Posted on 11/13/2013 7:01:38 AM PST by Nachum
HILLSBORO, Ore. – Nine parents pulled their seventh- and eighth-graders out of math class and started teaching them at home, because they are upset with the new Common Core curriculum that public schools in Oregon are starting this year.
Seventh-grader Amy Craig has always been an "A" student in math until this year. She came home with a "D."
The same thing happened to other students in her school. So their moms got together and decided to teach math themselves – an hour every morning.
Then the kids go off to school for the rest of the day.
This is the first school year when every public school in Oregon is using Common Core teaching standards. Forty-five other states use those, too.
"Our teachers would tell you math is more challenging this year than it was a year ago," said Rian Petrick, principal of Evergreen Middle School in Hillsboro, who is not surprised kids are struggling.
Math hasn't changed, but he said there are now fewer numbers and formulas and many more word problems and real-world examples. It includes more group work. That's tough for some kids.
"Our teachers feel like it's the best thing for kids, making them look much deeper into mathematics than they have in the past," Petrick said.
(Excerpt) Read more at katu.com ...
Well, we know how that community organizing works out mathematically.
The Federal government has NO business meddling in K-12.
NONE.
This will be interesting to watch.
Intel is the only real tech company in Oregon and their employees really value education in the sciences and math.
To them, it is impossible to over educate.
Hopefully they will start to wake up.
The way they teach math in public school is crap. The system wasn’t broke but they had to “fix” it and make it a pos.
Just a few short years ago we had math geniuses that built the bomb, put men on the moon, built dams and bridges still standing, the skunk works, refined the computer... now we have web designers and social media designers.
The District here just announced they will no longer teach cursive writing.
The sad reality here...is that a kid gets around to just memorizing the formulas and never grasps how you’d ever apply it. So you end up with a punk arriving at University....with no true grasp of math or the various applications that you could use to solve a business or life problem.
Note, we have all these idiots around who got deep into debt, but no grasp of the interest rates and what they really meant.
I’d rather see every kid given a workbook around the 4th or 5th grade, with a fake company situation and the various ways laid out to use math to analyze profits, losses, and expansion. Math is no good....unless you can use the stuff for real applications.
Funny thing is that there is nothing magic about the math test or teaching in Japan. Nothing. The book is actually thinner than the text which American kids study. It does do a good job of integrating math, geometry and algebra instead of teaching them as separate topics.
But beyond that, the only major difference is that kids do a lot of math related problems and drills as opposed to learning about self-esteem, racism and how to put a condom on a cucumber.
Orbamawell Common Core:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
http://web.archive.org/web/20130429114020/http://mathematicallycorrect.com/
This is a great website to learn about the Math Wars. Details the philosophy of ‘educational’ math and real math. Excellent resource that includes reviews of various elementary and high school curriculum.
See my post #8. These are the Americans who the Japanese elevated and emulated. Google "Ed Deming" and you will understand why their industrial quality has gone from mediocre to top notch in a generation.
“The District here just announced they will no longer teach cursive writing.”
Funny, our tiny rural school has my 4th grader writing in cursive throughout the week.
And here is the shocker. My 1st grader has drawn pictures of guns on occasion.
I’m guessing after I post this, the NSA will track this and come down hard on the non-complying school.
I always found doing geometry proofs quickly the most fun.
“The District here just announced they will no longer teach cursive writing.”
Then how will the kids be able read their tatoos?
I remember the ‘new math’ they tried in the 70s. It was a complete failure
Now they’re trying the same crap. The guvmint can’t have smart citizens who can do math
Parents need to educate their kids
“How far away are the feds from taking our smartest kids to be lobotomized...”
Ahhh we are already there. Read some of the books by Dr. Peter Breggin : http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=15&Itemid=42
Math is supposed to teach disciplined process thinking and drawing logical conclusion based on verified information. The word problems and group thingies should be a maybe once a week exercise applying those newly developed skills.
Don't wind me up !!! <^..^>
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