his economic policy.

With Wednesday’s nomination of Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman trader turned hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier, to be Treasury secretary, a new economic leadership is taking shape in Washington.

Mr. Mnuchin will join Wilbur L. Ross Jr., a billionaire investor in distressed assets, who has been chosen to run the Commerce Department, and Todd Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who has been picked to be deputy commerce secretary. All are superwealthy and to be overseen by the first billionaire president in United States history.

That two investors — Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Ross — will occupy two major economic positions in the new administration is the most powerful signal yet that Mr. Trump plans to emphasize policies friendly to Wall Street, like tax cuts and a relaxation of regulation, in the early days of his administration.

While that approach has been cheered by investors (the stocks of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been on a tear since the election), it stands in stark contrast to the populist campaign that Mr. Trump ran and the support he received from working-class voters across the country.

Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund executive and member of the Trump transition team, insisted on Wednesday that appointing wealthy investors did not contradict the campaign’s populist message.

“The working-class people of the United States, they need a break,” Mr. Scaramucci said. “And we need to switch them from going from the working class into the working poor into what I call the aspirational working class, which my dad was a member of.”

Still, Democrats were quick to attack the latest nomination.

“Steve Mnuchin is just another Wall Street insider,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a joint statement. “That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised to bring to Washington — that is hypocrisy at its worst.”

So far, none of the nominees who will be shaping economic policy have any significant experience in government.

On December 01 2016 21:06 Banaora wrote:

If you stick to the same teaching methods you use for 32 students yes the result will barely improve when there are only for example 10. You need to change the way you teach with 10 students to get better results.

In general every couple of years there seems to be a new way to teach math. Here is a 'fun' song by Tom Lehrer from the 1960s highlighting how 'new math' was taught back then.+ Show Spoiler +

On December 01 2016 20:33 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So Pat McCrory gets a recount in Durham County. A largely black county.

Quite obvious what his strategy is now, to get enough percentage of votes disqualified in order to win.

On December 01 2016 20:43 Simberto wrote:


Why are there so many recounts in american politics? And why do people expect them to change the result? Is your counting really that bad in the first place?

If the results of a recount are not almost always extremely similar to the first count, you have a systemic problem in place. Furthermore, why are the results of the recount expected to be more accurate than the first count? Doesn't this just leave more room for manipulation?

And as far as i know, the US uses electronic voting machines. How does one even recount those?

On December 01 2016 20:43 Simberto wrote:


Why are there so many recounts in american politics? And why do people expect them to change the result? Is your counting really that bad in the first place?

If the results of a recount are not almost always extremely similar to the first count, you have a systemic problem in place. Furthermore, why are the results of the recount expected to be more accurate than the first count? Doesn't this just leave more room for manipulation?

And as far as i know, the US uses electronic voting machines. How does one even recount those?

On December 01 2016 15:39 IgnE wrote:
I mean you know multiplication tables are just facts, right? They still have kids memorize them because you have to memorize facts to make use of them. If you are constantly reconstructing basic facts then even simple problems are going to take forever and be error prone. But I take your point. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

@ Danglars



Yeah I have imagined being asked to do the stupid coloring for every problem. It is a waste of time, you are right. But you are framing the problem improperly.

• the old pedagogy works for some and leaves many behind (just look at adult math literacy in this country)
  
• the new pedagogy in common core teaches a bunch of different ways to build math intuition
  
• smarter kids are going to be bored and frustrated when asked to use colors to do problems they can do in their head
  
• but the new method might be more effective for the vast majority of kids who are not above average

You have to ask what the point of compulsory schooling is and implement policies that meet the end. In this country school is not about identifying the smartest kids so that they can be set on a separate track to maximize their talents. It is about bringing up as many people as possible to a common denominator so that America has a functioning citizenry that can perform the basic mental tasks required of service sector employees and consumers.

I could, for example, argue that the smart kids who are frustrated should just learn to play the game because that is what school is. If your choice is an ineffective pedagogy that is fine for only the best students, and a pedagogy that can be tedious for those who simply do, but helps a lot more average and below average students understand basic mathematical concepts what is your choice going to be? These are basic policy questions. You are totally able to voice criticism of the system for not identifying talented students, or even criticism of that individual teacher. Knowing multiple ways to do a math problem is not an end in itself, as you are well aware, so teachers that "grade down" for using the "wrong" method are working against themselves. When I spoke to a teacher who specialized in teaching other teachers how to teach common core math, she specifically said, when asked, that teachers are not supposed to do that. The whole point is that the kids are taught a variety of methods of solving problems and can use whatever makes the most sense to them. Obviously this idea can be complicated, especially when basic math concepts are rephrased under a new discourse and parents don't understand why teachers are talking about how "tens" are different than "ones". But that's a parent issue.

The point is that your criticism about teachers requiring bright students to color for every prealgebra problem might feel right to you, but it's really divorced from the goals of the public school system itself. It's not as if the old system didn't bore smart kids too. That's not the point.

[B]On December 01 2016 18:23 Laurens wrote:

Does this actually happen or was that just a made-up example?

Some of the stuff on that common sheet seems like it would make children worse at math instead of better.

On December 01 2016 14:56 ChristianS wrote:

Is this what Common Core is about? I have a buddy who just started as a teacher and he told me this is what they were all about in his education classes. The new teaching philosophy is to focus more on students understanding the underlying reasons for what they're doing instead of just rote memorization of how a particular problem is solved. Otherwise you get phenomena where, for instance, your kids can add 7+2=9 and 3+4=7 but they can't add 73+24=97 because they view 2-digit addition as a completely different thing.

Why would that be anything but good? Certainly in my own anecdotal experience, that rote memorization thing was one of the biggest problems with math education. I knew plenty of people who could do the ritual but didn't know what any of this stuff actually meant, and 5 years later could recite the quadratic formula but couldn't tell you when or why you would want to solve a quadratic equation, or even really what it means to "solve" an equation. It's like we're just teaching kids a weird puzzle game with numbers, and not doing a great job of teaching them when and how this puzzle game actually relates to real life.

I don't know much about Common Core, but is that really what people are objecting to?

On December 01 2016 23:44 ticklishmusic wrote:
In my elementary school, I think starting from around 5th grade there were a couple different tracks for math and english, where basically some of the kids who were doing really well in the main class were pulled in a slightly more advanced one (parents had the option to put their kids in the alternate track as well). I thought that was a pretty good system.

On December 01 2016 23:44 ticklishmusic wrote:
In my elementary school, I think starting from around 5th grade there were a couple different tracks for math and english, where basically some of the kids who were doing really well in the main class were pulled in a slightly more advanced one (parents had the option to put their kids in the alternate track as well). I thought that was a pretty good system.

On December 01 2016 22:56 Danglars wrote:

I know it has been sold as a more effective pedagogy over a larger range of students. But the educational outcomes studies I've seen shows a greater achievement gap compared to methods in use before common core was implemented (and if I have time this weekend I could try to pull them up again). I noted the big changes to say what a break it was from previous. The size and scope dictates it should only be implemented (bottom up and district-based) if it proved more effective. I see no gain in stymying gifted kids while also ensuring those from poor backgrounds do worse/minority students do worse: it's lose-lose.

On December 02 2016 00:41 Logo wrote:


Tieing in with the above, the problem is that the tracks can really set people down dark roads. The lowest level classes in my school were *really* low and that's for a very well respected public school system and if you get put down one of those roads it can really mess you up. The only reason I didn't end up in the lowest level of math was that my mom fought really hard to keep me out of that level. Because she did I graduated having cleared a middle level of the math track with good grades, got into a good college, and got good grades in that college. If I had been stuck down the low math level my college likely would not have even considered me as a candidate. Plus it's hard to jump back up from the lower tracks, it's not that the work is somehow magically easier; you just learn less. So after 1 year in the lowest level track if you actually could have done the middle track it's just flat out too late to change. The kids in the middle track have learned concepts that you haven't and those concepts (in say math at least) will be built on in the next class then you're kind of screwed. Instead of needing to be just good enough for the middle track you'd need to be good enough to do the middle track without the necessary fundamentals.

Not that I think you can get by with only one track I suppose, but tracks can have some real serious problems.

On December 02 2016 01:18 ticklishmusic wrote:
I agree that having tracks can cause problems, especially if they become permanent trajectories. I liked that there was a degree of flexibility between the two tracks - I guess pretty much anyone could go into the "advanced" track (as well as leave more or less at any time), though in practice I'd estimate/remember about 20% of the class was in it. The program structure allows teachers to teach to their students capabilities somewhat better, but isn't really leaving anyone behind.

On December 02 2016 01:18 ticklishmusic wrote:


I agree that having tracks can cause problems, especially if they become permanent trajectories. I liked that there was a degree of flexibility between the two tracks - I guess pretty much anyone could go into the "advanced" track (as well as leave more or less at any time), though in practice I'd estimate/remember about 20% of the class was in it. The program structure allows teachers to teach to their students capabilities somewhat better, but isn't really leaving anyone behind.