Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth

From M.J. McDermott

Spread the word.

D-Ed Reckoning: More on cognitive ability

D-Ed Reckoning: More on cognitive ability

What he said...

The Item - South Carolina

The Item - South Carolina: 2 children killed in Sumter County crash

Yesterday we had an ice story. Shaw AFB and both local colleges implimented a weather delay to report for work. The two local school districts did not.

We held out kids out of school for a few hours until the weather cleared up, because we were worried about the safety of the roads and thought the school districts were a bit stupid.

Today a teacher at a local high school is in the hospital and her two small children are dead after their car hit a tractor trailer head on while rounding a curve during some icy weather, yesterday morning.

The base and the colleges notified everyone the night before, so it wasn't like the districts didn't have any warning.

Safety first.

Good Teaching Update

An anonymous commenter made me realize that my eariler post on good teaching made it seem as if I thought that the things on the list were "bad".

I was trying to make the point that teaching the material should be the #1 goal of any teacher. Anything else is extraneous.

p.s. we have a snow day today... I love sleeping in.

The Conspiracy Theory

Opinion Journal - Aztecs vs. Greeks: Those with superior intelligence need to learn to be wise, by Charles Murray

Is it just me, or has Charles Murray gone off the deep end?

He starts off innocently enough by stating the obvious.

Combine these groups, and the top 10% of the intelligence distribution has a huge influence on whether our economy is vital or stagnant, our culture healthy or sick, our institutions secure or endangered. Of the simple truths about intelligence and its relationship to education, this is the most important and least acknowledged: Our future depends crucially on how we educate the next generation of people gifted with unusually high intelligence.

It might be unpopular, but its probably true. Not only does our system suck at educating the lowest performers, they are under educate our average and top performers as well.

But he should of stopped here, instead he rambles on a bit about how being gifted is a "gift", like high IQ people are some sort of superheros, the saviors of the world. They must acknowledge their awesomeness and use it to guide the lesser mortals.

What really took the cake though is when he started talking about some sort of high IQ cabal that runs our government.

In short, I am calling for a revival of the classical definition of a liberal education, serving its classic purpose: to prepare an elite to do its duty. If that sounds too much like Plato's Guardians, consider this distinction. As William F. Buckley rightly instructs us, it is better to be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. But we have that option only in the choice of our elected officials. In all other respects, the government, economy and culture are run by a cognitive elite that we do not choose. That is the reality, and we are powerless to change it. All we can do is try to educate the elite to be conscious of, and prepared to meet, its obligations. For years, we have not even thought about the nature of that task. It is time we did. (emphasis mine)

It reminded me of some Orwellian novel. If the average would just accept the leadership of the chosen ones, all would be well in the world.

(cross posted at Kitchen Table Math)

Commentary: Good Teaching

Commentary: Good Teaching

Michael F. Shaughnessy over at EdNews finds an old article on "good teaching" from the December 1991 issue of Phi Delta Kappan

1) Whenever students are involved with issues they regard as vital concerns, good teaching is going on.
2) Whenever students are involved with explanations of human differences, good teaching is going on.
3) Whenever students are being helped to see major concepts, big ideas, and general principles, and are not merely engaged in the pursuit of isolated facts, good teaching is going on.
4) Whenever students are involved in planning what they will be doing, it is likely that good teaching is going on.
5) Whenever students are involved with applying ideals such as fairness, equity or justice to their world, it is likely that good teaching is going on.
6) Whenever students are actively involved, it is likely that good teaching is going on. 7) Whenever students are directly involved in real-life experience, it is likely that good teaching is going on.
8) Whenever students are actively involved in heterogeneous groups it is likely that good teaching is going on.
9) Whenever students are asked to think about an idea in a way that questions common sense or a widely accepted assumption that relates new ideas to ones learned previously, or that applies an idea to the problems of living, then there is a chance that good teaching is going on.
10) Whenever students are involved in re-doing, polishing or perfecting their work, it is likely that good teaching is going on.
11) Whenever teachers involve students with the technology of information access, good teaching is going on.
12) Whenever students are involved in reflecting on their own lives and how they have come to believe and feel as they do good teaching is going on.

Wow... so wise. Once again my limited intelligence is revealed. See, I would of thought the list would go something like this.

1. Whenever students master the required material and demonstrate it on appropriate assessments, good teaching is going on.
2. See #1

I have so much to learn.

Vocational Schools

Opinion Journal - Extra What's Wrong With Vocational School? by Charles Murray

Murray's article was rather lame. It read like an exam paper done at the last moment, the night before it was due.

Having said that, he does hit on one important point. There should be other options for people besides University. College is a ridiculously poor at training people for most jobs in the real world. As Murray points out, college has become little more than a litmus test for employers. My brother who is an electrical engineer for Boeing even admits that he maybe uses 10% of what he learned in college, and he has a Masters degree.

For many many jobs, specific technical schools would probably be a much more cost effective and efficient way to train new employees. Witness the U.S.A.F., that manages to train 18 -21 year old kids to work on multi-million dollar aircraft, with only a few months of formal schooling, and a year of on the job training. In my field, nondestructive inspection, 22 year old's are able to leave the Air Force after four years and get a job in the civilian sector earning $40,000 a year.

Having lived in Europe for 12 years, I think that many European countries take a much more pragmatic approach to post secondary education. For example, the German model has industries working in partnership with government to create Berufsschule's (vocational schools) that provide government certified certificates in over 400 different careers.

Moving to a system like this, or similar, would serve several purposes. Employers would get employee's with specific job knowledge, our college graduation rate should improve, and students without the desire to sit through four year's of irrelevant classes would be able to quickly move into the workforce.

Murray though doesn't do the idea much justice. It's as if he adopted it to make up for the political incorrectness of his research into the IQ gap. Of course, because of Murray's perceived political leanings, his suggestions will be ignored... but good idea's being ignored has become the norm in education policy these days, so why should this idea be any different.

(Also posted at Kitchen Table Math)

Hat Tip: Joanne Jacobs

The Lowest Form of Logic

Apparently "argument by analogy is the lowest form of logic." At least Peter Campbell of Transform Education thinks so.

Apparently he didn't like my "sinking ship" analogy, and responded with his own crazy analogy about giving comfortable shoes to child workers, but I will get to that in a minute. Let's back up a bit though, to this analogy as an argument thing.

You see I compared his argument in a post entitled "What if KIPP Worked?", to letting everyone on a sinking ship drown because you can't save everybody... an all or none mentality.

I would like to apologize for insulting my readers (all three of you) intelligence. You see it was obviously my limited intelligence led me to believe that analogies were appropriate in responding to a post that used analogies. See I got confused, and thought that when peter compared education and KIPP schools to "world hunger", that responding with a comparison would be appropriate. Of course, maybe I misinterpreted this paragraph:

Imagine if we said the same thing about world hunger. Maybe we we have to throw up our hands and say, "We can't beat world hunger." Maybe we have to face the facts and say, "Hunger will always be with us, so we just to have to make the best of it." Maybe we have to admit that current solutions are not as great as they claim to be, but -- because not all children end up starving to death -- then that is enough.

Maybe it wasn't an analogy and he just went off topic for a bit. Oh well, I have learned my lesson.

NOT!

Now, where were we? Oh that's right, Peter responded to my sinking ship post. A bit of history first.

Peter originally said:

We accept, in full self-fulfilling prophecy mode, that these problems can never be solved. We accept that the best we can do is make something intolerable a little more tolerable. The question is, tolerable for whom?

For all the kids that are not "lucky" enough to get a place at KIPP, it is not tolerable. For all the kids that do make it into KIPP but are not able to endure the 10-hour days and two hours of homework every night and who eventually drop out or are "counseled out," it is not tolerable. And even for those kids who do make it into KIPP and make it out of KIPP, their "success" is not tolerable because it comes at a price, a price that is too high to pay.

Ryan responded with:

So because school choice might harm others in some nebulous way, it should be withdrawn? And "success" in sneer quotes? Is this writer suggesting that said students are faking it, or that their academic achievements are somehow counterfeit?

Look, school integration is a worthy endeavor. But even assuming that KIPP is somehow unconstitutional, you had better be willing to see that all guilty parties are held to account. Including the parents who are responsible for sending their children there.

I jumped on the bandwagon with:

Does this mean that all schools have to be integrated? No. It may very well but I wanted to add one more point. It's very hard to shake the feeling that there are some who truly wish for equality... equality of failure. I have used the argument in the past, but I will use it again. These are the sort of people who would let everyone drown on a sinking ship, because they couldn't save everybody. To them it's not about excellence, it's about equivalence. They have already given up on success, and now they just want to drag everyone down to the lowest level.

Peter then responded to me on my blog, his blog, and over at Edspresso. (He wanted to make sure that we read it)

OK, now we are up to date.

Now since he posted on my blog, I think that entitles me to quote him in his entirety, so I will just go paragraph by paragraph. (My comments in blue)

The sinking ship analogy is a good one. It would seem that this is precicsely what I am supporting, i.e., it's best that everyone on the ship drown rather than saving a few.

But this is, of course, absurd. And argument by analogy is the lowest form of logic.

We already covered this... he started it. Not me.

But I'll offer my own argument by analogy.

Like dude, you already did... but go on. Let's see what you got.

Imagine we are in early 20th century America. There are no child labor laws. It is a common sight to see 10-year-olds working in factories for next to nothing. Along comes a reform movement that provides comfortable shoes for the children. They can now stand at their assembly line positions for 8 hours at a stretch and feel considerably less pain. Many people are relieved by this intervention. At last, they say, we have done something to help these poor children.

Providing comfortable shoes doesn't undo the injustice of children working in these conditions. Providing questionable schooling for an infinitesimally small population of poor black and Hispanic children doesn't undo the injustice of segregation.

OK... this analogy is good. I like it, except that it doesn't at all relate to the idea that KIPP schools are bad because they don't help everybody. Instead, it almost seems to me to be an analogy to what our current public school system does. They use constructivism, inquiry learning, and feel good teaching methods, and to make poor minority students feel better about themselves in a system that nothing more than a factory (a very inefficient factory). Instead, using your factory analogy. Kipp's schools are like giving some of the poor children a chance to leave the factory and go to school (OK, I know KIPP is a school so its not technically an analogy, but you get the point). Of course, not all the kids are saved from the factory, but maybe when people see these kids excelling in the school, they will pass child labor laws.

Did you see that. I took it... turned it around 180 degrees, made it my own, and turned it on its originator.

We can't make "improving segregated schools" our goal. If we do this, we accept as a fait accompli that segregation is an immutable reality. The Brown decision said it is NOT an immutable reality. We must work to honor the legacy of that decision.

Now see what he did. He slipped the "segregation" issue in there, to throw me off. I am now presented with a false dilemma. Either I want to improve segregated schools or I don't want to improve segregated schools, either way I have accepted the inevitably of "segregation". Of course, perhaps by improving segregated schools we could desegregate them. If KIPP and Achievement First schools continue to excel, how long will it be before middle class white parents start jockeying to get their kids into them. Perhaps it will happen, perhaps it won't but if you had a choice between a successful segregated school, or a failing integrated one, what would you choose?

Does this mean that all schools have to be integrated? No. It may very well be that urban schools that are TRULY on the level of their suburban counterparts (as far as educational quality goes) can accept their segregated status. But, as I said, I fear the consequences of this level of acceptance, of this kind of abdication of a vision. We will accept our separation from each other. We will very seldom encounter each other. Of course, we see each other on television – in movies and in sit-coms and on the news. And, based on my experience of others on television, I know that most Asians are very quiet and work in laundries, that women on crime shows have large breasts and wear short skirts and tend to over-react when under pressure, that young black men are very angry and sing a lot about bitches and hos, that Muslims wear scarves over their heads and carry Kalashnikov machine guns, and that white men are smart and usually in charge.

The only place where people can go and share common space inside non-commercial venues is a public school. (Channel 1 tried to change that, but – fortunately – it recently reported financial problems and looks like it’s going to be gone forever. Good riddance.) In our society today, public schools are the only place where we have a chance to see and talk to people who are not exactly like us, maybe even get to know them a bit. For those of us who have already graduated from public high schools, it’s too late. There is really no other place to go.

Obviously he lives in a different America than I do. My work center is a diverse mix of people from different regions, of different races, of different ethnic backgrounds, and of different genders. I know this might not be representative of all places in the country, but to say that public schools are the only place to be in an ethnically diverse environment is a slight exaggeration.

Look, I know. It’s not like there was a time when this did happen, back in the good old days when people of different racial, ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds got together and held hands and inter-related. Rich people have always stayed around rich people, whites have pretty much always stuck to whites, blacks to blacks, etc., etc. And, of course, this is the case today. And it was certainly not the case with public schools either, certainly not before Brown v. Board, and certainly not today. A large number of suburban and rural schools are virtually devoid of any kind of diversity, whether economic, racial, ethnic, or religious.

In acknowledging this, we should not conclude that since most public schools are devoid of diversity, we should give up on the vision that diversity entails. Rather, it’s a reminder that we have to fight for what little diversity there is, where people of different backgrounds can share common space. It’s also a reminder that we have our work cut out for us to extend the democratic commons, to find new ways for diversity to be nurtured or, at the very least, to be experienced on a more substantive basis beyond merely passing each other at the food court.

To tell the truth, the post has now mutated from a debate to a sermon, but I will attempt to respond. Of course diversity is to be valued, but most diversity champions only see race. At the same time they decry the use of race as an indicator of a person's worth, they use race as a measure of diversity, but that's beside the point.

Peter in his original post states that "And even for those kids who do make it into KIPP and make it out of KIPP, their "success" is not tolerable because it comes at a price, a price that is too high to pay."

I would argue that the minority students in KIPP programs are way more likely to attend college, get white collar jobs, to integrate into "white" society. By doing this, they will bring diversity to the universities they attend and they will bring different experiences to their future workplaces.

Of course if I could wave my magic wand and make all schools as successful as the KIPP schools, I would, but that's not the world we live in. Instead, I take comfort that at least some students can benefit from the KIPP schools. Perhaps Peter's energies would be better spend raging at the public schools that fail poor minority students instead of spending time hating on the all to few schools that actually do some good.

Update: I just noted that Peter's various responses varied slightly. To be fair I need to respond to the end of his post at his website.

One more problem with the sinking ship analogy. Nothing can be done to save a sinking ship. The only thing that can be done is to try and save as many people as possible from drowning.

That is true. Nothing can be done to save a sinking ship, but we can learn from it and see why it sunk. Was it a design flaw, could we have built it stronger? Was there enough life rafts? Could the passengers of the ship have flown instead?

Social justice is not a sinking ship. There is a lot we can do to bring it about. To call it a sinking ship is more than just inaccurate. It is immoral. It means we are abdicating. It means we are giving up.

When the phrase "social justice" gets brought up, my first instinct is to tune out, but this argument is the easiest to rebut.

I never said "Social justice" was a sinking ship. I said that the public education system for poor and minority students is a "sinking ship".

Next:

Saving a handful of kids is to accept this inaccurate and immoral analogy. Saving a handful is to give up.

So eloquent. There is no way I can compete with this line. After all Peter has a B.A. from Princeton and a M.A. from New York University. All I have is a High School diploma, a beer gut, and a smart mouth. I suppose the best way to counter is with some much simpler language.

Hating KIPP because they are successful is fucked up!

The Quick and the Ed

Sara over at The Quick and the Ed, notes that one of the top performing school's in Maryland has a huge achievement gap.


I know the picture is small, but the yellow line at the bottom is African Americans.

Now of course the achievement gap is no secret, it even has its own wikipedia entry, but is there any truly public school (not private, magnet, or charter) that has eliminated the achievement gap. Schools with less 20 or so African Americans don't count.

I know of several charter schools that have performed remarkably, but these are almost always 99% - 100% minority. If not, are there any schools that have practically eliminated it, come close. I know many schools that claim to have made progress (lowering it from 55% to 35%), but its easy to improve from horrible to bad.

Lets Get the Gangs Cheerleaders out of Schools.

Scandal: Cheerleaders Run Amok in Texas - Newsweek Society - MSNBC.com

By many accounts, the group of cheerleaders, known as the "Fab Five," were out of control—an elite social clique that flagrantly flouted school rules but faced few sanctions. In many ways, they seemed like the stereotypical "mean girls" that periodically trigger bouts of consternation among parents. But there's an added wrinkle to their tale: the Fab Five's alleged ringleader was the daughter of McKinney North's principal, Linda Theret.

Ok... this has nothing to do about education, except for the whole students don't respect teachers meme, but a story about "out of control" cheerleaders... whats not to love.

More at Education Wonks.

Why School Choice isn't the End All

Minding the (Achievement) Gap:

"One of the series that created the most ripples was 'Inside Choice Schools,' a seven-part report in 2005, fifteen years after Milwaukee launched the voucher program, detailing students' experiences at voucher-supported schools. Borsuk and fellow reporters visited all but 9 of the 115 voucher-supported schools at the time -- all that would allow them in -- and described what they saw. The schools ranged from excellent, he recalls, to 'startlingly bad,' such as one Christian school in a dimly lit church basement without classroom walls or any clear curriculum. Through interviews, the reporters found that Milwaukee parents generally want a school with a cozy feel and value this intimacy over teacher credentials. Borsuk wrote (with colleague Sarah Carr), 'Parental choice by itself does not assure quality. Some parents pick bad schools -- and keep their children in them long after it is clear the schools are failing.'" (emphasis mine)

Unlike many school reform advocates, I am not totally convinced by "vouchers" as a solution to our education problem. While I agree that competition on a wide scale level does have an overall positive affect on the quality of products that people buy, on smaller scale, when it comes to individual services or goods people can make some surprisingly poor choices.

Unfortunately, because education deals with peoples children, parent's are often to emotionally attached, to close to the situation, to make rational decisions. Just as people make poor choices to get themselves deep in debt to buy flashy cars or the "right" clothes, people don't make decisions about their children's education based on quantitative measures.

Part of the problem may be that their is no good easily to find, widely published information on how well any school or school district performs. Instead parents rely on subjective feelings to judge schools. Do they like the teachers? Is the play ground well kept? Do they use lots of cool edubabble?

Witness the success of good charter school systems like KIPP or Achievement First. You would think that parent's would be rioting to get their kids in the schools or demanding that their public schools adopt the same policies. Yes there are waiting lists, but there is no where near the urgency that you would expect.

Imagine if a new cell phone provider came out and was able to offer better call quality, state of the art phones, double the minutes, at half the cost of your current one. People would be dropping their current service in droves and scrambling to get on the new plan.

When I first moved to Sumter, South Carolina the general census was (and still is) that Sumter High School was way better than rural Crestwood High School. Sumter High School had all the town money, it has the good football team, great buildings, and most importantly it was 55% white vs 43% white at Crestwood.

But... if you are savvy enough to look find the the school report cards, you find something different. I compiled this table based on Sumter HS and Crestwood HS 2006 school report cards.

As you can see, on almost every category, Crestwood HS kicks Sumter HS's ass. In the two categories that Sumter HS has the edge, its only by the slimest of margins.

You would think that parents who attend kids attend school at Sumter HS, especially black parents, would be raising hell, but no! 80% of parents who attend Sumter HS are happy with the learning environment, whereas at Crestwood HS only 44% are.

It's numbers like these that depress me. A rural, mostly minority school can provide a better education that the city mostly white school, and yet the perception is exactly the opposite.

This doesn't mean that school choice is a bad thing. There are some parents who are smart enough to make educated decisions. Eventually market forces will have a positive affect. Even if the parents don't see the differences, the school administrators will learn from each other.

I have always been an optimist, and I am convinced if school reform advocates continue to yell loud enough that eventually our country can at least come closer to having the education system that it deserves.

(cross posted at Kitchen Table Math, the Sequel)

I Am So Confused!

Baltimore Sun: SAT scores well in predicting college success

The much-maligned but ever-influential SAT -- under fire nationally amid concerns over its fairness -- received positive marks yesterday in a report that gauged the test's power to predict long-term college success in Maryland.

Designed to forecast a student's ability to perform college-level work, the SAT is also an accurate predictor of retention and graduation rates at all of the state's four-year colleges and universities, according to an analysis of recent student data prepared for the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

'The higher the SAT scores of students, the greater the likelihood that they not only returned for a second year of study but eventually earned a baccalaureate as well,' the report said.

wfrv.com: UW Chancellor Defends Affirmative Action

(AP) MADISON High school grades and test scores aren't good predictors of a student's performance in college, which forces admission officials to look at other factors, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley told a legislative committee reviewing affirmative action in the state Thursday.

Wiley's appearance before the Special Committee on Affirmative Action comes as UW-System regents consider a new admissions policy that would give greater weight to nonacademic factors such as race. UW-Madison admissions officials already perform this so-called holistic review.

Wiley cited data that he said showed that someone who gets a 4.0 grade point average in high school could earn anything from failing to honors marks in college. He added that ACT and SAT scores mean nothing in predicting first-year grades.

Racism Revealed

UW chancellor defends use of nonacademic factors in admissions Chicago Tribune

In defending the University of Wisconsin-Madison's high drop out rate for minority students, Chancellor John Willey says:

Wiley countered that most minorities leave school of their accord. Sometimes they drink too much, he said. Sometimes their morale plummets as they try to maneuver on a mostly white campus.

Of course it has nothing to do with their "holistic" approach to college admissions.

Kitchen Table Math II is Da Bomb

Does anyone else feel a bit of guilty for the old Kitchen Table Math going tits up (Can I say that... we use it in the Air Force all the time). The new and improved Kitchen Table Math, the Sequel has become an awesome group blog. The quality of writing is excellent and Catherine has managed to get KDeRosa from D-Edreckoning and Joanne Jacobs to become regular contributors. There are also quite a few other bloggers posting over there that I have never read like Barry and Susan, but am starting to appreciate.

One of problems with the education blogging community is there are so many different blogs to have to keep track of. Having one place to go to get a fix of whats out there is pretty awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if it grows beyond its current form. Perhaps a Huffington Post for education reformers.

My only complaints with it right now are that the fonts are a bit large for my liking and its links, labels, and contributors list all show up at the bottom of the page instead of on a sidebar, making it a bit difficult to navigate.

Note: Edspresso is another great clearinghouse, but I almost consider it more of a web magazine than a blog, even though Ryan usually has a good post or two up daily.

Higher Level Math and College Completion

Lynn over at Kitchen Table Math II, came across a report from the US Dept. of Education and interprets it as saying that a student needs to take college level math in High School to have a better than average chance of completing collge.

I think what this report is saying, someone correct me if I've miss interpreted, is that unless you take "truly" college level math in high school, not pseudo, higher-order thinking skills with real world applications, your chances of getting ANY bachelor's degree is about 38%. Yikes!

Barry G thinks differently.

That's not how I read it. He's saying for the momentum to pay off, once the student is in college, that student should take a "post secondary" math class. I.e., calculus, linear algebra, etc.

I don't think its entirely that simple.

I think the level of math taken at any point (high school or math) is going to correlate with other factors i.e. self-dicipline and/or high intelligence.

It is obvious that the students who don't take higher math courses in High School and still manage to get to college are probably going to be less likely to complete college, but what about the students who do take at least Algebra II in High School.

Out of these students, a percentage of them are going to be struggling, and have just about topped out at their capabilities as far as math goes. These students are probably going to be the ones who are going to also struggle to complete college.

Even if we increased the participation in higher level mathematics in college, I think it could backfire on increasing college completion. Many of the students will be overwhelmed and not complete the class, and in the end be more likely to drop out.

Summary: Participation in higher level math courses is probably just an indicator/proxy for the underlying reason for college success i.e. high iq and/or self-dicipline.

Update: It occured to me that my post might indicated that I am only for the very brightest taking math courses. I suspect if K-8 education actually taught the basics better, a significantly larger percentage of college and HS kids could take more challenging math courses, and go on to complete college.

Unfortunately the lack of mastery of basic math skills becomes more and more significant as a student progress' in math. Each new class they take, they end up farther behind, until somewhere between algebra and calculus they just upright quit.

Unless colleges were truly prepared to make up for 12 years of inadequate teaching, then I still maintain that some kids are better off avoiding courses like difficult math courses, at least given todays educational system.

Disclaimer: I admit I might be wrong on this whole point, so convince me otherwise.

Comparing Fractions with Cross Multiplication

Today my 6th grader asked for with her math homework, specifically how to "cross multiply fractions with whole numbers". I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about, so I took a look at her homework. I saw that she had 10 problems to compare fractions with different denominators, some with whole numbers. I started to explain how to find a common denominator, etc... but she got really upset with me.

"Thats not how my teacher showed us", she said. "My teacher told us to cross multiply."

I still had no idea what she was talking about, so I went to check with my girlfriend, Shannon, to see if she knew what our daughter was talking about. But Shannon was as confused as I was.

Both of us being confused, we did a quick google and came across this explanation of the process from mathleague.com.

Comparing Fractions
1. To compare fractions with the same denominator, look at their numerators. The larger fraction is the one with the larger numerator.
2. To compare fractions with different denominators, take the cross product. The first cross-product is the product of the first numerator and the second denominator. The second cross-product is the product of the second numerator and the first denominator. Compare the cross products using the following rules:
a. If the cross-products are equal, the fractions are equivalent.
b. If the first cross product is larger, the first fraction is larger.
c. If the second cross product is larger, the second fraction is larger.

Example:
Compare the fractions 3/7 and 1/2.The first cross-product is the product of the first numerator and the second denominator: 3 × 2 = 6.
The second cross-product is the product of the second numerator and the first denominator: 7 × 1 = 7.
Since the second cross-product is larger, the second fraction is larger.

Example:
Compare the fractions 13/20 and 3/5.
The first cross-product is the product of the first numerator and the second denominator: 5 × 13 = 65.
The second cross-product is the product of the second numerator and the first denominator: 20 × 3 = 60.
Since the first cross-product is larger, the first fraction is larger.

Well, we figured it out and were able to help her finish her homework... her way, but we are rather conflicted about it.

Though the system works, we aren't quite sure what the purpose of it is. It almost seemed to us to be cheating. Though the system works, neither one of us could give a mathematical explanation of why. Finding a common denominator is relatively easy to explain, and is also an essential skill when it comes to adding unlike fractions. Is this new math, really really old math, or something in between?

Don't be a Hater!

Transform Education: What if KIPP "worked"?
Peter Campbell: dont be a hater, be a congratulator!

For all the kids that are not "lucky" enough to get a place at KIPP, it is not tolerable. For all the kids that do make it into KIPP but are not able to endure the 10-hour days and two hours of homework every night and who eventually drop out or are "counseled out," it is not tolerable. And even for those kids who do make it into KIPP and make it out of KIPP, their "success" is not tolerable because it comes at a price, a price that is too high to pay.

Ryan at Edspresso responds with a small bit of sarcasm:

So because school choice might harm others in some nebulous way, it should be withdrawn? And "success" in sneer quotes? Is this writer suggesting that said students are faking it, or that their academic achievements are somehow counterfeit?

but I wanted to add one more point. It's very hard to shake the feeling that there are some who truly wish for equality... equality of failure. I have used the argument in the past, but I will use it again. These are the sort of people who would let everyone drown on a sinking ship, because they couldn't save everybody. To them it's not about excellence, it's about equivalence. They have already given up on success, and now they just want to drag everyone down to the lowest level.

Is Teaching in the 408 going to bolt?

The first week back to work/school is always rough, but do I detect hints that Teaching in the 408 is about fed up.

told the POY I needed a new assignment, not the on-grade level kids necessarily, not the ones who'll do whatever I say and then ask if they can wash my car and go buy me Jamba Juice, but maybe some kids whose classroom existence alters the vast input vs. output imbalance just a little. Maybe some barely there Basic kids, and I'll make sure every one is proficient and redesignated by the end of the year. They don't need to utilize fluent English, or know how to write, or really know anything at all, but maybe they could possess a little bit longer runway for the skills I'm trying to land on their brains. Because I keep cracking my skull on all the crash-landings and aborted take-offs, and it hurts.

...

And the email says, you can dramatically impact student outcomes as the Director of various teacher-training programs in Oakland.

parentalcation = parent education

Today I started my online psychology class. I would of preferred a traditional class, but the academic demands of my girlfriends nursing program, six kids, and work mean that I have to continue with online classes. (At least until fall).

Of course with any course I have taken, the first assignment is always to do the introduction. In my web course, this is done through a discussion board. All I have to say is how amazingly inarticulate some of my fellow students are. I know it's a community college, but you think that the students would at least use proper capitalization. I can understand being lazy about contractions, but not even capitalizing the first letter of a college course. What's that about?

I am looking forward to the class though. My instructor's biography said he specialized in learning theory. Hopefully I can stir some good debates.

Affirmative Action is a Tax - Not!

I have the feeling that this post by Kevin Carey, responding to this article in the New York Times, is going to cause some controversy.

Too Many Asians at Berkeley?

First, not all students get the same opportunities in K-12 schools. Black and Latino students, on average, are forced to attend schools that receive less funding, are taught by worse teachers, have less access to advanced curricula like Advanced Placement tests, and generally suffer from the hard bigotry of low expectations. Affirmative action helps students who would have come to the admissions process with better credentials if they’d been given a fair shot to begin with.

Of course this justification for affirmative action breaks down when we consider that schools in affluent neighborhoods also do a poor terrible job in educating minorities. Ironically a few charter schools with relatively inexpensive techniques manage to succeed at what affluent schools can't.

Affirmative action is basically an educational opportunity tax on white people. Like progressive income taxes, it redistributes resources from people who have a disproportionate share to people who need them more. This seems unfair to white people who themselves come from less advantaged backgrounds, and it probably is. But it’s no more unfair than applying the same tax rate to the rich person who earned every dollar from the sweat of his brow as to the person who inherited his money and got a cushy job in the family business. Policies are by nature imperfect, and in the end it’s still better to be rich than poor in America, and white people still enjoy huge advantages that others don’t. Having to settle for a slot in a slightly less competitive college moves the traditional losers in the zero-sum affirmative action game—unusually smart, well-qualified white people—from being in the 99.999th percentile of luckiest people on the face of the Earth to about the 99.998th. They’ll be fine. (emphasis mine)

Actually affirmative action is a tax on asians, not white people so a more apt anology would be taxing self-made successful people who got what they earned by hard work, and leaving people with family wealth alone.

Perhaps instead of enrolling more people to fail, colleges and universities should concentrate on graduating the blacks and hispanics that get to college based on actual merit.

The third justification for affirmative action is diversity, which is certainly important—it makes sense for colleges to create an academic environment with broad, differing perspectives, backgrounds, and beliefs. But I tend to value diversity less than the first two justifications for affirmative action, mostly because of how the idea gets used and applied in practical terms. Proponents don’t do a good job of explaining the theoretical limits of diversity as a value, the degree of its benefits or cases when it should be subordinate to other things. Nor do they seem eager to discuss the fact that some perspectives, backgrounds, and beliefs are more worthwhile than others.

I suppose to rebutt Kevin's arguments I could point out this recent article in the Financial Times that points out that diversity isn't all its cracked up to be, but I actually think diversity is a good thing. Perhaps its because I was raised in a multi-ethnic family, or because I am in the miliary and unlike most of America actually work in a functional ethnically diverse workplace.

Me and my brother and sisters.

Unfortunately, the United States seems to react instinctively to any problems with blunt force solutions. (In politics and in education). Instead of acknowledging or addressing the root causes of the achievement gap, we have attempted to just bandage over the wounds without treating it for infections.

There are methods of affirmative action that don't rely on racial preferences. Perhaps if we improved education for all, we could at least equalize the playing field, so we didn't have to feel guilty about the results.