21–30 of 55 posts
Granted, a book can easily be harder to read / understand for less-classically-trained children. I'm not saying it's not possible, just that the article is definitely seeing what it was looking for.
A pity that the article does not include any excerpts from the books or detailed critiques of what's wrong with them. Examining a Discovering Algebra book at http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Algebra-Investigative-Appr... suggests that the book is not so bad (though obviously this only allows previewing a few pages)...however, I'm unsure whether this is even the same book, since the OP doesn't mention the name of the…
It's interesting to use an ethnic achievement gap as a legal basis for opposing a particular math program. That most United States school districts don't simply use Singapore Math http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Math_s/21.htm shows that most math curriculum adoptions are not made on the basis of best results for least expense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd prefer to live in the society where all people would have unlimited supply of food, water, heath care, wouldn't kill each other, have lots of fun. Unfortunately this kind of "magical" thinking is a very weak argument, and just doesn't work. Welcome to the real world.
If we're being hard-headed, we should also consider the possibility that intelligence is just not evenly distributed, and while schools should seek to improve as many students by as much as possible, we need an economic infrastructure that can make productive and self-sustaining use of less intelligent people as well as smart ones. In short, dumb people are not going away, so there needs to be a means for them to ear…
Same exact thing happens in African countries. Every time somebody donates money/food, it goes towards procreation, not improvement of the quality of life or education.
I remember one successful African story. This group of volunteers instead of building a water well decided to involve the residents in the process. So they served as architects, while locals were doing all the hard labor. The results were really good - locals knew how to support the well. They became self-sufficient.
That, in my opinion, is the solution. It's a slow process, but I don't see many alternatives.
From the article >>In this approach math is substantially dumbed down for "equity" reasons and students are asked to discover age-old principles on their own. Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, wrote the free eBook (pdf) "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
"Dumbing down" and "discovering age-old principles on their own" are not necessarily the same. There is definitely value in learning to do creative work in math and science, beyond just rote memorization and learning to regurgitate what the teacher tells you. It pretty clear that many people with high grades in school are poorly prepared for situations where you actually have to do original work, like grad school. Of…
Indeed not. I'm writing an interpreter for a Lisp-like language right now (does Lisp count as "age-old"? I guess in computer terms it does), but I don't consider that a dumb thing to do.
Welfare. These low-income and minority kids know they won't starve to death, they think that learning is "acting white". Here's the result. Oh well, better for the rest of us.
Welfare. These low-income and minority kids know they won't starve to death, they think that learning is "acting white". Here's the result. Oh well, better for the rest of us.
I dispute this assertion. When I was growing up, Ireland was ethnically homogenous with poor economic security and hostility to welfare cases like those of single mothers (for religious reasons), but there was still a distribution of ability and academic application. there were poor kids that studied hard and rich kids that didn't give a fuck, though more of the former than the latter, since high schools there employ…
I find it telling that the article breaks down scores by race, not by income. Note that it claims that the difficulties are for low income families who cannot afford tutors / other resources , not black children . What's the crossover? What's the pass ratio for poor white children? Granted, a book can easily be harder to read / understand for less-classically-trained children. I'm not saying it's not possible, just t…
Granted, this isn't as informative as breaking things down by both race and income. But, as far as I can tell, this is a limitation of the state's reporting data and not a selective argument made by the blog.