BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A council of administrators and instructional leaders have rejected a teacher’s offer to teach Multivariable Calculus at Palo Alto High School – a blow to students and parents who have advocated for more advanced math.
Instead, Principal Brent Kline said his goal is to bring a Foothill College instructor to teach Multivariable Calculus on campus during the school day, rather than having students take the class after hours as they do now.
“We’ll hopefully be getting it figured out in the next month or two,” Kline said on a phone call on Wednesday (Jan. 14).
Paly teacher Daniel Nguyen said he got a $12,000 master’s degree in math so he could teach Multivariable Calculus, and then he wrote a course proposal that went to the school board on Dec. 16.
But the Paly Education Council – made up of assistant principals, instructional leads and teacher leaders – opposed the addition of the course.
“It risks amplifying the already significant pressures on students to do more, faster, at the expense of balance and wellness,” the council wrote in a letter to the school board.
The council said Multivariable Calculus would serve no more than 6% of students, yet establish a new “highest level” in math that would leave other students disadvantaged.
“Just as we do not create an advanced ballet course for the small number of students pursuing dance at a professional level, we should not create MVC simply because a handful of students would like it,” the council wrote.
The board voted unanimously to approve Nguy-en’s course, following Superintendent Don Austin’s recommendation. But whether it’s ultimately offered in the course catalog is up to the council at each high school.
The Paly Education Council voted against offering the course at the high school level in a private meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
Kline said the council’s reasons for rejecting Nguyen’s proposal are contained in the previous letter to the school board.
“I’m not going to tell you anything different than what you’ve read in the letter,” he said.
Kline said students can transfer up to 20 credits from Foothill College to their high school transcript, including for Multivariable Calcu-lus. Nguyen said it’s important that the class is offered during the school day, so students don’t have to skip extracurricular activities, like robotics, a job or sports.
“It’s not fair for them when we have a perfectly viable option to take the course during the school day,” Nguyen said in an interview on Thursday.
Nguyen questioned whether a Foothill College instructor would be available during the high school’s bell schedule, and he said students want a teacher who is already embedded in the system at Palo Alto High School and can support them during their tutorial period.
“To claim that this will harm students strains credulity,” Nguyen said, pointing out that the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District offers Multivariable Calculus in its course catalog.
Palo Alto students who complete Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus will find a way to take Mul-tivariable Calculus either way, Nguyen said. At the Dec. 16 board meeting, several Paly students voiced their support for the advanced class.
Sophomore Alyssa Yuan said without higher math courses, student’s passion for the subject is “held down.” Yuan said the district should celebrate students who are working hard and aiming high.
“We have students ready to learn and teachers ready to teach,” she said.
“This is about expanding opportunities where demands already exist,” sophomore Emily Lee said.
See related stories
• Advanced math class approved despite opposition from teachers
• Teachers oppose advanced math course
• 400 sign petition to bring back multivariable calculus
• Students urge school board to reinstate two advanced math classes
This is anti-democratic, plain and simple. It is clear that students need this course (I know I did—and I was certainly impacted when I did not get it), that the community wants it, yet unelected administrators are blocking Multivariable Calculus. Because of this decision, another class of students who are enthusiastic about math risks being passed over. It is interesting that now they are saying they will try to bring in a Foothill instructor to teach during the school year (I wouldn’t get my hopes up); it wasn’t too long ago that PAUSD was saying that this was completely unworkable (I also remember when PAUSD started excluding Foothill courses from high school transcripts, when did that change?). Mr. Nguyen’s quoted comments here are forceful; students have been saying these things for ages.
It seems the movie “Idiocracy” was a preview of our devolution into a society of blissfully incurious dullards, all to protect the feelings and “wellness” of a few students who find a subject too challenging.
If there’s sufficient interest to offer the class, why not? I reject the idea that it could hurt anyone.
I thought this “hobble some kids in case other ones might feel bad” issue had been resolved. Why are these “administrators and instructional leaders” still trying to undermine a decision that’s already been made? These people need to lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.
Yet another argument for less “administration and instructional leadership” and more actual teaching of kids.
Math is the language of science and technology. The public schools should be enabling students who wish to learn it. The “explanation” for denying Paly students this opportunity (and it would be an elective at any event) was most distressing. Exactly the opposite of what we look to professional educators for…
“Wellness” is a BS word. Physical and mental health covers everything. No one is healthy but unwell.
Please. My 40+ year old math/calc classes, including Multi Var C, Tensor et al, are what allowed me to be a successful CTO, CSO and so on. Dont dictate, but rather allow students to choose their path. Offer the opportunity. Calculus involves a lot of memorization, deal with it. It’s like Organic Chem, dont miss one class or you will never catch up. Hours of memorization. How stupid is this discussion, not all education is fun or easy, right ? You have to bust your b**t in these classes, but then you are way ahead of the pack. I just hate the “easy is better for the little kiddies” discussion, it is most definitely not. I *hated* sitting there for hours staring at calc textbooks. But I am here now, as an engr with proper training, due to those hours.. and I earn a lot more than the burger flipper with 5th grade arithmetic.
Actually, in thinking about it some more, the schools should instead offer a Linear Algebra class, as that is 100% relevant to modern ML and AI work, let’s shift the discussion to Linear from only Calculus and give the students a real head start. Also give them some statistics/probability education, so they can figure out how a vector database or graph computing thing actually works. I am not in the know, is there an AP class in Linear ? My $0.02
Braden, please dig deeeper.
With students ready to learn and teachers ready to teach, it is so surprising that the administrators and instructional leaders would block it, it seems that they must have some other motivation. If it truly is only about wellness, how have they decided which kinds of math are beneficial and which are harmful for high school students to study.
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