23 Baltimore City Schools Have Zero Students Proficient in Math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MD overall isn't great. Isn't Moco at 31%, PG 10%?? Math proficiency

The Montgomery County public schools are terrible.

Some of the worst. It’s the school board’s fault.

Please look at the data carefully. The numbers for the entire UNITED STATES are down, but very little is at zero percent which is the case for Baltimore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

Just think of all these questions--if you have to process them in another language than your own, remember what things like "garage floors" are if you've never had one, connect that the word "space" should connect to a formula for calculating area, and then calculate it. And then do question after question on that? For over an hour at a time. The tests are often not written the best because it's hard to design tests that serve different age groups/cultural backgrounds, have decent psychometric properties etc. The level that is considered "proficient" is often arbitrary and has been frequently changed (in VA for instance, the SOL bar was considerably raised in the past decade making people think scores have gone down when actually the measure went up in difficulty). Students may not be motivated to perform on a test that has absolutely zero impact on them individually--they don't receive a grade for it or any kind of credit--schools are not allowed to do that. A fundamental analysis of motivation would say--a ton of kids might rather not try at all so then they can say if they got a low score that they just wrote in whatever. Better than working hard on something that has no credit and then doing poorly on it. Basic work-saving and face-saving 101.

Yet people blithely assume that the tests are telling something "true" about proficiency. I'd rather look at their ongoing classwork and trust teachers' judgment. But people think somehow they are going to get "objective" data by these testing means.

The majority of the students are not foreign. They were born here to parents born here.

And even for those that are, you’re not making a case for easier exams. You’re actually making a case for separating out the immigrant kids until they have adequate language skills, the same as they do in places like Germany.

I'm not making the case for anything except for the claim that I don't trust these tests as a measure of proficiency.

How many people who were born here have garage floors? I was born here, but I never had one and I wouldn't think you would be painting one if I did. If I were in 3rd grade, half my brain would be wondering why someone would be painting the floor their car drives on and then forget the question. And I have a math degree!

I think you’d still be complaining if they said laying tiles on the kitchen floor. The fact is that kids who are in third grade should be able to read the words “garage” and “paint” and understand what is written even if they haven’t seen that themselves in real life. (And it sounds like they don’t need to read the words anyway since a computer will do it for them!) If their vocabulary is so bad that they don’t know those words in third grade then they shouldn’t be in third grade. Period. You need to have a working knowledge of a language to be educated in that language. Only the dumbest people would think that you can put a kid with no language skills (either because they’re an immigrant or because their parents are functionally illiterate and the kid was raised on the street by “the village”) and then expect the kid to learn math or any other subject.

Language skills need to come first. If you can’t understand the questions then you don’t have math proficiency. The test isn’t measuring potential. It’s measuring whether the kids can do those problems yet. And the answer is no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

Heh. Yeah, I just meant that the particular students I was working with (I have 4 grade 3 students) are kids who pay attention, do their homework, and can actually decode all the words in that question. They've been in US schools since grade K or 1.

So I think of them as "good" students.

But yeah, they did pretty crappy on the question. It's not just that they didn't understand it; they also didn't actually know the math for the how to calculate area.

As for the whole state - I think overall in MD the average pass rate for math was 22% so no, not everyone in the state did well on the math test!

[Anonymous]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/25/maryland-tests-mcap-pandemic/

Overall, 22 percent of third-to-eighth-grade Maryland students scored on a proficient level in mathematics for the 2021-2022 school year, which was 11 percentage points lower than during the 2018-19 school year, before the pandemic, when 33 percent of students scored proficient. Ten percent of Black students and 11 percent of Hispanic/Latino students were proficient in math — which were both declines compared with the 2018-2019 school year. Meanwhile, 36 percent of White students scored proficient in math, and 53 percent of Asian students scored proficient.

[Anonymous]

Math results from each of Maryland’s 24 school districts vary from a low of 7 percent of Baltimore City schools students to a high of 38 percent of Carroll County schools students scoring proficient. Right outside of D.C., Montgomery County schools had 31 percent of students who scored proficient, and Prince George’s County schools had 10 percent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

I asked my third grader. She had no problem with that question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

I asked my third grader. She had no problem with that question.

Is English her first language? Does she have college educated parents? Stable housing, food, etc? Then she’s in the small minority of Baltimore City families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I asked my third grader. She had no problem with that question.

Yay, you?

Want a cookie?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

It's not just that they didn't understand it; they also didn't actually know the math for the how to calculate area.

Isn't area supposed to be taught in 3rd grade? Doesn't the fact that they don't understand it despite it presumably having been covered indicate something wrong about the teaching? Haven't you seen them calculate area in class, on tests, and inhomework?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

It's not just that they didn't understand it; they also didn't actually know the math for the how to calculate area.

Isn't area supposed to be taught in 3rd grade? Doesn't the fact that they don't understand it despite it presumably having been covered indicate something wrong about the teaching? Haven't you seen them calculate area in class, on tests, and inhomework?

You all assume that these kids give a crap. Many do not. Many just click through the test just to be done. They know these tests mean absolutely nothing to them. If their parents don't care, why should they? These tests measure what kids know who actually try. I'm a Baltimore City teacher and I proctor state tests every year. In the classes I proctor, maybe 1/4 of the students actually read the test. The rest just click through it without really looking at the questions. They just choose an answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Isn't area supposed to be taught in 3rd grade? Doesn't the fact that they don't understand it despite it presumably having been covered indicate something wrong about the teaching? Haven't you seen them calculate area in class, on tests, and inhomework?

Yup - calculating area of a rectangle IS a third grade standard.

Nope - I teach ESOL, not math, so I mostly teach my students reading and writing. As I said I have four 3rd grade students in this one particular ESOL class so I was curious how they would do on the practice math test items that I was telling you all were (IMO) a bit wordy. I assumed that the students knew how to multiply the sides of a rectangle together to get the area. They really did not.

Also, they aren't that great at multiplying two numbers together in the first place, but of course that I expected. When I told them directly - "you have to multiply 7x4 to get the area- what's 7x4?"

1) One kid knew how to do that, and did it by going up the times table mentally... "7x1=7; 7x2=14, 7x3=21, 7x4- (counted on 7 more and got 28). That's how I would have answered in third grade as well! I was bad at remembering my times facts.

2 and 3) Two others knew to draw 7 groups of 4 Xs... it's a laborious process. XXXX and then circle it. XXXX and then circle it. 7 times. Then count. One kid miscounted the resulting number and was off by 2 in her answer. The other counted correctly.

4) Fourth kid write 7x4=....and then added 7 and 3 together and got 11. Yup.

I will talk to their classroom teacher about how they are doing in math now because I am curious, but I don't think this is unusual for third graders. I think what they learn, they learn just for that unit, and then it flies out their brains because they probably didn't have the underlying foundation to make it stick. For instance, I know when I taught my own children how to multiply the x4 tables, I told them to take the x2, and the doublt it. Right? a X4 fact is basically a "Double Double". So 7x4- 7 doubled -- 14, now double it again -- that's 28.

But if you don't automatically know your addition doubles (7+7=14) it's hard to make use of that strategy.
And if you aren't great at mental math, it's hard to just "see" that 14+14=28 instantly.

((Anyhow, like I said, the biggest part of MY job is primarily teaching these kids to read, and they all could read the question out loud with accuracy. They were barely decoding CVC words at the end of grade 2, and now they can read "garage", "entire", "rectangular" and "represents", "amount".... so I will be happy for that at least!))

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

It's not just that they didn't understand it; they also didn't actually know the math for the how to calculate area.

Isn't area supposed to be taught in 3rd grade? Doesn't the fact that they don't understand it despite it presumably having been covered indicate something wrong about the teaching? Haven't you seen them calculate area in class, on tests, and inhomework?

You all assume that these kids give a crap. Many do not.

FWIW -- I'm the teacher that question was directed to, the ESOL teacher who gave her third graders the practice Grade 3 Math test just to see what they thought it was asking. I can tell you in this case, the kids DID give a crap and were giving me their honest best effort. They kinda sorta had an understanding of perimeter. It might be that they had more recently been studying perimeter and had forgotten about area. I *know* that the difference between perimeter and area is a problem MANY students have, even in higher grades.

Many students, even those who DO give a crap, who ARE trying hard, just don't understand how to solve problems.
Have you ever seen this video:

https://www.facebook.com/robertkaplinsky/videos/1185856644799424

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last one, now that I have learned to post pictures. These are all from the MD state released items/practice test 3rd grade Math test:



I think it is tricky, for a third grader. Yes, of course, I think it would be wonderful for all third graders to be able to answer a question like this that shows they are truly able to understand the application of math. Instead of just asking a simple question: "What is the area of this rectangle?"

But - the fact that many students aren't able to answer questions like this doesn't mean they are learning nothing in math. Just that these questions are pretty tricky for them to understand.

I think it's important to point out that a lot of these word problems were made because of allegations from marxists that math is somehow racist against black people - that they can't understand abstract concepts (which is in itself an extremely racist viewpoint but one pushed by many black civil rights advocates). But of course they will understand things like "tyrone has five mixtapes and lost two" or "uncle jim is painting a garage." It is, however, ironic that the black kids in baltimore schools cannot even answer the contextualized questions that the education marxists have forced into the curriculum

This question is somewhat elitist. How many people have garages or paint the floors? I can see why kids can't relate to these problems. They don't make sense.

Noce try -- but no. the problem isn't that some kids don't have garages or paint floors.

I'm the teacher who posted the questions and said that they were too word dependent and convoluted.

I tried the above word problem out on my third grade ESOL students today, individually. These students are pretty good students, academically, IMO.

None of them were able to correctly answer the area of the garage floor question. They didn't understand what was being asked. When I asked "what does the amount of space" mea? Point to that part of the picture ... they pointed to the sides of the rectangle.

But unfortunately they also didn't know how to calculate the area of the square, even when I explained - I said "The question is asking you - what's the area of the rectangle? can you tell that from the lenth of the sides?"

No they could not.

They could finally do it, when I drew all the squares in as a grid, and showed them how to count them all.

If they can't equate the area of a shape to the area of a garage floor, it sounds like you're over estimating them. Baltimore City kids failed these tests, but the rest of the state did fine. These aren't hard questions

It's not just that they didn't understand it; they also didn't actually know the math for the how to calculate area.

Isn't area supposed to be taught in 3rd grade? Doesn't the fact that they don't understand it despite it presumably having been covered indicate something wrong about the teaching? Haven't you seen them calculate area in class, on tests, and inhomework?

You all assume that these kids give a crap. Many do not.

FWIW -- I'm the teacher that question was directed to, the ESOL teacher who gave her third graders the practice Grade 3 Math test just to see what they thought it was asking. I can tell you in this case, the kids DID give a crap and were giving me their honest best effort. They kinda sorta had an understanding of perimeter. It might be that they had more recently been studying perimeter and had forgotten about area. I *know* that the difference between perimeter and area is a problem MANY students have, even in higher grades.

Many students, even those who DO give a crap, who ARE trying hard, just don't understand how to solve problems.
Have you ever seen this video:

https://www.facebook.com/robertkaplinsky/videos/1185856644799424

I am speechless at that video. Yikes. If that's who they are dealing with, it's no wonder nobody passed the test. They have zero common sense.

[Anonymous]

That video is honestly frightening.