Free Republic

At 10 years old... Esther Okade... is more interested in writing an algebra workbook for kids and studying for college exams. Esther, a British-Nigerian home-schooled student, started in January as a freshman at the distance learning college Open University, making her one of the youngest college students in England. “I actually wanted to start when I was seven,” she told CNN. “But my mum was like, ‘you’re too young, calm down.’” Math is Esther’s strong suit and according to her mother Efe Okade, she’s had an unusual grasp of numbers since she was barely old enough to read. “At four,...

As schools adopt new education standards and rely more on computers in the classroom, a group of New Hampshire senators want to make sure the basics of learning cursive and multiplication tables don’t get left behind. “You definitely need to teach typing and keyboarding and all of that, but kids do need to be able to sign their names, they do need to be able to read the Founding Fathers documents,” said Republican Sen. Nancy Stiles, the main sponsor of a bill that would require public schools to keep teaching both. “(Cursive) is an art and a skill that shouldn’t...

Trigonometry Is Racist! KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON February 27, 2015 An African-American scholar says that emphasis on STEM education is bad for blacks. Earlier today on Sirius XM Urban View, an African-American talk station, the guest was Daryl Scott, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The conversation turned to STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math — education, and the origins of the ongoing push to encourage institutions and students to focus on those subjects. Can you guess what happened? In 1983, the guest explained, a commission empaneled by the secretary of education issued...

Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has nine question for Common Core opponents, which I would like to answer with eight questions of my own. First, Mr. Petrilli: 1. Do you mean that you oppose the Common Core standards themselves? All of them? Even the ones related to addition and subtraction? Phonics? Studying the nation’s founding documents? Or just some of them? Which ones, in particular, do you oppose? Have you actually read the standards? 2. Or do you mean that you oppose the role that the federal government played in coercing states to adopt the Common Core?...

Have you ever encountered a math problem that confused you, or came across an equation or algebraic topic that you didn’t quite understand? Sure, everyone has. Everyone except John Urschel ’12, ’13g, the former Academic All-American offensive lineman and current math genius who, during his career as a Nittany Lion, was honored with the James E. Sullivan Award and the William V. Campbell Award, two prestigious honors. The Sullivan Award goes to the nation’s top amateur athlete—not just in football, but in all sports—while the Campbell Award recognizes a college football player who combines academic and athletic success with outstanding...

The roster of actual mathematicians taking issue with the math in Common Core grows. “In mathematics, mastery of several calculation skills is delayed by one or two grade levels when compared with the standards recommended by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (NMAP),” David V. Anderson writes in Replacing Common Core With Proven Standards of Excellence, a study published by the Heartland Institute. “Common Core specifies only three years of high school mathematics, compared to the traditional four years of instruction recommended by NMAP.” Anderson is a retired research physicist and fellow of the American Physical Society who has taught high...

Wendy Davis made herself a progressive champion by running as an outspoken progressive in a really conservative state, with the predictable result that she lost really, really badly. Salon’s Jenny Kutner, a strong Davis supporter, concedes that Davis did, in fact, lose. What Kutner refuses to concede is that Davis lost among women: The Tribune cited CNN exit polls to illustrate the landslide, saying Abbott “beat Davis by lopsided margins with white voters (72-27), men (65-34) and women (52-47). Davis beat Abbott among Latinos (57-42) and African-Americans (93-7).” Last time I checked, though, there were thousands upon thousands of women...

On the last day of the 2014 campaign, Democrats knew they were in trouble.

On both coasts, grandparents are learning to apply a modern-day rule of thumb with surprising accuracy: If it looks inane, it’s probably Common Core. “The Berkeley school district's curriculum for sixth-grade math was an exact copy of the Common Core State Standards for the grade,” Marina Ratner wrote in The Wall Street Journal on August 5, 2014. “The teacher in my grandson's class went through special Common Core training courses.” “As his assigned homework and tests indicate, when teaching fractions, the teacher required that students draw pictures of everything: of 6 divided by 8, of 4 divided by 2/7, of...

DENVER — Results for a new standardized test for science and social studies came in on Monday and they likely put frowns on educators and parents. ... Just 17 percent of Colorado fourth- and seventh-graders scored “strong” or “distinguished” on social studies tests. Those are the scores necessary to for students to be considered on track to be ready for college and a career, ... Achievement gaps still persisted between white and students of color. For example, in fourth-grade social studies, 6 percent of Hispanic/Latino students and 7 percent of African-American students have “strong” or “distinguished command” of the subject....

Among the 34 OECD countries, the US performed below average in mathematics and is ranked 27th ... While the U.S. spends more per student than most countries, this does not translate into better performance (e.g. the Slovak Republic, which spends around $53k per student, performs at the same level as the US, which spends over $115k per student).

When is the wrong answer the right answer? Now. Today. Reality alert: we have entered an alternative universe, thanks to Common Core. As people once scorned wrong answers, we will now learn to scorn right answers. Answer-getting (that’s the new jargon) will be held up for contempt, and slowly eliminated. That’s the plan. This is not marginal nonsense. No, it is already mainstream nonsense. Phil Daro is one of the three principal writers of the Common Core Mathematics Standards. A 17-minute video about his ideas is promoted this way: “Phil Daro goes into detail on the problems of ‘Answer-getting,’ one...

Let's play a game. (inspired by this post) If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.  Then (winner in bold)...left: 12+5+6+20 = 43right: 18+9+7+8+20 = 62---Democrat: 4+5+13+15+3+18+1+20 = 79Republican: 18+5+16+21+2+12+9+3+1+14 = 101---Donkey: 4+15+14+11+5+25 = 74Elephant: 5+11+5+16+8+1+14+20 = 80---Obama: 15+2+1+13+1= 32Reagan: 18+5+1+7+1+14= 46---Dems don't have a nickname = 0GOP: 7+15+16 = 38---socialism: 19+15+3+9+1+12+9+19+13 = 100capitalism: 3+1+16+9+20+1+12+9+19+13 = 103---welfare: 23+5+12+6+1+18+5 = 70working: 23+15+18+11+9+14+7 = 97---Obamacare: 15+2+1+13+1+3+1+18+5 = 59status quo: 19+20+1+20+21+19+17+21+15 = 153---liberal: 12+9+2+5+18+1+12 = 59conservative: 3+15+14+19+5+18+22+1+20+9+22+5 = 153---Here's one from...

In an intentional attempt to study and potentially confuse children, children were asked "There are 25 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock. How old is the shepherd?" Why might you ask this supposedly common-core aligned question? According to the teachers who created this problem, it is to teach students that they must: 1. Explain the meaning of a problem. 2. Plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. 3. Continually ask themselves, "Does this make sense?" This question has actually been researched for years, and is still being asked to children. Today, however, it is...

The other day, an English professor (retired) showed me a story in a magazine and corrected an interesting grammatical issue he found there. I at first thought he was crazy, but now I’m pretty sure he’s correct. After all, he’s the prof’. Here it is: When we speak of numbers, certain words always translate to mathematical formulas. “Less” means subtract. “There were ten, now there are three less.” 10-3. Duh. “Times” means multiply. “Of” means multiply. “How many cars were there?” “There were 10 of them.” 10 “OF” cars means 10 X 1.” Or… “I had half OF the six...

Imagine a teacher asks you to solve this question: 568-293. Depending on your age you might do one of three things... ...Third, you might use the new common core was to subtract, which is much simpler, with only... 10 steps. First, you would take the 200 out of the 293, and save the 93 for later. Then you would take 568 and subtract 200 from it. Then you'd take the remaining 368 and you would subtract 60 from it, because you are taught that, for some reason, you cannot simply subtract 90 from 368. 368-60 equals 308. Then you subtract...

As we’ve noted before, when proponents of the Obama Administration’s Common Core education reforms try to make the case for the program, they often end up giving material to its opponents. Case in point: the Center for American Progress (CAP), in a recently released report on The Cognitive Science Behind the Common Core, attempted to show how much easier Common Core math is than traditional means of mathematical problem-solving: “Elizabeth is at the grocery store buying fruit for the week. She wants to purchase $7.60 worth of apples with a $20.00 bill. How much change should the cashier return to...

The Pioneer Institute, a Massachusetts-based think tank, released a new study, “The Revenge of K-12: How Common Core and the New SAT Lower College Standards in the U.S.” to help parents, teachers, and policymakers understand the problems with the Common Core State Standards. Authors Robert Phelps and Common Core Validation Committee member R. James Milgram go in-depth on the background of the Common Core standards and the qualifications (or lack thereof) of the writers of the standards. Milgram, an emeritus professor of mathematics at Stanford University, was one of five members of the validation committee who refused to sign onto...

I home school a young girl. In years past, we have gone to the local air show and done such things as measure the tops and bottom of wings and rotos and figure the ratio or difference between the area of the top of the wing versus the bottom and estimated which wings had more lift than others. We measure how much area the wheels occupied on the ground and consulted with the crew chief what the tire pressure was and calculated the weight of the plane. In years past we were able to see F18s form a vapor cone...

A simple addition problem seems to become a little more complicated under Common Core. That is made very clear in a new “Homework Helper” segment that recently aired on WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York. In the new educational segments, local teachers attempt to help confused parents better understand their children’s Common Core homework. In the introductory segment, a math teacher takes nearly an entire minute explaining why 9 plus 6 equals 15. “Our young learners might not be all together comfortable thinking about what 9 plus 6 is. They are quite comfortable thinking about their friend 10,” the teacher says...