اینترنت

برچسب: science

  • National Science Foundation Absorbed Deep Cuts in Staff and Funding

    National Science Foundation Absorbed Deep Cuts in Staff and Funding


    The National Science Foundation was a target for Elon Musk’s DOGE boys. Trump seemed to dislike science, so he went along with deep cuts. We can hope that historians will one day explain Trump’s disdain for science. At the moment, it’s inexplicable.

    Only days ago, Trump released an executive order that places political appointees in charge of grantmaking, with the power to ignore peer reviews.

    Science magazine reported:

    Research advocates are expressing alarm over a White House directive on federal grantmakingreleased yesterday that they say threatens to enhance President Donald Trump’s control over science agency decisions on what to fund. It would, among other changes, require political appointees to sign off on new grant solicitations, allow them to overrule advice from peer reviewers on award decisions, and let them more easily terminate ongoing grants.

    Although many changes described in the order are already underway at research agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation (NSF), its existence could strengthen the hand of Trump appointees, says Carrie Wolinetz, a former senior administrator at NIH.

    “We’ve already seen this administration take steps to exert its authority that have resulted in delays, freezes, and termination of billions of dollars in grants,” says Wolinetz, now a lobbyist for Lewis-Burke Associates. “This would codify those actions in a way that represents the true politicization of science, which would be a really bad idea.”

    Government Executive recently reported:

    149 NSF employees, all members of the American Federation of Government Employees chapter that represents the agency’s workforce, sent a letter to Congress warning staffing cuts and other disruptions to NSF operations were threatening the agency’s mission and independence. Jesus Soriano, president of the chapter, said NSF has lost one-third of its staff—or nearly 600 employees—since January. The agency also began canceling hundreds of its research grants in April and has now scrapped 1,600 active grants, employees said. 

    Last month, the Trump administration announced it is going to evict NSF from its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, to make room for the Housing and Urban Development Department, and has yet to unveil a plan detailing where the agency will relocate. President Trump proposed slashing NSF’s budget by 56% in fiscal 2026. 

    “What’s happening at NSF is unlike anything we’ve faced before,” Soriano said at a press conference held last week by Democrats on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “Our members—scientists, program officers, and staff—have been targeted for doing their jobs with integrity. They’ve faced retaliation, mass terminations, and the illegal withholding of billions in research funding.”



    Source link

  • Science Research in New England Gets a Reprieve from DEI Ban, for Now

    Science Research in New England Gets a Reprieve from DEI Ban, for Now


    The Boston Globe reported on the resumption of science projects halted by the Trump administration because their subjects were Black, Hispanic, gay, or transgender. Trump is determined to wiped out federal recognition of these categories of people and to stop science research of all kinds.

    PROVIDENCE — Four months after her large-scale research study seeking to contain the spread of HIV was canceled by the Trump administration, Dr. Amy Nunn received a letter: the grant has been reinstated.

    The study, which is enrolling Black and Hispanic gay men, is set to resume after a June court order in favor of the American Public Health Association and other groups that sued the National Institutes of Health for abruptly canceling hundreds of scientific research grants. 

    The NIH said in a form letter to researchers in February and March that their studies “no longer effectuate agency priorities” because they included, among other complaints, reference to gender identity or diversity, equity and inclusion.

    The order from US District Judge William Young in Massachusetts was narrow, reinstating nearly 900 grants awarded to the plaintiffs, not all of the thousands of grants canceled by NIH so far this year. Young called DEI an “undefined enemy‚” and said the Trump administration’s “blacklisting” of certain topics “has absolutely nothing to do with the promotion of science or research.”

    The Trump administration is appealing the ruling, and the NIH continues to say they will block diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, prompting ongoing fear from scientists that their studies could still be on the chopping block even as they restart.

    “We feel like we’re tippy-toeing around,” said Nunn, who leads the Rhode Island Public Health Institute. “The backbone of the field is steadfast pursuit of the truth. People are trying to find workarounds where they don’t have to compromise the integrity of their science.”

    Nunn said she renewed her membership to the American Public Health Association in order to ensure she’d be included in the lawsuit.

    Despite DEI concerns, she plans to continue enrolling gay Black and Hispanic men in her study, which will include 300 patients in Rhode Island, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. 

    Black and Hispanic men who have sex with other men contract HIV at dramatically higher rates than gay white men, a statistic Nunn aims to change.

    The study was just getting underway, with 20 patients enrolled, when the work was shut down by the NIH in March. While Nunn’s clinic in Providence did not do any layoffs, the clinic in Mississippi — Express Personal Health — shut down, and the D.C. clinic laid off staff.

    The four-month funding flip-flop could delay the results of the study by two years, Nunn said, depending on how quickly the researchers can rehire and train new staff. The researchers will also need to find a new clinic in Mississippi.

    The patients — 100 each in Rhode Island, Mississippi, and D.C. — will then be followed for a year as they take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, to prevent them from contracting HIV. 

    The protocol that’s being studied is the use of a patient navigator for “aggressive case management.” That person will help the patient navigate costs, insurance, transportation to the clinic, dealing with homophobia and other barriers to staying on PrEP, which can be taken as a pill or a shot.

    The study’s delay means “the science is aging on the vine,” Nunn said, as new HIV prevention drugs are rolled out. “The very thing that we’re studying might very well be obsolete by the time we’re able to reenroll all of this.”

    The hundreds of reinstated grants include titles that reference race and gender, such as a study of cervical cancer screening rates in Latina women, alcohol use among transgender youth, aggressive breast cancer rates in Black and Latina women, and multiple HIV/AIDs studies involving LGBTQ patients.

    “Many of these grants got swept up almost incidentally by the particular language that they used,” said Peter Lurie, the president of the Center of Science in the Public Interest, which joined the lawsuit. “There was an arbitrary quality to the whole thing.”

    Lurie said blocking scientists from studying racial disparities in public health outcomes will hurt all Americans, not just the people in the affected groups.

    “A very high question for American public health is why these racial disparities continue to exist,” Lurie said. “We all lose in terms of questions not asked, answers not generated, and opportunities for saving lives not implemented.”

    The Trump administration is not backing down from its stance on DEI, even as it restores the funding. The reinstatement letters from the NIH sent to scientists this month include a condition that they must comply with Trump’s executive order on “biological truth,” which rescinded federal recognition of transgender identity, along with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin.

    Kenneth Parreno, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he was told by Trump administration lawyers that new letters would be sent out without those terms.

    But Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday the administration “stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people.”

    “HHS is committed to ensuring that taxpayer dollars support programs rooted in evidence-based practices and gold standard science — not driven by divisive DEI mandates or gender ideology,” Nixon said in any email to the Globe.

    The Trump administration’s appeal is pending before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. A motion for a stay of Young’s decision was denied, and the Trump administration is appealing that ruling to the US Supreme Court.

    The ongoing push to remove DEI from science has created fear in the scientific community, which relies on federal funding to conduct its research and make payroll.

    “Scientific morale has taken a big hit,” Nunn said. “People are apprehensive.”

    Indeed, major research institutions have faced mass funding cuts from the federal government since Trump took office. Brown University, the largest research institution in Rhode Island, had more than $500 million frozen until it reached an agreement with Trump on Wednesday.

    In exchange for the research dollars to be released, Brown agreed not to engage in racial discrimination in admissions or university programming, and will provide access to admissions data to the federal government so it can assess compliance. The university also agreed not to perform any gender-affirming surgeries and to adopt Trump’s definitions of a male and female in the “biological truth” executive order.

    While some have avoided speaking out, fearing further funding cuts, Nunn said she felt a “moral and ethical duty” to do so.



    Source link

  • Don’t count on the ‘science of math’ for your answers; it doesn’t exist yet

    Don’t count on the ‘science of math’ for your answers; it doesn’t exist yet


    Credit: Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education

    For folks in the literacy world, the bitter fight over California’s math framework sounded eerily familiar. On one side, proponents of the framework argued that students need to learn to love math, see themselves as math people and grapple with math concepts. On the other, traditionalists argued that the framework spends too much time on unproven, poorly researched ideas that fail to equip students with the foundational knowledge they need to learn more complex math.

    For good measure, there’s even a popular Stanford professor, Jo Boaler, who’s been tagged as the Lucy Calkins of math and whose research has become a lightning rod for criticism from math researchers and educators nationally. Sounds just like the reading wars and the fight between balanced literacy and phonics, doesn’t it?

    For those talking about the new “math wars” and calling for a “science of math,” that’s where the similarities end. Yes, there are serious differences between the two sides of the California framework debate on how to teach math in the elementary grades, when students should take algebra and the importance of calculus. But unlike reading, these pedagogical differences are far from being resolved.

    That’s because the “science of reading” didn’t happen overnight. It was a multidecade movement engaging every sector of our education system including research, media, advocacy, state and local policy and business to tackle an issue — early literacy — that was broadly understood by the public.

    One could argue that the math crisis is far more severe with overall results far behind English and enormous achievement gaps. It is also just as consequential for students, given the connection between early math proficiency and access to higher-level math coursework, post-secondary education and technical careers. To get the attention that math deserves, advocates should learn from the multiyear, multifaceted strategy that’s driven the science of reading movement.

    The first step is articulating how poor math instruction affects a child’s life and harms the most vulnerable students, especially students with dyscalculia, a condition that makes it hard to do math. For years, reading advocates have hammered away at the connection between third grade reading results and the school-to-prison pipeline. Meanwhile, dyslexia advocates showed how poor reading instruction harmed children with reading difficulties. Their efforts expanded public consciousness and led to massive philanthropic and government investments in reading research.

    For years, ways to teach reading with names like “explicit direct instruction,” “whole language and “balanced literacy” fought it out, creating dissension and confusion down to the classroom level. Over the last decade, stunning advances in neuroscience have resolved most of these conflicts. We now know that learning to read is a complex neurological process marked by explicit sequential stages of learning and interlocking skill development. Approaches like early phonics instruction work for the bulk of students, especially kids with reading difficulties like dyslexia while other popular methods like whole language don’t.

    Unfortunately, when it comes to research, math is where reading was 20 years ago, with a similarly animating set of conflicts like the recent California Framework fight pitting “problem-based learning” against procedural knowledge such as memorizing multiplication tables. As we did with reading, we should heavily invest in the neuroscience research that can definitively answer what works in the classroom and what doesn’t.

    Simultaneously, we should build the understanding and the will of state and local policymakers and community leaders about the math crisis, its implications for students and the importance of investing in high-quality math instruction from the earliest grades. This means that school districts shouldn’t wait two years for the state to publish a list of approved materials. Most math curricula in California classrooms are low quality and almost 10 years old. Districts should use the flexibility provided by state law to purchase a new highly rated math curriculum and provide ongoing professional learning and coaching for teachers, especially elementary teachers who are often math averse.

    As we improve our knowledge of the neuroscience of math, state and local leaders shouldn’t sit on their hands. They should build capacity in state and local agencies by creating math departments that rival the size and influence of their literacy departments, hiring senior math administrators and building a cadre of math coaches so that best practices are quickly disseminated to districts and schools. Using current research, they should regularly revisit their math standards to establish a balance between procedural knowledge and problem-based learning. They should adopt the most vigorous quality metrics for math curriculum and intervention materials and require they are up to date, eliminating lags longer than three years between online updates and district adoptions.

    It may be a few years before we have a “science of math” as impactful as the “science of reading.” But with the right focus, research, investments and infrastructure, California can get there with just as many lifelong benefits for our students.

    •••

    Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West. 

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Advocates for English learners and the ‘science of reading’ sign on to joint statement

    Advocates for English learners and the ‘science of reading’ sign on to joint statement


    Two students in a combined second- and third-grade class read together.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    English learners need foundational skills like phonics and vocabulary in addition to instruction in speaking and understanding English and connections to their home languages.

    Those are two agreements laid out in a new joint statement Tuesday authored by two organizations, one that advocates for English learners and the other for the “science of reading.” The organizations, the National Committee for Effective Literacy and The Reading League, had previously appeared to have deep differences about how to teach reading.

    The authors hope that the statement dispels the idea that English learners do not need to be taught foundational skills, while also pushing policymakers and curriculum publishers to fully incorporate English learners’ needs.

    “I hope we stop hearing so much about the science of reading being bad for English learners and emergent bilinguals. And I hope that it helps move those who are working to build the knowledge in the science of reading to think of English learners or emergent bilinguals in Chapter 1 rather than Chapter 34,” said Kari Kurto, national science of reading project director at The Reading League.

    “We came together with a common goal: to develop proficient readers and writers in English and, we hope, in other languages,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, which advocates for English learners in California, and a member of the National Committee for Effective Literacy. “I think we both kind of learned that we had more in common than we didn’t.”

    Several contributors said they hope the statement could help California move past roadblocks to adopt a comprehensive literacy plan to ensure that all children can read by third grade, including important skills for students learning English as a second language.

    “We can stop arguing about whether foundational skills are important. We can stop arguing about whether we value bilingualism in and of itself. We can stop bickering and identify what are the challenges out in the field to make these things happen,” said Claude Goldenberg, professor of education emeritus at Stanford University.

    Only 42% of California’s third graders can read and write at grade level, according to the state’s latest Smarter Balanced test. The state has faced increased pressure to adopt a plan with a clear focus on reading skills known as “foundational” — phonics (connecting letters to sounds), phonemic awareness (identifying distinct units of sound), fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

    Advocates for English learners had raised concerns that an increased focus on phonics might exclude other critical skills, such as learning to understand and speak the language and connections between English and other languages.





    Source link

  • The science of reading also applies to students learning English as a second language

    The science of reading also applies to students learning English as a second language


    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    As California pushes schools to adopt research-based approaches to teaching children how to read, often called the “science of reading,” some teachers and advocates for English learners have expressed concerns that techniques used to teach reading in English to native speakers may not work for students who are learning English as a second language.

    But an in-depth look at the science behind how language is developed reveals an interesting parallel between the science of reading and second language learning. In fact, the science of reading can actually provide support when it comes to teaching students whose native language is not English.

    The science of reading and the science of language learning both require an explicit and structured approach to literacy that can actually help answer the longstanding question of: How can I teach English academic skills to a student who has no English oral ones?

    A key strength of the science of reading approach is its focus on the development on both language (speaking) and literacy (reading) within the same instructional space. Gone are the days of encouraging separate subject blocks within English language arts, where literacy and oral fluency are taught as separate entities. Science-based approaches encourage teaching language and literacy hand-in-hand, complementing and building off one another based on each child’s development and progression. This focus is effective for all students, but especially for English learners who must learn oral skills at the same time as they are learning academic ones. As they are sounding out the word, they are also learning what that word means.

    The traditional separation of oral language and literacy skills in English leads to an increase of “scaffolding” support for native English speakers — and even more so for non-native English speakers. Already pressed for time, teachers often find themselves supporting needed oral skills within literacy instruction, only to turn around and add needed literacy skills within oral language instruction. By teaching the two skills separately, teachers end up taking more time for each skill that is developmentally intertwined with the other.

    The science of reading approaches these skills as interwoven, giving equal importance to both oral language and literacy instruction within the same space. This immediately reduces the need for scaffolds and emphasizes looking at language and literacy through a lens of cognition and development, instead of repetition and memorization.

    Teaching oral, comprehension and vocabulary skills alongside language structure and syntax is something that has been much-needed for teaching English learners. Take Marco, an English learner, for example. Marco might sound out the word “net” correctly and might recognize a sight word (a commonly used word such as “she,” “be” or “had”) when reading. But does he know what those words mean, or how to apply them in context? Is he even given the opportunity to find out? Too often, Marco has no idea. He simply gets a “high five” for decoding one word correctly and recognizing another with no comprehension because that was the skill focus for that lesson. Marco continues in his learning process, only learning certain skills in a limited sense and not a fully comprehensive and applicable one.

    This not only limits Marco’s literacy skills in the other language, but his language proficiency skills as well. He misses out on the opportunity for comprehension, vocabulary expansion, and active skill application of the language being learned because of this compartmentalized approach.

    Marco needs both the functional application and the comprehensive skills to be taught purposefully and in combination. He also needs this done within the same learning period while the concepts are still fresh and relatable.

    It’s an important step forward that this combined approach of language and literacy is now encouraged in whole-group and small-group instructional settings through the science of reading.

    Looking at reading and the science behind it from a cognitive standpoint can provide us with a more equitable approach to teaching because it is based on what constitutes — and makes sense functionally — in the brain’s processing of information, something that is universal. How vocabulary is developed, alongside its symbols and sounds in reading and writing, is simultaneously developed in all language and literacy learning.

     The science of reading challenges teachers to look beyond the surface of the language spoken and more deeply into how it functions. On the surface, it is easy for teachers to fear they cannot help or support English learners if they do not speak the student’s language. However, by applying the science of reading’s explicit language and literacy approach, teachers will be reminded of how they themselves made meaning and developed English literacy. Yes, they spoke English, but they still had to learn the structure and written form and how to read English in the classroom, just as their English learner students will. A key difference is that the English learner may not have any pre-existing English oral skills, but these skills, now more than ever, are encouraged and can be taught as they are developed, alongside literacy instruction.         

    Simply applying the science of reading won’t provide all the solutions to the complexities of teaching English learners, but it can provide teachers with a purposeful starting point through its explicit focus on, and the equal importance given, to both language and literacy development.

    ●●●

    Rachel Hawthorne has a background in linguistics and taught for several years as a bilingual teacher for grades preK-5. She now works as an English learner product developer for Really Great Reading, a company that provides literacy instruction support to educators. 

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Advanced algebra, data science and more: UC rethinks contested issues of high school math

    Advanced algebra, data science and more: UC rethinks contested issues of high school math


    Credit: JeswinThomas / Pexels

    Next month, a panel of University of California professors in the sciences and math will give their recommendations on the contentious issue of how much math high school students should know before taking a college-qualifying course in data science. Its answer could influence future course offerings and admissions requirements in math for UC and CSU.

    “There’s a tension between the interest in adhering to math standards and ensuring students learn math and also recognizing the changes that are happening in the uses of math in industry and the world in general,” said Pamela Burdman, executive director of Just Equations, a nonprofit that promotes policies that prepare students with quantitative skills to succeed in college. 

    “How UC resolves this issue will have a bearing on that, and the signals that UC sends to high schools about what is and isn’t approved will have a big impact on what this next generation of students learns.”

    The issue has embroiled California’s higher education decision-makers, and it mired proponents and opponents of California’s new TK-12 math framework in an acrimonious debate earlier this year.

    Advocates have cited the appeal of introductory data science as a way to broaden the boundaries of math to students who were turned off by it.  Traditionalists – STEM professors and professionals – countered that courses like introductory data science that include little advanced math content create the illusion that students are prepared for college-level quantitative work while discouraging them from pursuing STEM majors.

    Separate from this immediate question, a second group of UC, CSU and community college math professors is revisiting a more fundamental question: How much math knowledge is essential for any high school graduate with college aspirations, and separately for those interested in pursuing STEM, the social sciences or majors needing few quantitative skills?

    For the past two decades, the answer was cut-and-dried — and uniform. The CSU and UC defined foundational high school math as the topics and concepts covered by the three math courses – Algebra I, Geometry, and Advanced Algebra, which is Algebra II — that both systems require students to pass for admission. 

    With the state’s adoption of the Common Core math standards for K-12 in 2010, the options expanded to include Integrated I, II and III, which cover the same Common Core topics in a different order. Both UC and CSU encourage students to take a fourth year of math, and most do.

    The debate has centered on Algebra II. For future science, engineering and math majors, Algebra II is the gateway to the path from trigonometry and Pre-calculus to Calculus, which they must eventually take. But for the majority of non-STEM-bound students, Algebra II can be a slog: difficult, abstract and irrelevant to the college plans.

    Despite a general agreement that high school math should be more relatable and relevant, there is intense disagreement on the fix.

    New course offerings in the burgeoning fields of data science and statistics “present new ways to engage students. At the same time, they can foster the quantitative literacy — or competency with numerical data — that math courses are intended to provide,” Burdman wrote in a commentary in EdSource. “They have the potential to improve equity and ensure that quantitative literacy is a right, not a privilege.”  

    But with 17% of Black children, 23% of Hispanic children and 23% of low-income children scoring proficient in the latest Smarter Balanced tests, the need for effective and engaging math instruction must begin long before high school. The new TK-12 math framework, approved in July after multiple revisions and four years of debate, forcefully calls for fundamental changes in math instruction. 

    “Arguments about what content should be included in high school mathematics fail to acknowledge the elephant in the room: We haven’t yet figured out how to teach the concepts of algebra well to most students,” wrote psychology professors Ji Song of CSU Los Angeles and James Stigler of UCLA in an Edsource commentary.

    Committees of faculty senates of both UC and CSU have restated that Algebra II, along with geometry and Algebra I, provide the skills and quantitative reasoning needed for college work, in whatever paths students eventually choose.  

    “College and career readiness expectations include completion of these sequences or their equivalent that cover all of the Common Core standards,” the CSU Math Council wrote in a January resolution.

    But in 2020, the influential UC academic senate, which is authorized to oversee course content for admissions, sent a critical mixed message. In a statement, the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS invited proposals for a broader range of math courses for consideration that would enable students to “complete certain mathematics courses other than Algebra II or Mathematics III in their junior year of high school to fulfill the minimum admissions requirement.” BOARS said it saw the expanded options “as both a college preparation and equity issue.”

    Proponents of data science seized the opportunity, launching an end-run around what they perceived to be the inflexibility of math professors to change.

    New courses

    BOARS oversees policy, but the High School Articulation Unit, a small office in the UC President’s Office, does the evaluating and vetting of the tens of thousands of courses that course developers and high school teachers submit annually for approval. The office began authorizing new data science courses as meeting or “validating” the content requirements of Algebra II and Integrated III. The validation exemption presumed that the new course would build upon concepts and standards that students had covered in previous courses — in this case, Algebra II — or would be covered in the new course.

    Subsequently, 368 data science and related courses received approval for 2022-23 and 435 for 2023-24. Nearly all use one of a half-dozen or so data science curricula developed for high schools.

    There had been a precedent. As early as 2014, the UC had questionably validated statistics courses as satisfying Algebra II because they cover statistics standards that many Algebra II teachers frequently don’t get to, while not teaching other Algebra II content. However, extending validation to data science is more problematic since California has not established standards for the subject. As a result, there are no guidelines for what standards the courses should be teaching.

    A flaw in implementation or policy?

    In a detailed Nov. 12 letter to UC regents, Jelani Nelson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley and a leading critic of weakening math requirements through course substitution, put the blame not on policy changes but on the course-approval process. An Articulation Unit with a small staff, none of whom had a background in STEM, was overwhelmed, he wrote.

    Others agree. Rick Ford, professor emeritus and former chair of the department of mathematics at CSU Chico, said that what once was a rigorous process for course approval had become a “horrendous” pro-forma exercise, “primarily reliant on the fidelity of submitters” to follow BOARS guidelines.

    The oldest and most popular course, Introduction to Data Science, developed by UCLA statistics professor Robert Gould through funding from the National Science Foundation and used throughout Los Angeles Unified, covered only the statistics standards, not other content in Algebra II. The same was the case with another popular course validated for Algebra II, “Explorations in Data Science,” developed by YouCubed, a Stanford University research center.

    Most students who had taken Introduction to Data Science so far had taken Algebra II, so that was not a problem. But those who took it as juniors in lieu of Algebra II might find the course shut doors instead of opening them. Those who might later decide they want to major in biology, computer science, chemistry, neurology or statistics, all of which require passing Calculus, would find themselves struggling for lack of Algebra II; the CSU, meanwhile, no longer offers remediation courses in math.

    “You’re asking a 14- or 15-year-old kid to make a lifelong decision in the spring of sophomore year,” said Ford, who chaired the influential Academic Preparation and Education Programs Committee of the CSU academic senate. “Watering down content is creating a multitrack system instead of giving all students the greatest chance of success.”

    A backlash followed

    News that UC was approving the substitution of data science for third-year Common Core math frustrated the faculty of CSU, which has relied on BOARS and the UC faculty for policy decisions since the two systems agreed to common course requirements, known as A-G, in 2003. Approving coursework that does not meet Common Core standards “brought to light the complete lack of control that the CSU has over the A-G high school requirements that are used for admission to our system,” the CSU senate stated in a January resolution. It called for the academic senates of both systems “to explore establishing joint decision-making” over new courses and changes to the A-G standards.

    In July, during the lead-up to the anticipated approval of the final version of the updated California Math Framework by the State Board of Education, tensions came to a head. Thousands of STEM professionals and UC and CSU faculty had signed petitions sharply criticizing earlier drafts of the math guidelines. The proposed framework had discouraged districts from offering Algebra I in eighth grade, compounding the challenge of taking Calculus before high school graduation, while encouraging students to take data science over STEM professions that were described as less interesting and collaborative. One of the five authors of the drafts was Jo Boaler, a prominent professor of mathematics education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-founder of YouCubed.

    In the framework it adopted in July, the State Board of Education left it to districts to decide who should take Algebra in the eighth grade. The final version revised language conflating courses in data literacy, which all 21st-century students need, with math-intensive data science courses that, together with Calculus, would prepare students for a data science major in college. It also dropped a new third pathway for data science next to the traditional pathway leading to Calculus. 

    But the final framework hasn’t fully mollified critics, including Elizabeth Statmore, a math teacher at Lowell High in San Francisco and former software executive.

    “By encouraging students to abandon algebra before they’ve solidified their understanding, the (framework) makes it even more difficult for them to get back on that track — even more so now that our community colleges and CSUs have done away with remedial courses,” she wrote in an email. 

    “The only way we’re going to diversify STEM fields is to keep historically excluded young students on the algebraic thinking pathway just a little bit longer. That will give them the mathematical competencies they will need to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to pursue rigorous quantitative majors and careers.”

    Feeling the heat, BOARS hastily reversed positions on July 7 — days before the State Board meeting — revoking validation for meeting Algebra II requirements for all data science courses. And, in a letter to the State Board, BOARS Chair Barbara Knowlton requested wording changes to the proposed framework, which the board did, including deleting a diagram that showed data science as an option to sub for Algebra II.   

    “The data science courses that have to date been approved by UCOP’s high school articulation team appear not to have been designed as third- or fourth-year mathematics courses,” wrote Knowlton, a professor of psychology at UCLA.

    Ten days later, BOARS met again and clarified that there might be some exceptions for granting validation to those data science courses with “a prerequisite mastery of Algebra II content.” It also reiterated that the revocation of A-G credit would exempt students who are currently taking data science courses, with credit for Algebra II, or who had taken data science courses in past years.  

    “It’s been unfortunate that UC’s process of determining the rules has caused far more confusion than was needed,” said Burdman, the executive director of Just Equations.

    The minutes of the meeting revealed that BOARS members professed they didn’t know how the articulation unit in the President’s Office determined if courses could be substituted. Nor could they determine how many data science courses were designated as advanced math. The President’s Office said about 400 data science courses were being taught in California high schools.

    The minutes said that BOARS would appoint a working group, including professors of computer science, neuroscience, statistics and math, to clarify how to enforce the July 7 revocation vote, incorporate Algebra II as a course prerequisite, and determine the criteria for course validation.

    BOARS, whose meetings are not public,  hasn’t disclosed who’s in the group, although it includes no CSU faculty. The group has been meeting ahead of a December deadline so that BOARS can review and take action in January; only then will its recommendations be made public, Knowlton said in an interview. 

    There’s pressure to complete work in time for the next course cycle for the fall of 2024, starting in February, so that applicants know the new rules. “There is a concern among some people that if we don’t send this message quickly, there will be a proliferation of these courses,” she said.

    Knowlton hopes the work group will identify elements of algebra that are critical for student success and evaluate courses to see which ones don’t cover them. 

    “Some validated courses may leave out really very important foundational aspects of math, and we want to reiterate what those are,” she said. Course developers could choose to add concepts to qualify for validation for Algebra II; that’s what the developers of financial math have done. Or instead, they could offer courses like data science as advanced math in the fourth year of high school, with a prerequisite of Algebra II.

    Knowlton said BOARS is committed to equity in college admissions. But the challenge is balancing access and preparation, she said. “We want as much access as possible, yet it has to mean that students are prepared.”

    But Aly Martinez, the former math coordinator for San Diego Unified, is worried that efforts to create innovative and rigorous courses in data science and statistics will be swept aside if BOARS applies restrictions too broadly.

    After surveying students about their math interests, the district worked with the creators of CourseKata to turn its college statistics and data science course into two-year high school courses incorporating Algebra II standards and college and career pathway requirements. The courses can lead to Calculus for STEM majors; others can apply the knowledge to social science and other majors. The first-year course is popular and should be validated as satisfying Algebra II, she said.

    “There is momentum and excitement about this work,” said Martinez, who is now the director of math for the nonprofit Student Achievement Partners. “Those who are innovative should not be the ones getting hurt.”

    A fresh look at standards

    The second committee commissioned will take a broader and longer view of math content. Its members will include math professors from the CSU and community colleges, as well as UC, as a math subcommittee of a joint faculty body, the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates.

    Kate Stevenson, a math professor at CSU Northridge and member of the new workgroup, said, “It’s not our goal to rewrite the standards, but to emphasize what parts of the standards are really critical to all students’ success and which are critical to life sciences as opposed to engineers, physicists and chemists.”

    The committee will probably not recommend dropping math standards but could look at reorganizing or de-emphasizing them, she said.

    Few Algebra II teachers find time for statistics standards, she said. “So what would a third year look like with a better balance between statistics and algebraic skills? Could we repeat less of Algebra I if we did the integrated pathway?”  she asked. “Or what parts of the algebra curriculum could really belong in Pre-calculus rather than in Algebra II?”

    Although it is not the role of the committee, Stevenson said she thinks the Common Core standards deserve revisiting. “It’s not that I don’t like the standards. But it’s very unlikely the mathematics that we agreed to in 2013 is the mathematics that we think students should have in 2030.”

    Clarification: The article was updated Dec. 15 with the exact number of data science courses that the Articulation Unit of the UC Office of the President approved for 2022 and 2023; they were fewer than the article had implied.





    Source link

  • All students need to learn data science

    All students need to learn data science


    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    We live in a world driven by data. Data is collected and stored on every human interaction, whether commercial, civic or social. Enormous server “farms” across the world save, preserve and serve data on demand. A list of the most in-demand jobs includes data-scientist and statistician. Algorithms determine prison sentences, scan video feeds to identify potential suspects of crimes, and assist in decisions regarding loans, college admissions and employment interviews. 

    But problems lurk. Algorithms trained using data that poorly represent the populations to which they are applied leave members of some groups at greater risk of being mistakenly incarcerated. Data models developed without input from contextual experts exacerbate existing patterns of racism and sexism. Data is stolen, allowing thieves to impersonate others and steal millions. Privacy is threatened, and your local grocery chain may know more about your medical conditions than your closest family members. 

    Would it surprise you, then, to learn that high school students are not required to study statistics or data science? Fortunately, even though such courses are not required, for more than a decade a growing number of California high school students have had the opportunity to take statistics courses — and since 2013, data science courses — to meet the admissions requirements of the University of California and the California State University systems. Currently, this pathway to college access is being reviewed by the University of California academic senate. Closing it will make it even more difficult for students to learn relevant and necessary skills for 21st century life.

    I, along with other statisticians, view data science as a much-needed upgrade of the current statistics curriculum. It was in this spirit of modernization that I joined a team consisting of high school teachers, UCLA statisticians, computer scientists and education researchers, to develop the Introduction to Data Science, or IDS, course.  This course, supported by the National Science Foundation and the first (I believe) yearlong high school data course in the U.S., was designed to better reflect the modern practice of statistics — which relies on computers, algorithms and both predictive and inferential modeling — than existing high school statistics courses do.

    The course was approved in 2013 as a statistics course by UC’s High School Articulation Unit. This came as no surprise because it reflected the fact that Introduction to Data Sciences was designed as a statistics course following guidelines established by the American Statistical Association, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the Common Core state standards (not the result of a flawed approval process, as some have alleged). Statistics courses have long been approved as high school math courses without being required to teach Algebra II standards.

    For some reason, this long-standing practice has recently been viewed as controversial, leading to the current UC review and allegations that data science courses offer insufficient algebraic rigor. The real issue is about the purpose of high school mathematics education. Is it designed only to serve students who will major in science, technology, engineering and math, which requires advanced algebra at some point, or should it serve the needs of all students? And if it is meant to serve only future STEM students, is Algebra II the only starting point? The real issue isn’t about offering “weak” math or strong math, but about providing rigorous courses that prepare students for life in the modern data-driven world. Modern statistics courses provide foundational skills and knowledge that are needed by most (if not all) high school students.

    Don’t just ask me. After all, I am one of the developers. Ask high school leaders. There has been widespread demand for these courses. Since our initial pilot in 10 schools in 2014–15, Introduction to Data Science is offered in 189 high schools around the nation, and more than 400 high schools around the state are offering one of the available data science courses.

    Ask the researchers who found that courses such as ours improved college preparation and matriculation.

    Ask leaders at UC Berkeley, among the first universities to recognize the importance of data science. In establishing their wildly popular introductory data science course, Data 8, they emphasized that the instructional approach “should not be viewed as ‘going soft on the math’” and that “conceptual understanding can be developed, perhaps even better developed, through direct experience and computational actions performed with one’s own hands, rather than through symbolic manipulation.” 

    While it is true that high school students shouldn’t be forced to make “major” life decisions such as whether to take Algebra II and embark on the STEM path, for many students, this decision is made for them. One study of over 450,000 California high school students found that of those who passed Algebra I, only 40% continued to Algebra II. Courses such as Introduction to Data Science create more opportunities for students to develop mathematical skills and prepare to attend a four-year college — and even to take Algebra II if they choose. 

    Statistics and data science courses prepare students to address many of the major issues of our time. STEM students are not excused from the need to study data science. Many recent scandals and controversies in scientific work have centered around the misuse and misunderstanding of fundamental statistical concepts. These challenges point to the need for students of STEM to deepen their study of data science.

    All students need data science; some students also need Algebra II. Not the other way around.

    •••

    Robert Gould is a teaching professor at the UCLA Department of Statistics and Data Science, a fellow of the American Statistical Association, founder of the ASA DataFest competition, and co-author of a college introductory statistics textbook: Exploring the World through Data.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • UC professors’ math problem: How does data science fit in?

    UC professors’ math problem: How does data science fit in?


    In data science classes, students write computer programs to help analyze large sets of data.

    Credit: Alison Yin/EdSource

    The article was updated March 5 to include the letter from high-tech executives supporting the Algebra II requirement. It also clarifies that AP Statistics is for students who have completed Algebra II.

    An influential committee of the UC Academic Senate weighed in again last month on the contentious issue of how much math high school students must take to qualify to attend a four-year California state university. 

    It ruled that high school students taking an introductory data science course or AP Statistics cannot substitute it for Algebra II for admission to the University of California and California State University, starting in the fall of 2025.

    The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS reaffirmed its position by accepting the recommendations of a workgroup of math and statistics professors who examined the issue. That workgroup determined that none of these courses labeled as data science “even come close” to qualifying as a more advanced algebra course. 

    Robert Gould, a teaching professor and vice chair of undergraduate studies in the statistics department at UCLA and lead author of Introduction to Data Science, said that he disagrees with BOARS’ decision. The course was created under the auspices of the National Science Foundation through a math and science partnership grant.

    “We are disappointed, of course,” he said. “We believe our course is rigorous and challenging and, most importantly, contains knowledge and skills that all students need for both career and academic success.”

    But how, then, will UC and CSU ultimately fit popular data science courses like CourseKata, Introduction to Data Science, and YouCubed’s Explorations in Data Science into course requirements for admission? That bigger question won’t be determined until May when the math workgroup will issue its next report.

    Data science advocates are worried that BOARS, which commissioned the review, may disqualify data science and possibly statistics under the category of math courses meeting the criteria for admissions. Increasing numbers of high school students are turning to introductory data courses in a world shaped by artificial intelligence and other data-driven opportunities and careers. They see them as approachable alternatives to trigonometry, pre-calculus and other rigorous courses students must take to major in science, technology engineering or math (STEM) in college.

    Dozens of high school math teachers and administrators have signed a letter being circulated that will go to the UC regents. It reiterates support for data science and statistics courses and criticizes BOARS for not consulting high school teachers and data science experts for their perspectives.

    “Our schools and districts have adopted such courses because they provide an innovative 21st-century experience that excites and engages students, impart tangible quantitative skills needed for a wide variety of today’s careers and academic fields, and offer new ways for students to interact with and learn mathematics,” the letter states.

    Pamela Burdman, executive director of the nonprofit Just Equations, agreed in a blog post titled “The Latest in the Inexplicable War on High School Data Science Courses.” “The bottom line is that districts are increasingly offering these courses because they are relevant and engaging for many students who otherwise would be turned off by mathematics,” she wrote.

    Will it help or hinder equity?

    Critics of substituting introductory data sciences courses for advanced algebra include STEM professors at UC and CSU. Many say they support data science, but not courses lacking the full range of math topics in high schools that students need for STEM or any major requiring quantitative skills. Skipping foundational math in high school will set back the cause of equity for underserved students of color, not advance it, they argue, by creating the illusion that students are ready for statistics, computer science and data science majors when they aren’t. That may force them to take catch-up courses in community college.

    “The only way we’re going to diversify STEM fields is to keep historically excluded young students on the algebraic thinking pathway just a little bit longer,” Elizabeth Statmore, a math teacher at Lowell High in San Francisco and former software executive, wrote to EdSource last year. “That will give them the mathematical competencies they will need to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to pursue rigorous quantitative majors and careers.”

    Proponents of holding the line on Algebra II and encouraging more students to pursue STEM majors are circulating their own attention-grabbing letter titled Strong Math Foundations are Important for AI. The signers, including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, his nemesis Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX and CEO of X, and executives from Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Google, “applaud” UC for maintaining the math requirements.

    “While today’s advances might suggest classic mathematical topics like calculus or algebra are outdated, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, modern AI systems are rooted in mathematics, making a strong command over math necessary for careers in this field,” it reads. “Failure to maintain standards in the mathematical curriculum in public education will increase the gap between public schools — especially those of under-resourced districts — and private schools, hampering efforts to diversify STEM.”

    Surprise actions by UC Office of President

    For decades, UC and CSU have required that students complete three years of math with at least a “C” — usually in the sequence Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, also called Advanced Algebra – as the math component of A-G, the 15 courses needed for admission. For students taking integrated math, it is Math I, II and III. Both university systems recommend a fourth year of math, and most students take at least that; aspiring STEM majors take two or more additional courses leading to Calculus.

    BOARS establishes policies on admissions, but a small office in the UC President’s Office, the High School Articulation Unit, vets tens of thousands of courses that developers and high school teachers submit for approval. Starting in 2014, the unit began authorizing AP statistics and new data science courses as “validating” or satisfying Algebra II or Integrated Math III content requirements. That meant they either built on the content standards that students had covered or would cover in the course. 

    Although AP Statistics doesn’t cover most Algebra II topics, the rationale for validating it and data science courses — mistakenly so, BOARS determined in retrospect — was that Algebra II includes some statistics, and most teachers never get around to teaching it. That was problematic for introductory data science courses, because the state hasn’t set standards for what should be covered in the courses.  The College Board, the creator of AP Statistics, states that the course is designed for students who have completed Algebra II.

    During the last few years, the staff in the review office approved the three most popular data science courses in more than 400 high schools. After analyzing the three courses, the UC workgroup professors concluded, “We find these current courses labeled as ‘data science’ are more akin to data literacy courses.”

    UC academic committee meetings, including BOARS, are closed to the public. But minutes from the July 2023 meeting indicated that some faculty members were dismayed that the articulation office had validated so many data science courses without their knowledge. “At least one member repeatedly suggested that UCOP has misinterpreted/misapplied the advanced math standard for years — and absent correction, will continue to do so — and so review of all current courses potentially implicated is needed,” the minutes state.

    BOARS hasn’t ruled out approving future data science courses that include more advanced algebra as a substitute for Algebra II; the articulation office has validated Financial Algebra for that purpose. BOARS invited course alternatives in a June 2020 statement, saying it saw the expanded options “as both a college preparation and equity issue.”

    But data science proponents are concerned that the math workgroup will take the opposite position and recommend that the three introductory data science courses be treated as elective courses for A-G but not fourth-year math courses. Ruling that way, they argue, would discourage future non-STEM majors from taking an alternative quantitative reasoning course as seniors. Such a position would reinforce a narrow view that only courses leading to Calculus are legitimate math offerings in the senior year.

    “Revocation of Area C (math) status will significantly reduce our ability to foster students’ statistical and data competency or incentivize enrollment in these programs, at a time when such quantitative abilities are increasingly necessary for functioning personally and professionally in the 21st Century,” the letter to the UC regents says.

    Lai Bui, a veteran math teacher at Mills High School in the San Mateo Union High School District, said there’s no justification for treating CourseKata, an introduction to data science course, differently from AP Statistics, which BOARS has qualified as a fourth-year math course. Students in CourseKata use coding to analyze datasets, while AP Stats students use graphing calculators, which have limitations, she said.

    UCLA and CSU Los Angeles created CourseKata in 2017 as a semester course for college and as a two-semester course for high schools; otherwise, they are similar, said Bui, who has taught it for four years.

    “CourseKata is definitely not data literacy,” she said. “It’s a math course, like AP Statistics, only more real-world connected. I see students succeeding in math instead of thinking, ‘I am not a math person.’”

    In 2023, the CSU Academic Senate expressed frustration that UC was approving courses in data science in lieu of Algebra II without consulting it and urged more joint decision-making involving A-G decisions. In January, three CSU professors were added to the 10-member UC math workgroup.

    Mark Van Selst, a psychology professor at San Jose State and member of the Academic Preparation and Education Programs Committee, considered CSU’s counterpart of BOARS, said this week he fully supports the decision not to retreat from Algebra II as a base of knowledge. But he also favors qualifying non-traditional fourth-year math courses that strengthen quantitative reasoning. He said he hopes the UC math workgroup drafts standards or learning outcomes for data science to distinguish between electives and advanced math courses.

    Gould said he would need to review the possible criteria before deciding whether to revise the content of Introduction to Data Science.

    “A data science education is essential for all students, and all students deserve a relevant and useful math education,” he said. “Despite the committee’s decision, we think it’s important that data science and statistics courses continue to qualify as fourth-year math courses.”





    Source link

  • Advanced math in high school prepares students for STEM and data science careers

    Advanced math in high school prepares students for STEM and data science careers


    A high school student contemplates an assignment in math class.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    California, along with many other states and nations, has experienced a dramatic increase of student interest in data and computer science careers. Along with the broader tech industry, these fields have been undergoing exponential growth in recent years that’s expected to continue as artificial intelligence (AI), computing platforms and their applications continue to reach every aspect of society.

    The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 36% employment growth for data scientists by 2031. California businesses and other sectors are the top home for many of these high-paying careers.

    It’s the responsibility of our state’s academic systems to educate future data-driven leaders in many areas — tech, finance, business, entertainment, biomedicine and health, climate and sustainability, engineering, law, social welfare, public policy, government and education itself, as well as in innovative approaches to the arts and humanities.

    A report recently issued by a work group for the University of California’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) concluded that the three most popular high school data science courses being offered in the state do not “even come close to meeting the required standard to be a ‘more advanced’ course” and “are not appropriate as recommended 4th year mathematics courses.”

    We applaud the faculty and staff, across the UC system, who helped develop this report and its recommendations. And we’re delighted by the quick response from the UC Office of the President this month, which shared the message with high school counselors and advisers, summarizing the report and explaining additional steps that UC is taking to implement the BOARS recommendations for the 2025-26 academic year.

    This is a noteworthy example of the California educational system working well and listening to expert feedback in order to best serve its students. Hundreds of university professors in the state and beyond came out against the rapid adoption of high school data science classes that were being offered as a supposed substitute for advanced algebraic math, or Algebra II. While these introductory data science courses may whet high school students’ appetites, if they are taken at the exclusion of Algebra II, students will not be adequately prepared for science and technology majors in college. We must make sure that the prerequisites for admission to our colleges and universities adequately prepare students to pursue careers in these fields.

    Other Perspectives on this topic

    This could leave the impression that we don’t support data science — which is far from the truth! We believe that data science is an important discipline to study and a career path for making important contributions in our communities and world. Data science can be a route to increased data literacy, enabling students to distinguish between real information and misinformation and the skills to pursue data-driven approaches to whatever their passions and wherever their careers may lead.

    Our data science program at UC Berkeley’s College for Computing, Data Science, and Society is the top-ranked program for undergraduate students in the country. We’ve been active in providing curriculum materials to other institutions in California and around the world, including community colleges and universities. We’ve hosted educators across a broad range of academic institutions, including high schools, at an annual conference on data science education for the last six years.

    We know from years of study and practice that learning math is cumulative. In order for California students to be adequately prepared for the science and technology majors they may choose to pursue in college — including data and computer science — the advanced math curriculum in high school is essential. While data science and statistics courses have been rapidly added to high school options and are welcome additions, these courses cannot replace the foundational math content found in Algebra II. We also acknowledge, and encourage, innovative curricula aiming to teach Algebra II via the context of data science, as such courses could be appropriate.

    We applaud UC and California decision-makers for their recognition that Algebra II is necessary student preparation for the successful completion of college degrees that require a strong grounding in math, including data and computer science. We welcome opportunities to continue this conversation and promote successful outcomes by ensuring students obtain the math knowledge and skills to pursue careers in science and technology.

    •••

    Jennifer Chayes is dean of the UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, information, mathematics and statistics.

    Jelani Nelson is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Data Science helps students of color opt in for more math 

    Data Science helps students of color opt in for more math 


    Credit: Pexels

     It was the height of distance learning when 16-year-old Aaron Butler took Compton Unified’s first step into data science education by joining the Young Data Scientists League. The next year, 2021, the young African American varsity basketball captain enrolled in Compton’s first high school data science course, thanks to a 2020 decision by UC’s admissions committee allowing such courses to qualify for students’ third or fourth year of high school math. Now a business economics major at UCLA, Aaron said that “before I was closed off to math, but data science made me way more interested in mathematics.”

    Because of UC’s decision to count data science toward the math requirement for college admissions, Compton’s Dominguez High counselors recommended that students like Aaron enroll in data science without fear of them losing their competitive edge on university admissions. Ensuring college access is paramount for our student population, who are predominantly Hispanic, Black and Pacific-Islander and 94% of whom are socio-economically disadvantaged. Data science, with its hands-on, real-world applications, is exactly the right gateway for both math-averse and math-inclined students alike to engage with rich mathematics and take the UC-recommended four years of math coursework.

    Now UC has retracted that decision, making it much less likely that counselors will recommend data science to our students. Consequently, we’re likely to see a decline in enrollment and retention during the four years of high school mathematics among students of color.

    Data Science at Dominguez High School is the only course in Compton Unified that allows students to receive regular in-classroom instruction in relevant topics such as predictive mathematical modeling, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), sensitivity analysis, and programming, which all rely on math concepts taught and reinforced in the data science classroom. This is in addition to a number of other high-level concepts in quantitative reasoning and analysis, such as linear algebra, 3D vector space, conditional probability and more.  

    As the teacher of Compton’s Data Science course, in partnership with Stanford’s Youcubed, I (Jason) end up teaching content from a range of advanced math standards because, though my students are passing courses like Integrated Math 3, Precalculus and even Calculus, they are not fully grasping the material there. Students report having the opportunity to finally make sense of their traditional math courses by applying concepts as a part of the data science experience. Once they learn to think about math in context, they possess a skill that enables them to learn subsequent math content better.

    Another PERSPECTIVE ON THIS TOPIC

    This is a defining moment for mathematics education in California. Neural network models, the driving force behind AI tools such as ChatGPT, are one of the hottest subjects in applied mathematics research. By adopting data science in 2020, UC took a proactive step toward reframing mathematics as a relevant discipline that could equip 21st century learners with scientifically valid tools to engage in the rapidly changing information landscape. At the same time, UC recognized alternate pathways to quantitative reasoning courses in college without precluding students from science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) majors. The reversal of that decision will push math back to a position of irrelevance in the eyes of most students, especially those traditionally marginalized in STEM. 

    Moreover, not allowing data science courses to count for admission doesn’t only sacrifice a hook for attracting students to STEM fields. It also denies students who are not interested in STEM the opportunity to code, exacerbating the digital divide and, consequently, the wealth gap. As UC’s Office of the President wrote after the Berkeley campus created a college of computing, data science and society, “Every undergraduate in any area of study will increasingly need exposure to data science during their time on campus.”

    Why should students wait until college to delve into these rich waters of mathematical study?

    Narrowing the scope of acceptable mathematics perpetuates exclusivity rather than fostering inclusivity and belief in all learners’ potential. For many Dominguez High students we’ve spoken with who are either enrolled or have graduated from the UC system, success and persistence in STEM, including data science, correlated to growth mindsets, cultural competence, positive identities and supportive communities and structures. 

    As technology evolves, so must we reevaluate definitions, policies and support systems that address gaps in math achievement, engagement and retention. This comprehensive reassessment requires input from diverse stakeholders, fostering collective understanding and alignment toward common goals. We must put in place a review process that engages school districts, education leaders, classroom educators, faculty from the California State University, and families who can offer crucial insights on the impact of key decisions affecting our most vulnerable populations. This process must be data-driven. It is argued that allowing data science to validate Algebra 2 adversely impacted preparation for STEM degrees for students of color. Where is the data supporting this assertion? On the contrary, we have decades of data that demonstrate that the traditional Algebra 2 pathway disproportionately fails to get students of color college-ready, and falls short of promises to boost post-secondary STEM engagement.

    We have seen the power of data science to increase college readiness and STEM engagement for all, particularly underrepresented students of color. As Aaron told us, “Data science was very hands-on because we were applying the math we learned. It made me like the course even more.” Every student like Aaron should have exposure to data science that opens mathematics to them as a highly relevant 21st century discipline where they know they belong.

    •••

    Jason Lee Morgan, an 18-year math teacher at Dominguez High School in Compton, instructs the Stanford YouCubed’s data science course. 

    Kagba Suaray, Ph.D., is a professor of mathematics and statistics at California State University, Long Beach, and graduate adviser for the applied statistics master of science program. 

    Kyndall Brown, Ph.D., executive director of the California Math Project at UCLA and Robin Wilson, Ph.D., professor of mathematics at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and Loyola Marymount University, contributed to this commentary.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link