Reply to WaPo story on math finals

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Teachers in the county have been saying for years that emphasis on accelerating students in math in the early years causes problems in later years for a large number of students because they don't spend enough time on the basic skills of arithmetic.  Yet instead of listening to what the teachers are and have been saying, we repeatedly get comments such as: the teachers are not being rigorous enough.  Why are people so reluctant to believe what teachers have to say on this subject?

The fact that students taking AP exams are doing well is irrelevant to this issue.  [b]The students doing well on AP exams are not the same students failing the countywide finals.  These are the kids who get the concepts the first time around and don't need additional time with basic arithmetic.  But they also represent a small number of the entire student population.

A public education program should in the first instance serve the majority of the students.  Then focus on the students at the top and bottom of the class.  Somehow we seem to have flipped the system, with people who represent the interests of the minority number of students at the top demanding more resources at the expense of the majority of students.[/b][/quote]

This!   +1000[/quote]

This anonymous comments on OILF blog says it well.

"One more observation: Perhaps constructivist education systems that require students to make huge intuitive leaps are designed for gifted students. This sort of makes sense since the goal of American schools seems to be creativity and innovation as opposed to basic skills, and most people believe that creativity is a sort of hardwired gift.

In contrast, systematic curricula that require students to build their knowledge block by block (like Singapore Math) are designed for your average student. This makes sense in a Singaporean context because the goal here tends to be to have an efficient, orderly and competent workforce. (It is true, however, that the Sing government is now trying to encourage creativity and innovation far more than ever before.)

Maybe that's the difference: Singapore designs a curriculum with the expectation that every child on the island will learn basic Math well, but the US designs curricula with the expectation that the gifted will be able to make sense of it, and they will become more creative and innovative as a result.

So all Singaporeans will be able to do basic Math, but we may not produce many creative geniuses. In contrast, the US will produce more creative geniuses, but its average Joe won't know a thing."

Coming to the US as an adult, I do feel this way. I remember I was so shocked when one of my friend who told me that 90% Americans cannot calculate the area of a trapezoid. 20 years later, I am not even sure 10% of the population can calculate the area of a triangle.  The students at the top are doing just fine. The average students, and not just the disadvantaged students,  are suffering from the awful math education. 
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