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Posted on 04/26/2015 12:04:20 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
I AM afraid you’re eligible to read this column only if you can answer this question faced by eighth graders around the world:
What is the sum of the three consecutive whole numbers with 2n as the middle number?
A. 6n+3
B. 6n
C. 6n-1
D. 6n-3
More than three-quarters of South Korean kids answered correctly (it is B). Only 37 percent of American kids were correct, lagging their peers from Iran, Indonesia and Ghana.
We know Johnny can’t read; it appears that Johnny is even worse at counting.
The Educational Testing Service released a global report finding that young adults from the United States rank poorly in reading but are even worse in math — the worst of all countries tested. This is the generation that will be in the labor force for the next half-century, struggling to compete with citizens of other countries.
It’s not just that American results are dragged down by poverty. Even American millennials with graduate degrees score near the bottom of international ranks in numeracy.
We interrupt this column for another problem:
How many degrees does a minute hand of a clock turn through from 6:20 a.m. to 8 a.m. on the same day?
A. 680 degrees
B. 600 degrees
C. 540 degrees
D. 420 degrees
Only 22 percent of American eighth-graders correctly answered B, below Palestinians, Turks and Armenians.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Why don’t more people see that our system of education is totally rotten? It’s not about education. It’s about jobs for leftists and financial donations to leftist politicians. Screw the kids.
We need to radically re-think education. Technology a help make it better and cheaper, if we make the right choices.
Remove all computers from the classroom. They are not necessary to teach someone how to think. They are expensive to buy, maintain and update.
Return education to local control.
Perhaps the average child the US is taught Algebra and Geometry at a higher grade than in other countries. Statistics regarding adults might be more illuminating, e.g.
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014008.pdf
I get the impression that measured adult literacy and numeracy in the US is only somewhat below the average of industrialized nations. 25% of the US population is foreign-born; could that be a factor?
It’s all about training them for the NWO. 20 years ago or so, Beverly Eakman wrote prophetically about it. I think her book is still in print.
This test is racist . Our students can tell you all about Global Warming and its invisible effects on the world. They quickly can tell you how to admiringly use the right terms to talk with a transsexual and claim them to be heroes. They’ll lovingly describe all of their brave gay friends. They’ll discuss for hours how they hate America, guns are evil, police are evil, socialism is wonderful, Etc Etc. Why? Because listening to my daughter discuss her everyday college life, I feel this is all they teach.
How about eliminating the DEA, Common Core, computers in classrooms, and return to actually teaching the Three Rs?
meanwhile, if you asked lil johnny how many tubes of KY uncle fred needs for his weekend with his boyfriend tommy, american kids would know the answer immediately.
The main problem with American education is that we have made a certification or degree from a college of education, rather than a degree in a relevant subject, the sole criterion for fitness to teach in a K-12 school. Everyone remembers the general impression of ed majors at their college — by and large a mass of math-phobic ditzes who chose the major because it was the most content-free major at their university (I estimate about 15% of ed majors don’t fit that description, but it’s too few to take up the slack) — who are then given “education” in such baleful pedagogical enthusiasms as look-say reading instruction, Vygotsky’s social construction of knowledge, and whatever the latest iteration of the see-saw between rote learning of arithmetic without understanding and discovery learning (that would produce understanding, though with less computational skill, except that it’s being implemented by math-phobic ditzes) happens to be when they go through their program.
My mother, my daughter and I all attended the best private high school in Atlanta, hands down - we scrimped and saved to pay for it, it is not significantly more expensive than any other private school here (they are all within about a couple hundred of each other, except some of the new startups).
When I was there in the 70s, and when my daughter was there in the 00s, there was not ONE teacher on the premises with an "Edumakashun" degree. Teachers held advanced degrees, usually in their area of study. Lots of doctorates. My German teacher was an exception with a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Graz in Austria (her husband taught chemistry at Ga. Tech). Her German V class used to go to the state contest in Athens and run the table. Nothing like being taught by a native!
School pays teachers less than the public system - but people are knocking down the doors to work there because the kids are very bright, want to learn, and excel.
On the other hand - when I was between jobs with young children at home, I thought it would be a nice thing to substitute teach in the City of Atlanta system. Mind you, I have an honors degree in history from an Ivy and a law degree from a good regional school. I am also certificated to teach dance and horseback riding, so I know how to teach a class. But I do not have an "Education" degree - so the city system wasn't interested. These are people who have sub-literate fourth grade teachers (I took the deposition of one of them once. She could not read beyond maybe a 5th grade level.)
It only works for values of x greater than 1 But if x is 2 then 8/2 = 4 = four pieces of 8.
some problems with removal of 'puters...they are now part of life and daily use by almost everyone. I realize that they don't teach how to reason, but there is less need now to learn and retain rote items when they are available by looking at your watch!!!...I feel that way about calculators too....once that you are certain that the student knows how to determine the solution to the math problem by figuring it out the proper way....let them use calculators to do the routine repetitive calculations...
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