Substance & style

I do think it is possible to be innumerate and have a perfectly good life, and even function at a very high level in certain fields. It would be a shame to deny these people a chance because they can't pass High School algebra.

Native English speakers don't realize it, but learning a foreign language (i.e. English) plays the same role in most of the world. Lots of otherwise smart people have trouble because they aren't good at languages, and it's a shame. Life is tough and unfair, it's true, but there's no reason to add to it.

I do think it is possible to be innumerate and have a perfectly good life, and even function at a very high level in certain fields. It would be a shame to deny these people a chance because they can't pass High School algebra.

agreed. i think, honestly, that making people pass algebra is too high of a bar for many. the issue is whether we conceive of high school as simply pre-college, or as a diverse array of various educational streams that helps shape our citizenry.

For many the problem was Cohen bragging about his lack of math skills. He's also famous for not thinking much about anything substantive and typing off weak, low-content columns. Conservatives may think he's a liberal, but liberals hate him because he's such a feeble and unreliable spokesman (he's one of the liberals who specializes in disagreeing with other liberals).

Cohen could be a poster child for the idea that humanities majors are capable of mothing other than cranking out meaningless, misleading, fine-sounding rhetoric.

I'm rarely in a position to need algebra, but just being able to do a simple proportion (a:b=c:x) is useful in lots of everyday affairs.

What everyone here said. Let me add a few rants and a fond personal memory. First, WTF that the LA school system JUST ADDED algebra & geometry as requirements??? I don't think so. I think it probably had them as requirements, dropped them, and re-instated them.

You should not add mentally challenging requirements to stressed-out school systems WITHOUT expecting problems, and without being able to tutor kids who fail.

Now here's the fond memory. I took the required algebra in the 7th grade, and was doing OK until towards the end of the term when I hit a rough patch. I failed three tests. My teacher sent them home to my mother, who hit the roof. If I was going to continue this way, I would fail the Regents, which is a test all NY kids had to take in certain subjects. My math whiz brother and my mother drilled me relentlessly. They used such progressive pedagogical techniques as ridicule, shame, screaming and drill. I don't honestly remember the point where I began to understand things, all I can say is I got 91 out of 100 on the regents test. My mistakes were all minor arithmetical ones, which I still regret. I could have actually scored 97 or 98 out of 100.

My teacher congratulated me after the test. I can't blame him--he had to teach a big baby boom class with something like 30 kids.

I benefited from having a concerned mother and a math whiz brother. The Hispanic girl in the Cohen article probably didn't have either.

We need better disaster intervention AND we need to explain to people how mastering a tough subject that doesn't come easily to you is a Good Thing.

Writing is the highest form of reasoning? It's the most effective form of communication, but as the column well demonstrates, the set of situations where one is reasoning and the set of situations where one is communicating don't always intersect.

He says calculators can do all the math you'll ever need -- not true. They can calculate, but they can't tell you which buttons to press in which order. You need to be able to set up a basic word problem to do that. I understand some aren't able to do basic math, but then why should they get a HS diploma?

In fairness, perhaps they should give different flavors of HS diplomas. As in, Full Diploma if you fulfill all requirements, Diploma Minus Math if you met all requirements except for math, etc., down to no diploma. Then your employer (since anyone who can't do basic math isn't going to college) can easily see whether or not you're good for the job. One might not care if you can't do math, while another might. But restructuring the requirements for a HS diploma so that everyone gets one is like "Everyone Gets a Trophy Day." Meaningless.

Someone posted this in the comments at pharyngula-- it's an excerpt from the LATimes article Cohen mentions (apparently. I can't find it myself):

Shane Sauby, who worked as an attorney and stockbroker before becoming a teacher, volunteered to teach the students confronting first-year algebra for a second, third or fourth time. He thought he could reach them.

But, Sauby said, many of his students ignored homework, rarely studied for tests and often skipped class.

"I would look at them and say, 'What is your thinking? If you are coming here, why aren't you doing the work or paying attention or making an effort?' " he said. Many would just stare back.

[snip]

George Seidel, devoted a class this fall to reviewing equations with a single variable, such as x -- 1 = 36. It's the type of lesson students were supposed to have mastered in fourth grade.

Only seven of 39 students brought their textbooks. Several had no paper or pencils. One sat for the entire period with his backpack on his shoulders, tapping his desk with a finger.

[snip]

But Gabriela didn't give Seidel much of a chance; she skipped 62 of 93 days that semester.

After dropping out, Gabriela found a $7-an-hour job at a Subway sandwich shop in Encino. She needed little math because the cash register calculated change. But she discovered the cost of not earning a diploma.

"I don't want to be there no more," she said, her eyes watering from raw onions, shortly before she quit to enroll in a training program to become a medical assistant.

Could passing algebra have changed Gabriela's future? Most educators would say yes.

Algebra, they insist, can mean the difference between menial work and high-level careers. High school students can't get into most four-year colleges without it. And the U.S. Department of Education says success in algebra II and other higher-level math is strongly associated with college completion

I find this fucking sad. Both sad-depressing and sad-pathetic.

Algebra, they insist, can mean the difference between menial work and high-level careers.

but is it a difference between menial work and high-level careers? there are many in-between jobs which don't necessarily require a college degree but do imply basic literacy and problem solving skills. i think in regards to high school setting it up as exclusively college prep is bound to fail because not everyone is college material (including many of the people in college now). there was a time when our society was less meritocratic in terms of education, but today college is pretty accessible via student loans, 2 year programs and transfers to 4 year colleges, etc. etc. if you graduate them, they can go...but i don't think this is the ideal situation. society needs carpenters, bus drivers and restaurant managers.

i've talked to a large number of educators in middle-class communities to get the sense that it is simply premised on unrealistic premises. i have joked that g.w. bush has called the bluff of liberals that everyone is educable. i have seen many life-life democrats turning into hard-core skeptics about human nature over the past few years because of no child left behind.

true, true. something to note is the quote "...shortly before she quit to enroll in a training program to become a medical assistant".

So apparently not only do we need "carpenters, bus drivers and restaurant managers", we also need "medical assistants". Mathematically incapable, high school dropout medical assistants.

There's a difference between people who are uneducable and people who, simply, don't want to be educated. Something tells me that this woman isn't going to skip two-thirds of her classes is her new program. And something else tells me she might even pick up a little algebra in it.

No Child Left Behind always was bad policy. Ted Kennedy signed on, but he was either stupid or dishonest. NCLB shouldn't change anyone's ideas about anything.

john,

and is does not imply ought :)

[...] it's an excerpt from the LATimes article Cohen mentions (apparently. I can't find it myself):

Here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dropout30jan30,0,1678653.story?…

From page 3:

But Gabriela didn't give Seidel much of a chance; she skipped 62 of 93 days that semester.

Gee, I wonder why she failed?

so two things:

1) this 'story' is more complex than cohen wants to make it

2) but apart from the human interest aspect of gabriela's life, there are general social issues that are still relevant which need to be mooted. cohen's point of view is not informed solely by his and gabriela's lives

David's example of english language is more pertinent than he realizes.
algebra is a language. you don't need to speak it if you are not going to do some kinds of things for your lifework.
but the ability to speak it vastly broadens the field of opportunities and choices.

matoko, speak not to the deaf and dumb of the beauties of language :)

more scientists need to be aware of the humanities and more humanists need to be aware of the sciences.

True, but my general experience (of college graduates mostly) is that science graduates do know more humanities than humanities graduates know science/math.

True, but my general experience (of college graduates mostly) is that science graduates do know more humanities than humanities graduates know science/math.

agreed. science/math are technical and require stepping outside of the box more, the humanites are extensions into the conventional human space of interests and possibilities.

Who in the world is he to dismiss the importance of what is of vital importance?