Would US Education Be Better If We Replaced Algebra Requirements With Stats & Logic?

from the reshuffling dept

By now you may have heard about the NY Times article from over the weekend in which political science professor Andrew Hacker makes the somewhat contrarian suggestion that the US education system would function much better if we ditched algebra requirements. The whole article is worth reading, but the basic gist of it is that many people who end up dropping out of school do so in part because of trouble they have in getting past basic algebra. It's a key stumbling block.

California's two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take.

"There are students taking these courses three, four, five times," says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, "many drop out."

Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor's degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York, where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn't pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: "failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor." A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F's and D's compared as other subjects.

I will admit that my initial reaction to this article was to scoff and think that it's ridiculous. Understanding basic algebra, to me, seems fundamental to understand a variety of other important things -- including some forms of logic and statistics. So, I wondered how dropping algebra as a requirement might make those already lacking fields even worse.

However, Hacker's piece actually suggests something of a solution: potentially replacing algebra with a form of statistics, which is rarely a required course.

Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every level could create exciting courses in what I call "citizen statistics." This would not be a backdoor version of algebra, as in the Advanced Placement syllabus. Nor would it focus on equations used by scholars when they write for one another. Instead, it would familiarize students with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and public lives.

It could, for example, teach students how the Consumer Price Index is computed, what is included and how each item in the index is weighted - and include discussion about which items should be included and what weights they should be given.

I will admit to being unsure how such a class will work without a basic underpinning in algebra. However, conceptually, what Hacker is saying makes sense. Focusing on the formulaic side of algebra isn't particularly practical for many people. I could see how classes that focus on practical mathematical skills around statistics and logic, could actually be a lot more useful. And while he says these don't need to be "backdoor" algebra classes, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. Having people understand the basics of algebra by putting them in realistic situations they understand, and showing how to apply such things in a useful manner doesn't seem like such a bad idea...

Filed Under: algebra, drop outs, education, logic, math, statistics

Gladwell Logic: There Was War Before Nuclear Bombs Existed, Thus Nukes Have No Impact On War

from the make-your-own dept

In what can be considered impeccably poor timing, last fall, Malcolm Gladwell penned a silly article in the New Yorker, insisting that social media is useless for revolutions or civil actions because it doesn't involve real personal connections, but only weak ones. Of course, in the months immediately following Gladwell's piece, we've seen massive protests show up all over the Middle East, with nearly all of them making significant use of social networking tools for organization. And while I agree that it's silly to give too much credit to social networks, it's undeniable that such things have become a key tool used by protestors these days, and almost certainly has helped their ability to organize and disseminate necessary info.

All of that might make a lesser man reconsider the original faulty premise. But not Gladwell. Not only is he standing by his initial thesis, he's backing it up with the intellectually void argument that because people organized and toppled governments prior to Twitter, it means that Twitter isn't a big deal in these protests and regime changes:

I mean, in East Germany, a million people gathered in the streets of Berlin. They were - the percentage of people in East Berlin in East Germany who even had a telephone in 1989 was 13 percent, right?

So, I mean, in cases where there are no tools of communication, people still get together. So I don't see that as being a - in looking at history, I don't see the absence of efficient tools of communication as being a limiting factor on the ability people to socially

In other words, if something happened before a technology came about, then technology has no impact on it later on. This is laughably bad logic. Just because something happened without technology X, doesn't mean that technology X has no impact on it. Of course, this has now created something of a meme on Twitter, kicked off by Jeff Jarvis, called #GladwellLogic, in which you try to apply that same logic to other things. Jarvis kicked it off by pointing out:

#GladwellLogic: People were smart before there were books, therefore books don't make us smarter.

It's not hard to come up with your own examples:

• #GladwellLogic: Wars happened before there were nuclear weapons, submarines, machine guns or airplanes. Therefore, none of those things impact war.
• #GladwellLogic: People got from point A to point B before there were cars. Therefore, cars have no impact on transportation.
• #GladwellLogic: People produced stuff prior to there being electric lighting. Therefore, lightbulbs had no impact on productivity.
• #GladwellLogic: People made music before machines could record it. Therefore, recorded music had no impact on music.

Try and create your own...

Filed Under: logic, malcolm gladwell, revolutions, social media

Wikipedia's Circular Logic Pops Up Again

from the where-does-truth-come-from? dept

Germany has a new minister of economic affairs, named Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. That's a mouthful, and apparently a number of German media outlets went to the guy's Wikipedia entry for some help. But some prankster had added a "Wilhelm" in the middle, which got printed in several places. The change on Wikipedia was noticed and corrected, but then reverted to the incorrect Wilhelm version -- with one of the press stories cited as the source. So, somebody inserts an incorrect "fact" into Wikipedia, the "fact" gets reprinted elsewhere based on the Wikipedia entry, gets correctly removed from Wikipedia, then incorrectly reinserted using one of the incorrect articles as "proof" of its veracity. That sounds pretty similar to establishing your newsworthiness for inclusion in Wikipedia by getting a newspaper article written about how you're not in Wikipedia. All's well that ends well, though, since the minister's correct name now appears in his entry. But as Wikipedia continues to be perceived by more and more people as a very authoritative source, this sort of incident is likely to happen again.

Filed Under: germany, logic, wikipedia