Posted on 07/25/2008 2:48:55 PM PDT by Oyarsa
Well good.
Now that they have dumbed down math enough...both genders are bad at it.
I see some of the comments express the same reaction I had. How much of this results from favoritism toward girls, from making the boys feel inferior, and (I would add) from feeding many of the boys Ritalin if they behave too much like boys?
LOL I was going to say, the teachers now prove they can teach no one.
Not sure what to make of this study and its implications. However any study by UC Berkeley and U of Wisconsin is suspect. These are two super PC institutions and keep in mind politics are intruding into scholarship on a fairly routine basis. I’m not saying that study is flawed but I would want to see this type of study confirmed by about a half-dozen other studies. Always be suspicious about academic studies in this day and age.
Am I supposed to trust her calculations?
On the difference between mathematical ability between boys and girls
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/07/25/on-the-difference-between-mathematical-ability-between-boys-and-girls/
Can we thank Danica McKellar?
Google up your own images, woo-hoo!
But usually, they want studies that prove a disaprity, so they can call for actions and money?
“LOL I was going to say, the teachers now prove they can teach no one.”
Good one!
or they have sufficiently destroyed the education of boys to make both equally bad.
There has long been a long lived trend where more women than men are going to college. This is a fact. Men are finding jobs that pay well in blue collar area’s and are opting for that instead of school. Nothing wrong with it. I think that has something to do with what we see here.
so true
And the authors have a feminist agenda.
I’m not saying that study is flawed
The study is flawed.
I would want to see this type of study confirmed by about a half-dozen other studies
I would not want to see anyone pull what they did here. They used NCLB tests. These tests can be filled with ridiculously simple questions and manipulated to make sure the girls do as well as the boys or even better. It makes more sense to use the NAEP data.
It's also wrong to focus solely on the average scores. Science is not done by people with average math ability. It's done by people with high ability. There are a lot of females with high math ability but there are even more males.
agree, now that fewer boys are going to college than girls, there is no outrage (it’s who cares?), yet, her in az they are still gearing special programs to “girls”
maybe this was appropriate in the 70’s, certainly not today
lol you beat me to it. Math, based on my sister’s experience recently in high school, is nothing like ‘math’ I learned 20 years earlier.
Allowing calculators in school from early ages is simply moronic, among other things....
The smells more like “feel-good” news than fact. If it’s the case, however, that our young females are ascending to greater mathematical capabilities, it’s good news for everyone especially the Country that requires ongoing excellence. On the other hand, if the flattened statistical data is the result of educational regression, the people of this Country should take the necessary legal steps to recalibrate the educational systems.
>> Allowing calculators in school from early ages is simply moronic, among other things....
No it’s not. A calculator is a legitimate tool that can be used at any point throughout the teaching of math. It’s important to differentiate the application of the sciences from the mechanics used to process information.
The student should still be required to evaluate complex expressions without the use of a calculator and the results should be reflected in the student’s academic profile.
In Minnesota, for example, 1.85% of white boys in the 11th grade hit the 99th percentile, compared with 0.9% of girls -- meaning there were more than twice as many boys among the top scorers than girls.
Makes me think that the AP and other news outlet reports were also spinning the data.
A solar-powered 4-function calculator is fine once a child has basic math down and is heading into pre-algebra. But my Ti-89 can handle symbolic triple integrals. No information processing needed. Math problem in, answer out--including proper formatting and equation simplification.
Instead of a calculator, it would be nice to have a guided practice device to be a virtual tutor for students. I think that we are almost to a point where the technology in a cell phone could read and check a student's handwritten math work and follow the logic the student used at each step.
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