Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Is Algebra Necessary?

Here is an interesting follow up on the Algebra for All initiatives:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curr..._algebra-for-all_p.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2

Thanks. It refers to the following paper.

http://epa.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/07/30/0162373712453869.abstract
The Unintended Consequences of an Algebra-for-All Policy on High-Skill Students: Effects on Instructional Organization and Students’ Academic Outcomes
Takako Nomi
Abstract
In 1997, Chicago implemented a policy that required algebra for all ninth-grade students, eliminating all remedial coursework. This policy increased opportunities to take algebra for low-skill students who had previously enrolled in remedial math. However, little is known about how schools respond to the policy in terms of organizing math classrooms to accommodate curricular changes. The policy unintentionally affected high-skill students who were not targeted by the policy—those who would enroll in algebra in its absence. Using an interrupted time-series design combined with within-cohort comparisons, this study shows that schools created more mixed-ability classrooms when eliminating remedial math classes, and peer skill levels declined for high-skill students. Consequently, their test scores also declined.

The report is at http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED512659.pdf . A related thread was "Effects of almost universal 8th grade algebra"
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....2180/Effects_of_almost_universal_8t.html

I do not wish for all high school students to take Algebra. This dumbs down the classes. Students are usually passed through these courses (here anyway). They are appalled when they are placed in a basic math course in community college. "I passed Algebra; Why am I here again?".

My daughter's Algebra II course did not finish the book (or even the curriculum) due to the lower abilities of students in the course. Most of the class failed the placement test for College Algebra. College Algebra seems like a wasted class as it is just taking Algebra II again - just faster. We did not take College Algebra if we successfully pass Algebra II.

Personally, I think the biggest issue with kids and Algebra is that we spend all those years beforehand teaching various methods of computation without really explaining why we bother in the first place. We give them occasional hints with word problems, but 8 cookies plus 2 cookies really isn't sophisticated enough for them to get the central idea, that math is essentially another language that we use primarily to express relationships, and that the numbers in and of themselves are essentially meaningless, unless given meaning through context. Because up to the point where they enter a Pre-algebra class, math is ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS... so how can you suddenly say they're meaningless?

In the face of a giant paradigm shift, some embrace the new and go on to success. And some are so stuck in the old mindset that they can't get out. Education is filled with such examples, where advancement to higher levels involves a teacher saying, "Everything you think you know about this subject is wrong." Algebra is just one example, but it also happens to be one nearly everyone experiences.

I recently asked why my daughter was already seeing simple computation represented as Algebra problems in the first grade, and I think I just answered my own question.

Because students who fail placement tests at the community college graduate at much lower rates than those who pass, some advocate using high school GPAs instead for placement. But what does a passing grade in high school algebra
signify if one cannot pass an algebra test?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/e...ny-to-remedial-classes-studies-find.html
Colleges Misassign Many to Remedial Classes, Studies Find
By TAMAR LEWIN
New York Times
February 28, 2012
Two new studies from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College have found that community colleges unnecessarily place tens of thousands of entering students in remedial classes — and that their placement decisions would be just as good if they relied on high school grade-point averages instead of standardized placement tests.

...

I agree Bostonian. Many (or most) of the students in my daughter's class were just there to pass. They are always passed anymore.

Yes! I've been re-teaching long division and fractions to one of my kids this summer because the algorithms used in school are merely methods that work, with no real thinking required. I was amazed to see that his math book teaches long division the way I learned it in the 70s. All these years later, and no one has figured out that "2 goes into 2 once, bring down the 5" in 25/2 is a bad idea? My kids learn that 2 goes into 20 10 times, and 2*10 =20. Great! You've divided up 20 out of 25. Subtract, and you have 5 left to divide. And we do exercises with Cuisinaire rods to demonstrate what's happening in long division.

I've shown him the relationships that exist in and between different arithmetic operations, and a kid who detested mathematics is now telling people that he likes math. The other day, he complained that "I was really looking forward to learning something new, and it's over already."

The article seems to say that many kids go into the placement test with no prior study / review, and with no particular reason to attempt to do well. If you plunked me in front of an algebra test today, and said it would make no difference in anything how I did on it, you'd probably conclude that I needed remedial coursework. What I really need is a half-hour review of whatever I've forgotten in the 25 years since I last took an algebra class, and an understanding of the consequences of the test results.

I didn't use any math beyond basic algebra in jobs like cost accountant and executive assistant. I haven't worked outside the home since my son was born and now as a homeschool mom, I am now relearning the algebra that I have had many years to forget. I noticed some things several things on IXL that I don't remember ever learning and I know I never used.

My husband is a manager and works for a university. He says he has only used basic algebra skills in the jobs he has had and was not taught some of the skills that are on IXL's algebra. He says he never needed them.

I have not had a chance to talk to my sister who took every math class she could get in high school and is a highly paid manager working for the federal government. I doubt that she uses all of the algebra she learned.

I am guessing my relatives who were engineers used a lot of algebra, but the rest of us would have been just fine with just the very easy basics.

My son knows he probably won't use some of what he is learning but he is willing to learn as much as he can so that he will do well on the ACT-- if we can get accommodations for his dysgraphia. If not, he will try to learn enough to pass the algebra CLEP test at some point.

I am a homeschool mom. Although I could relearn algebra and show my son how to do something using the one and only algorithm that I was taught, that was never enough for him. This and dysgraphia has been a challenge for both of us.

When we race to find the answers to algebra word problems, he almost always finds the answers faster than I do because he can do so much of it in his head. I can't. Years ago I was taught to write out every little step and not question how it was done. I am older and stuck in my ways and my mind is just not as flexible as his.

My son has always had the freedom to try different ways to find the answer and then use whatever algorithm works the best for him.

On his own, he figured out an alternate subtraction algorithm using negative numbers that I had never heard of. He did this right before he turned five. Older friends in his acting class had told him about negative numbers but not how to do this subtraction method.

He found it easier to use algorithm for mental math and asked me why he couldn't do it this way. At first I told him it wouldn't work and that he had to do it the traditional school way but I went into another room and tried it and it worked. For so many years I thought the way I had been taught was the only way. I showed it to my husband. My husband and I talked to the kindergarten teacher about this method that our son was using for subtraction before he started kindergarten not knowing that all they thought was important for him to learn was to color in the lines, even though he has a disability that makes it difficult for him to do this.

We really had no choice but to homeschool.