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The NCES does some good breakdowns on how we fair as a nation, breakdowns by race and by certain states. The scores become more clear and your outlook more bleak (or hopeful) depending on whose score you're most concerned about. Here's the breakdown for the 2012 PISA scores for Math (the one that gets every bodies panties in a bunch).
OECD average 494
Shanghai-China 613
Singapore 573
Hong Kong-China 561
Chinese Taipei 560
Korea, Republic of 554 Asian-Americans 549
Macao-China 538
Japan 536
Liechtenstein 535
Switzerland 531
Netherlands 523
Estonia 521
Finland 519
Canada 518
Poland 518
Belgium 515 Massachusetts-All Race 514
Germany 514
Vietnam 511 White Americans 506
Connecticut-All Races 506
Austria 506
Australia 504
Ireland 501
Slovenia 501
Denmark 500
New Zealand 500
Czech Republic 499
France 495 OECD Average 494
United Kingdom 494
Iceland 493
Multiracial Americans 492
Latvia 491
Luxembourg 490
Norway 489
Portugal 487
Italy 485
Spain 484
Russian Federation 482
Slovak Republic 482 United States 481
Lithuania 479
Sweden 478
Hungary 477
Croatia 471 Florida-All Races 467
Israel 466 Hispanic Americans 455
Greece 453
Serbia, Republic of 449
Turkey 448
Romania 445
Cyprus 440
Bulgaria 439
United Arab Emirates 434
Kazakhstan 432
Thailand 427
Chile 423 African Americans 421
Malaysia 421
Mexico 413
Montenegro, Republic 410
Uruguay 409
Costa Rica 407
Albania 394
Brazil 391
Argentina 388
Tunisia 388
Jordan 386
Colombia 376
Qatar 376
Indonesia 375
Peru 368
The same old patterns emerge from American education. "The Gap".
For those of you so inclined the NCES has a literal treasure trove of score breakdowns, graphs, interesting research, articles.
I go there often and everytime the PISA scores come out and everyone bleats about how stupid Americans are I like to wait for the NCES breakdowns. I linked to Math scores and depending on which group/state you live in, in America there are huge differences in score breakdowns. We do even better (well, some of us do better) when you look at Reading scores.
The research is out there, and now back to your regular finger-pointing circle jerk.
"When I was just seven or eight years old, I came upon a most fascinating book called the Trachtenberg System of Speed Mathematics (or something like that). In it was described a way of doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in ways I had never seen before. None of my teachers had even heard of it before. I was able to do multiplications by eleven and twelve in my head faster than my friends could do on paper. If you hate formal math (or if you have a child that does) . . "
"Jakow Trachtenberg was born on June 17, 1888, in Odessa, Russia. He worked as an engineer during his younger years in the Obuschoff Shipyards, after graduating with highest honors from the Mining Engineering Institute in St. Petersburg. He moved to Berlin during World War I and soon became an expert in Russian affairs. There he devised a method of teaching languages that is still used in some parts of eastern Europe. As a Jew, he was captured by the Nazis and deported to a concentration camp. There, without paper or pencil (some say a common iron nail became his most prized possession), he devised a method of doing mental arithmetic. Trachtenberg managed to escape and fled to Switzerland, where he perfected his system. In 1950, he founded the Mathematical Institute in Zurich where he taught his methods to children and adults alike."
The entire point of the exercise is to take an easy problem, show a different way of solving it and then later use that method to solve more complex problems, and to give a better understanding of how numbers actually relate to each other. You could easily use the same method to solve binary, octal or hexadecimal problems. I guess they don't teach electrical engineers binary or hex.
I would also wonder if todays engineers can handle Grey Codes, Reverse 3 coding, or RPN calculations (RPN was often called Reverse Pollack Notation) . Oh the joys of those early HP-20 calculators!
The problem with Common Core (or should that be "Communist Core"?) is that things that are supposed to be absolute are now up for debate. Since when does 2 plus 2 not equal 4?
There are still such things as right and wrong answers. Nothing can change that.
Do you remember a song by Tom Lehrer entitled "New Math"? As Tom noted, "It's so simple , so very simple that only a child can do it!" Dr. Tom Lehrer was actually a Mathematics instructor in the Mathematics Dept. at Harvard Univ. and that singing was just a hobby. Lehrer wrote this song over 50 years ago. A time when Americans worried that just teaching our kids reading writing and 'rithmetic wasn't good enough it we wanted to compete with the Soviet Union.
Prove it. The homosexual agenda is a leftist program all the way. Its entire purpose is to undermine and destroy the moral foundations of this republic. It is evil with a capital H.
LOL. Have you not been following the news for the last decade?
Prove it. The homosexual agenda is a leftist program all the way. Its entire purpose is to undermine and destroy the moral foundations of this republic. It is evil with a capital H.
Remember the saying:
When you are openly gay, you are a Democrat.
When you are closet gay, you are a Republican.
What the right don't get is that real straight men (like myself) don't feel threatened by gays because they have no affect on us. Zero. But a closet gay who is in denial definitely would feel threatened!! And it shows in their behavior like saying things like, "Gay people destroy families!!" No, gay people won't destroy my family but it may destroy yours if the possibility of you leaving your family for a gay man exists.
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Do you remember a song by Tom Lehrer entitled "New Math"? As Tom noted, "It's so simple , so very simple that only a child can do it!" Dr. Tom Lehrer was actually a Mathematics instructor in the Mathematics Dept. at Harvard Univ. and that singing was just a hobby. Lehrer wrote this song over 50 years ago. A time when Americans worried that just teaching our kids reading writing and 'rithmetic wasn't good enough it we wanted to compete with the Soviet Union.
Love it. "Who's Next" is a my favorite and just as timely as if he wrote it yesterday.
We could learn a lot from Tom Leher. he is on you tube. And you can still get his stuff from I Tunes.
I would tell Jack to subtract 300 then subtract 20 and then add 4 to the answer if he were doing the problem in his head. Doing the problem on paper is best doing it by simple subtraction as the engineer dad said.
It seems to be an attempt at learned universal stupidity.
I have met quite a few people who were learned stupid.
What aspects of common core teach stupidity?
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Perhaps that applies to you.
