This also brings me to self-taught computer scientists: I've begun an adventure down "Teach myself math from scratch" lane because, at age 40, I'm still rather annoyed at my math education in high school. I was more concerned about learning to the test, not the concepts, and that's haunted me ever since. Anyone have recommendations for learning math starting from, say, Algebra I or II level (high school) that will actually teach in a way that will be useful rather than taking a test? Stuff that will carry over into future classes as the proper building blocks, etc?
http://www.saylor.org/majors/m... Most complete college level open education resource I've seen. The math is pretty good, starts at algebra, and even has a bridge class "Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning" to help teach proofs and other necessary mathematical rigor to be able to tackle higher level math. You'll still need to do the work and focus on the concepts and make sure you understand, not just going for passing a test, but the fundamentals are there.
THIS is the magic bullet that fixes things most of the time. I work in education, and we have both "rich schools" (that get less funding) and "poor schools" (which get more funding) in the same small community, and the results are always the same. It isn't about school funding, it is about parenting. Many lower educated people are lower income people, who don't value education, and this produces a cycle of poverty.
Yes same in the districts near me. The "poor schools" get as much as 1.5 times as much funding as the "rich schools". Admittedly because of the poverty issues from the students they serve they do have higher costs. There are higher incidences of untreated ADHD, behavioral disorders, hungry kids, violence, etc. But that doesn't change the point that you're right, it's about the parents.
I'd bet, that the #1 indicator of poverty is not poverty, but values instilled by parents. I look at the recent video of a three year old boy being disrespectful and using vulgar language, raised by a 16 year old mother and a grandmother who is a convicted felon and I think, "there is no way this is going to be good for the kid". However, I've been trained not to mention any of this because people who don't know me will cry "racism" (now you know the race).
It's pretty independent of race. I see examples similar to what you point out from a variety of races. Poverty doesn't care about race.
How can we have a discussion on poverty when people who see the problems are called names because it doesn't fit the politically correct theory of the day?
Very carefully and with more understanding of the causes of racial tension than you have displayed. It's fairly clear you are from a privileged race and don't have much understanding of what it would be like to not be. A good book for starters is Lisa Delpit's "Other People's Children". It'll make you mad and she beats the point home, but eventually it will sink in and you'll get a glimpse of how different it is to be part of the dominant race vs not. It subtly affects a large number of seemingly small things that you don't need to notice when you're on the dominant side of it.
These are obstacles to overcome, not excuses to stop attempts at improvement. We absolutely need to update our testing procedures as part of a comprehensive attempt to improve quality standards in education.
Absolutely agreed. But the fact is they are being used as reasons to stop improvements.
There is no need to constrain ourselves to just multiple choice tests.
Well, except better tests cost more money to administer and score. A lot more. Simply adding one free response question to a standardized test increases the information about a student's knowledge and understanding by a lot, but increases the cost by a huge amount as well. It takes experienced graders and developed rubrics, training on those rubrics, etc. Politicians and policymakers like multiple choice because it's cheaper and gives the appearance of authoritative data.
You would figure most people on Slashdot would have a good enough understanding of math and statistics to know that just because testing scores may not be perfect, there are plenty of practices that can make them very useful.
We can do pre-tests and post-tests so teachers aren't penalized for having students that were already poor performers. A teacher could be rated as outstanding even if his students are testing under the standards as long as their improvement was above expectations. The government has access to enough information to adjust test scores based on socio-economic factors. If 75% of a teacher's students are on food stamps, and the data shows students on food stamps generally underperform, then the performance metrics can take that into account.
Two things, this type of proper adjustment to look at the actual effect teachers have isn't always done well, and your underlying assumption is that the standardized test accurately measures what a student knows. From assessment theory and observation it is known that a single standardized test in purely multiple choice format cannot accurately measure what a student knows.
Given that though, the tests could have some usefulness. There are two problems though. The unions don't want them used at all because they have this fantasy that all teachers are wonderful and should be treated the same. They don't want anything used that would move towards a pay for performance system as that would undermine their power and worldview. The other problem is that systems like you mention are typically implemented blindly because that's easier and then it doesn't take into account the problems inherent in multiple choice test taking and the failure to adjust for the factors you mentioned or other that weren't considered. When those problems are ignored you have distortions where good teachers are either driven out or forced to teach poorly in order to conform to poorly thought out system.
While I agree with some of your points, I'll take issue with this statement. In my opinion, the lack of parental participation and school/legislative policy have degenerated in a vicious cycle. Schools try to do more to help kids, while discouraging/preventing parental influence on school policy. As a result, parents are less involved, which leads the school to do more, etc.
If any schools are discouraging parental participation that is wrong and should be stopped. Parent support and participation is probably more influential to a child's success than anything the most talented teacher can do. While the school should be encouraging and supporting it, if they are not, the parents should demand to be heard.
As for "day long day care" - so true. Look no further than the push for 4k and Head Start, which have repeatedly and consistently failed to produce lasting benefits, while costing taxpayers *billions*. There's no educational justification for it.
Data on head start shows that overall, it is slightly better than a wash, but quality head start programs show long lasting educational, life, and community benefits for example through reduced crime long after the head start program. So the question is how to get all of them to be high quality. The educational establishment is only just beginning to really use real data driven methods to ensure high quality effective methods are identified and employed. That's sad it had not been done more before, but it is being done more now. Well actually the real question is how to get more parental support and involvement so that the school isn't expected to raise kids entirely while at the same time improving the effectiveness of the schools. The worlds most effective schools won't get great results without parents supporting their kids (if you don't believe me spend some time in both an inner city and a suburban school, preferably with a good teacher in an urban school), but the worlds most supportive parents will result in more effective schools, partly by demanding and getting improved schools, but partly because it's the foundation for a child having success.
Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.