“That wasn’t my quotation. But, I would say a motivatd low intelligence person can still learn to graph y=x, y=x*2, y=1/x with suitable effort. If not, maybe that person shouldn’t be granted a high school degree. When degrees are handed out for compliant behaviour rather than academic achievement, the nature of the institution and the value of the degree is degraded for all. “
I’m with you. If we set low expectations, we’ll get crappy results. Back in the days when Saxon Math was an independent company (before they sold out to Big Textbook), they used have anecdotes on their site. My favorite was the one where a school had just gotten the “latest and greatest” curriculum and used it for their advanced students. The lower level math class got their beat-up Saxon Math books. Needless to say, guess who got skunked at the end of the year.
For those who don’t know, Saxon Math is about as traditional as you can get with math instruction. It is LEGENDARY in the home schooling community and is among the main reasons that home schoolers do so well. Needless to say, the Education Establishment doesn’t like it - AT ALL, and pretty much stopped it in its tracks before it got to critical mass in the public schools.
“if not, maybe that person shouldn’t be granted a high school degree”
Dingdingdingding....winner, winner chicken dinner!
Now, the next step is figuring what % of the 14 year old population is capable. I say no more than 30%, probably less.