Posted on 08/12/2010 2:16:04 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
[T]he New York City Department of Education acknowledges that despite rising graduation rates, many graduates lack basic skills, and it is trying to do something about it.
This year, for the first time, it has sent detailed reports to all of its high schools, telling them just how many of their students who arrived at the city’s public colleges needed remedial courses, as well as how many stayed enrolled after their first semester. The reports go beyond the basic measure of a school’s success — the percentage of students who earn a diploma — to let educators know whether they have been preparing those students for college or simply churning them out.
The city’s analysis, which it intends to reproduce every year, comes as policy makers nationwide have been calling for higher standards for schools. Most states have committed to adopting a “common core” of what each student should learn in each grade, and in New York, state education officials recalibrated their scoring of standardized tests this year, saying that the bar for passing had fallen too low.
...
There are also more basic problems, Ms. Clark said, such as students not knowing that each sentence must begin with a capital letter or using “u” instead of “you.”
...
Susan L. Forman said that many of the issues have remained the same for the four decades she has taught remedial math at Bronx Community College, including students easily confused by fractions and negative numbers and becoming paralyzed when they are told they cannot use calculators.
What has changed, she said, is that students are often overly confident.
“Their naïveté is just extraordinary,” she said. “They have a tremendous underestimation of what they do not understand.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If they can’t handle negative numbers then they can’t work for the government. That’s discrimination.
They do well at intercourse.
So start with an end of year test and teach them a little humility!
Imagine a place where schools actually taught essential skills, like math, science, reading, (note the comma) and writing, rather than indoctrinated children and their parents into groupthink. Imagine a place where an education meant something.
Imagine it, because it ain’t here.
This is not new. When I was tutoring in San Antonio in the early 90s (in a program run by my employer) one of the key issues identified by the school system was that high school students couldn’t do fractions. Like, duh. How can you do fractions if you don’t know the multiplication tables?
It has nothing to do with intelligence. Students are *not being taught* basic skills.
“she has taught remedial math at Bronx Community College”
ding....ding....ding
attention readers! we have pc speak violation...it’s not cool to say ‘remedial Math’ or ‘remedial English’...the appropriate p.c. term is ‘developmental’...I know this because my wife taught developmental English for 5 years at a local juco....and btw, if you can teach developmental English, you will have a job for as long as you want....our highs schools are producing a never ending stream of graduates who cannot write a simple declarative sentence...
Reading,Rwiting and Rithmatic is bad.....Obama, Socialism, Political Correctness is ++good!
Ask your average high school graduate to tell time on a traditional, dial face clock. You will be stunned.
My sister-in-law had to actually teach a fellow teacher how to teach fractions because he was doing it incorrectly for years. He rewarded her by stealing one of her exams.
I am in my latter 60's and remember when Tucson was hit with "Why Johnny can't read." I felt guilty, everyone was pointing at someone else in the circle. Looks like things haven't changed. Don't think they will until the schools really teach only one thing, fundamentals. Forget the touchie-feeling stuff teach and hold everyone accountable, parents, students, teachers and government. Easier said than done. There may be no real answer that will work.
Should read--Their ignorance is so extraordinary that it is only matched by their arrogance and ego. Their tremendous underestimation of what they do not understand is submerged in their surety that they know perfectly what the world needs and are ready to rule.
You can teach nothing to those who know nothing and have no knowledge that they know nothing.
vaudine
O my God, this is terrible. Send them several billion more of our dollars. That will fix the problem. Whew, that was close!!!
“our highs schools are producing a never ending stream of graduates who cannot write a simple declarative sentence...”
Like wow, man, that’s just like, wow...;)
If he used the exam to teach fractions to his students, good!
My husband and I help with our Hispanic outreach tutor program sponsored by our church. I am **convinced** that if any child in our county can read ( Anglo or Hispanic) it is because his **PARENTS** ( or someone else in his life) has taught him.
The following is a letter I wrote to our church leaders:
Dear Ministers A, B, C, D, and E,
The Hispanic children with whom I am associated are very intelligent and motivated, yet, I am very concerned about the appalling reading and arithmetic skills that I find during the Tuesday night tutoring sessions. One child ( about 12 years old) is completely illiterate and innumerate. Nearly all the children struggle with reading. All of the children are grossly delayed in learning their math facts.
Of the children with whom I have worked, all have a poor grasp of phonics and none ( regardless of grade) have mastered basic math facts ( addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). To compound the problem, their homework requires mastery of these basics even though the children have not mastered them!
If it is child abuse to send a child who cannot ski up to the top of a mountain and push him off onto a double black diamond trail, then it is child abuse for a public school teacher to assign homework to a child that is utterly impossible for him to complete. The frustration, guilt, and depression on these children’s faces is plainly evident. Every day in school and every evening at home with homework must be a minor hell of despair for them. Why would we be surprised that too many drop out at the first opportunity?
On Tuesday before the Christmas school holiday, I helped a girl with the addition of mixed fractions. This was her formal homework assignment for that day. How is it possible for a child to add mixed fractions if she has absolutely NO idea what the denominator or numerator of a simple fraction represent? How can she find common denominators when for multiplication and division she needs help drawing lines and dots on paper for her to group? How can she convert improper fractions to proper fractions and whole numbers when she adds and subtracts with her fingers and can not carry a value from the ten’s column to the one’s column? In other words, the assignment sent home for this child was **impossible** for her to understand. She told me that she is given homework assignments like this every day! This child is literally being pushed off a double black diamond educational mountain every day when she is not even a beginner. I call this child abuse.
What I am witnessing is SYSTEMATIC EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE and CHILD ABUSE!
I suggest that the following begin IMMEDIATELY:
· These children need a DAILY ,SATURDAY, VACATION, and an ALL- SUMMER afterschool educational program in highly structured and systematic phonics.
· DAILY drills in math facts.
· Appropriate rewards, certificates, and ceremonies to recognize the 100% mastery of specific levels of achievement in phonics and math facts.
· The children MUST NOT MOVE ON UNTIL THEY HAVE MASTERY OF A LEVEL!!!
· The older children must have 100% mastery of the fundamentals of arithmetic before moving to fractions. Each level of mathematics needs 100% mastery if there is to be any success on the next level.
· The parents must be instructed on how to create a learning centered home with TV, DVDs, I-pods, games, and Internet completely restricted until the child fully completes his weekly assignment goals. These goals must be rational and achievable.
· These children will need volunteers to pick them up and take them home from any afterschool program. Many of their parents are working more than one or two jobs and it is likely that many would find it impossible to bring their children to an afterschool program. Some may need tutoring in their homes.
Long term solution would include a combination of the following:
· Totally restructuring the public schools.
· KIPP charter schools or something similar.
· The church opens its own private tuition-free schools.
Although the Tuesday evening tutoring program is functioning as best as can be expected under the circumstances, it is far too little to do much good. It is like aiming a water pistol at a raging forest fire. The futures of these children are literally being burned up in slow motion. These children need INTENSIVE and SYSTEMITIZED INTERVENTION!!! They need it IMMEDIATELY!
The problem is a failure of the school to teach phonics in a systematic and rational manner, and a failure to demand that children master the basic levels in math before moving forward. It is a failure of the schools to properly group these children into an appropriate levels of mastery. It is a failure of the schools to assign the appropriate skill level of homework to these children.
Please forward this letter to those in the church and community with the authority to make a serious change. Children should never be neglected and emotionally abused in this manner.
Respectfully,
Wintertime
Some graduates can't do percentages.
In the mid-nineties, I served as an adjunct professor at one of the larger 4-year schools in the DFW area.
I was stunned to discover that my otherwise bright-eyed eager-to-learn class of upper division students couldn't handle...long division.
Even with a calculator...
In order to quantify the situation, I gave them a math problem that was essential to the class at hand (it was a media class). Something like: A full-page 4-color ad in Time magazine costs $48,000 and reaches 2,000,000 readers. What is the cost per 1,000 readers?
Out of 36, six produced the correct answer. Six!
I’m a homeschooler, and I clobber my kids with long division and other basic math computations. You just can’t live without this stuff.
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