Why Johnny can’t do math (Update: or English.)
So, why can’t Johnny do math? Because Johnny’s teacher can’t even do fractions:
For kids to do better in math, their teachers might have to go back to school.
Elementary-school teachers are poorly prepared by education schools to teach math, finds a study being released Thursday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
Math relies heavily on cumulative knowledge, making the early years critical.
The study by the nonpartisan research and advocacy group comes a few months after a federal panel reported that U.S. students have widespread difficulty with fractions, a problem that arises in elementary school and prevents kids from mastering more complicated topics like algebra later on.
The report looked at 77 elementary education programs around the country, or roughly 5% of the institutions that offer undergraduate elementary teacher certification.
It found the programs, within colleges and universities, spend too little time on elementary math topics…
…Francis Fennell, the past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said the report fails to examine the math instruction students receive while attending community colleges, where many elementary-school teachers start their higher education.
He also said the study’s authors should have surveyed teachers to get their views on how well prepared they were to teach math.
Fennell, who instructs teacher candidates in math at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md., said a common area of weakness among his students is fractions — the same subject the national math panel described as a weak area for kids.
“Part of the reason the kids don’t know it is because the teachers aren’t transmitting that,” he said.
Another part of the reason? Too many teachers are too busy bloviating about the self-esteem benefits of Everyday Math to bother with the basics.
1 + 1 = I feel good about math, so who cares?
_____________
UPDATE (See-Dubya): Meanwhile, English high school teachers want you to know that correct spelling counts, even if you’re having a grumpy day. (H/T Doubleplusundead.)
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Okay, back after being gone all day and knew lgm would be a no-show. That is his MO after embarrassing himself like he did on the Move America Forward fund raiser thread. He will be back – sorry to say.
You’re both wrong.
1+1= Whatever the Supreme Court says it equals.
I, once, had to “teach” a basic algebra class in high school, simply because the teacher got overwhelmed with the “xs” and “ys”. At the time, I was working with disabled kids on ventilators and had to be around in case of trouble. The teacher asked me if I knew anything about it (I haven’t taken algebra in 40 years, but I remember). The kids thought it was great I was teaching. Adding and subtracting equations was easy. The only other time I had to teach was when a sub teacher had problems with American history (my hobby). I rescued him too. Both times the faculty thought I should change careers and become a teacher. Not on your life!! My conservative views wouldn’t last a month. I may be up there in years, but I remember teachers teaching math. I guess things change. That school’s history department was a joke. Fairfax County..for Gabe, Terrig and others up that way.
Yes james there is a big difference in the values portrayed in Japanese anime and manga compared to American animation, I would personally rather her watch Japanese anime, manga, believe me I know my daughter currently has 26 Japanese anime lined up for us to watch from netflix.(someone help please)
It’s not about an education, it’s about money and statistics.
Example: My daughter had 4 half days the last 4 days of school.
Well, at least we’re not as bad as the British schools…yet. One student wrote only an expletive and got credit for spelling:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,374141,00.html
I agree that our Public Education is not the best.
But that is not the sole reason our kids are failing in Math and Science.
Lack of Parental involvement is equally to blame.
Look around at many of the US University and college campuses and you will find very high numbers of Asians and Orientals, many of whom graduated from Public Schools.
Wasn’t it an Asian student who killed 37 kids at Virginia tech? The public schools in the cities graduate about 50 percent of their students. Many do well despite the school system, rather than because of it.
I agree also, and to me Carter’s veto of the voucher system is enough by itself to call him the worse president in US history.
One of the biggest scandals going are black kids wheedling their parents to purchase $$ laptops “for school” when in reality over 90% of them are using them exclusively at libraries to download rap videos. I’ve witnessed this at one of the nation’s largest library systems — the Queens Borough library in Queens NY. Go take a stroll any day at any black community branch (as I) and that’s all you see in the wifi laptop section and the librarians aren’t only clueless about it — they’re scared to stopping it and getting beat up! What makes me gnash teeth that the total opposite is true in the Asian community branches. Dell is making a mint on “black coordinated” styled laptops (like sneakers) on the ignorance of black children. It’s such a sham!
James Greenidge
Queens NY
I live in a neighborhood where a high percentage of children are homeschooled. The principal at the elementary school our children would be attending was willing to do almost anything to get our kids into his school. Letting them go half days through sixth grade, attending certain parts of their class, etc. It wasn’t quite enough for us and we chose to homeschool, but it is affecting the schools slowly.
I grew up within the education system. My family and almost all of my friends families were principals ,VPs, teachers counselors, aides, etc. in our local school system. Parental Non-Involvement was always the biggest complaint, followed up by “My little Johnny/Susie is an angel”,
My teenage daughter just came to live with me, so she is getting an accelerated education at the moment. I go up to the school to talk with the teachers, counselors, vice principals all the time TRYING to get them to assign her extra work and additional research topics. Yes, I do that on my own at home, but I want to integrate what they are teaching every week.
They will not hold one-on-one parent teacher conferences with me. If I have a group meeting they try and rush me out the door, I have yet for ANY of her teachers to assign extra work.
At one group conference the two teachers just stared at me and one said “We are not worried about her passing this grade, we’re more concerned that you are going to survive.”
She told me one of her teachers yesterday was in a bad mood, because she thinks the teacher was out of weed….