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LOL, you know I am a minority(Black and have always scored highly from the day I stepped in the classroom) and went to school where the demographics actually had a majority minority population(maybe 35% white, 35% black, 15% Hispanic, 15% Asian). I am pretty sure if they were to dump minorities from the testing pool the scores would drop not rise, not just at the school I attended but at schools across the country.
Further more being the largest group in the United States it is white children who make up the biggest percentage of our countries poor: NCCP | Poverty by the Numbers.
There are a lot of factors that come into play when you put poverty in to the mix: One of the biggest factors is when you have children living in a community that does not value education. This is why the drop out rates tend to be higher in areas where there is poverty.
At the same time, poverty or no poverty, when a child is growing up in a community where education is valued, they tend to perform well. For example, Nigeria has a poverty rate of 61%(BBC News - Nigerians living in poverty rise to nearly 61%). At the same time they are a people who value education and are able to come here and out perform their counterparts.
I'd have no way of knowing your ethnicity, but it hardly makes a difference.
You'd have no way of knowing exactly how poor I was growing up either, but again, it makes no difference.
I stand by my statements. If you take any nation/group/ethnicity and sample their best and brightest you will likely see they perform similarly. Including the US's.
I don't doubt that poverty and education are linked. I don't doubt that certain minorities generally view success in school as a negative attribute, something to be derided (a trait that obviously doesn't exist among the Nigerians). I don't doubt that certain *people* will feel compelled to learn and succeed no matter their background and cultural influences. I don't doubt that if you removed minorities or poor people or the dullest among the population from the equation that test scores would rise dramatically. I don't doubt there is a strong correlation between minorities and poverty.
And finally, I don't believe for one minute that the US produces only average intellectuals. We produce the best and brightest. And our system is so good that other countries send us their best and brightest, many of whom remain and contribute.
The ridiculous amount of testing that is being pushed with common core aside, this pretty well sums up my opposition to it:
Quote:
Among the key problems with Common Core’s approach to math is that it attempts to bypass the key lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. For those not familiar with Bloom’s, this means that Common Core is designed to skip the definition and fundamental steps required to master any subject. The students are programed straight into relativity, ignoring facts. If they can justify an answer, they get full credit, even if the answer is wrong.
In other words, kids don’t learn multiplication tables. They are expected to automatically understand and play with set theory when doing multiplication. If given 3×4, acceptable answers include 7 and 75%, because there is a 3 and a 4 in the problem. They can also justify 36, because they can say they counted 4 sets of 3 bags of 3 marbles. 34 is also justifiable, according to Common Core. However, the laws of mathematics dictate that 3 times 4 MUST equal 12. That fact, that law, is not being taught.
According to Common Core, PEMDAS is no longer a rule. The order of operations in mathematics is : Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication/Division, Addition/Subtraction. Under the way Common Core materials teach math, the order of operations no longer matters, as long as students can articulate what order they used as justification to why the answer they arrived at is correct. It doesn’t matter that, if operations are done out of the proper sequence, they are wrong.
Now I know process is important, and if you can explain an answer without a formula, you should get credit for it, but only if the answer is right and you know the fundamentals.
Do parents who support this garbage really understand what kind of education their children are getting?
Now I know process is important, and if you can explain an answer without a formula, you should get credit for it, but only if the answer is right and you know the fundamentals.
Do parents who support this garbage really understand what kind of education their children are getting?
Is that article for real?
Can you really say 3x4 equals 75% and get the answer right? Who approved this?
This sounds like a page from the book written about how everyone wins and gets a trophy at the end of the season, and why not keeping score is a great idea.
Heh, I think it might be slightly exaggerated. Because I just can't comprehend grasping mathematical concepts without knowing the fundamentals, but I have also seen a kid's math homework doing the rounds on social media recently and his engineering father couldn't even understand what the heck was expected of him.
If I look at that example, is this what the school was going for?
427 - 316 = ?
427 - 100 = 327
327 - 010 = 317
316 - 001 = 316
------------------
Total change was 100+10+1 or 111.
Essentially they are attempting to teach mental math? The idea sounds good I suppose. But I agree with the father. The 4 learning steps start with rote memorization, which his equation is. The KISS theory is the best way to start. Building blocks.
I'd have no way of knowing your ethnicity, but it hardly makes a difference.
You'd have no way of knowing exactly how poor I was growing up either, but again, it makes no difference.
I stand by my statements. If you take any nation/group/ethnicity and sample their best and brightest you will likely see they perform similarly. Including the US's.
I don't doubt that poverty and education are linked. I don't doubt that certain minorities generally view success in school as a negative attribute, something to be derided (a trait that obviously doesn't exist among the Nigerians). I don't doubt that certain *people* will feel compelled to learn and succeed no matter their background and cultural influences. I don't doubt that if you removed minorities or poor people or the dullest among the population from the equation that test scores would rise dramatically. I don't doubt there is a strong correlation between minorities and poverty.
And finally, I don't believe for one minute that the US produces only average intellectuals. We produce the best and brightest. And our system is so good that other countries send us their best and brightest, many of whom remain and contribute.
I know you didn't know, regardless of that fact, to say it is minorities bringing the test scores down is opinionated(which you are entitled to) but baseless when you have a larger population of that same group that are still performing well.
They are people amongst all groups who view success in school as a negative attribute, but they are the minority and not the majority, and as I mentioned there are a ton of other factors that come into play once you put poverty in to the mix.
Here's one data point worth remembering. When you measure the test scores of American schools with a child poverty rate of less than 20%, our kids not only outperform the Finns, they outperform every nation in the world.
Half of students in poverty
But here's the really bad news. Two new studies on education and poverty were reported in Education Week in October. The first from the Southern Education Foundation reveals that nearly half of all U.S. public school students live in poverty. Poverty has risen in every state since President Clinton left office.
The second study, conducted by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, reveals that poverty — not race, ethnicity, national origin or where you attend school — is the best predictor of college attendance and completion.
I'm not even going to get on your "strong correlation between minorities and poverty" statement but I will say that according to data nearly half of all public school students live in poverty, with poverty rising in every state, suggest that there is something else at play here other than minorities bringing test scores down.
And I agree with you, I don't believe that the US is only producing average intellectuals as well, at the same time, not every child is receiving the same educational opportunities for various reasons. There are schools with no books, no computers, no labs, no after school programs, no test prep, no college prep, no space(50+ kids in a class room), low staff(weeks with no real teacher),not to mention some kids have to ride the city bus because there are no buses to pick them up. At the same time in the same city, in a different school district, none of these issues are a problem.
Getting back to the topic of common core and other policies that have been push to correct educational issues. Instead of pushing to address these issues(that they know exist because they have done the studies). Policies are push that will not correct the issue.
Last edited by drrckmtthws; 04-28-2014 at 01:11 PM..
If I look at that example, is this what the school was going for?
427 - 316 = ?
427 - 100 = 327
327 - 010 = 317
316 - 001 = 316
------------------
Total change was 100+10+1 or 111.
Essentially they are attempting to teach mental math? The idea sounds good I suppose. But I agree with the father. The 4 learning steps start with rote memorization, which his equation is. The KISS theory is the best way to start. Building blocks.
You mean 317-001=316?
That just doesn't seem intuitive to me as a method at all, and I am someone who took advanced math courses in the late 80's/early 90's and would occasionally give written sentence explanations on exams for how I worked out a problem because I 'did it in my head,' and couldn't translate that into a formula on paper. Thankfully I had understanding teachers who gave me full credit for it when I did!
I think all of us here are going to agree that learning the building blocks and a solid foundation is a good place to start, though.
If I look at that example, is this what the school was going for?
427 - 316 = ?
427 - 100 = 327
327 - 010 = 317
316 - 001 = 316
------------------
Total change was 100+10+1 or 111.
Essentially they are attempting to teach mental math? The idea sounds good I suppose. But I agree with the father. The 4 learning steps start with rote memorization, which his equation is. The KISS theory is the best way to start. Building blocks.
That is EXACTLY the way I do math. It is intuitive, if you remove your blinders, but I don't teach it that way because it is too foreign at this point in time! The more math you know, the more ways there are to work any given problem. Math is special in that, the more you know, the easier it gets.
Remember in subtracting you are finding the difference between two values. It seems so logical to me, to build that difference going up (adding) rather than taking numbers away and subtracting. A lot of this stuff is harder to write than do.
For instance, Obviously 427 is 100 more than 316, how much more, 11 more. So in total 111 more, or the differnce is 111. See!
I often will say, now let me show you how math guys do this. 90% the "Martian Look" and 4-5% some inkling of a clue, and the remainder you can't tell.
If ANY single EDUCRAT had a single clue, the Common Core would have started at first grade, then first and second, etc. There is SO MUCH assumed in Common Core that most, after the shotgun start, are either lost or give up, since they do not have the scaffolding from the common core approach in the early grades.
To a classroom teacher it is SOOOOO OBVIOUS, but then again, I am only a teacher, not an expert or high paid consultant!
"The U.S. education system is failing" (Washington Post)
An article in the Washington Post titled "The U.S. education system is failing", Fareed Zakaria writes:
"And things show no signs of improving. The bipartisan backlash against the Common Core — a set of national standards agreed to by governors — is a tragic example. Parents raised on a culture of low standards and high self-esteem are outraged that the tests show that many American schools are not teaching their children enough. (The tests must be at fault because they know that their kids are brilliant!) Some liberals and teacher groups are upset with the emphasis on testing (though Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, has endorsed the Common Core). And Republicans now oppose it — despite having championed it only a few years ago — largely because the Obama administration also backs the project."
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"The U.S. education system is failing" (Washington Post)
