Posted on 04/24/2014 3:55:52 PM PDT by Nachum
I get a lot of e-mail from parents and teachers who wonder if President Obama, whose children go to the private Sidwell Friends School, knows what is actually going on with all of the standardized testing in public schools. Here’s an open letter to Obama explaining what he is missing, written by Rebecca Steinitz, a literacy consultant in urban high schools, a writer and an editor. She was previously director of the High School Program at Lesley University’s School of Education and an English professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she ran the Freshman Writing Program. Steinitz is also a parent, as you will see when you read this post of hers, which also appeared on Huffington Post.
Dear President Obama,
We have something very important in common: daughters in the seventh grade. Since your family walked onto the national stage in 2007, I’ve had a feeling that our younger daughters have a lot in common, too. Like my daughter Eva, Sasha appears to be a funny, smart, loving girl, who has no problem speaking her mind, showing her feelings, or tormenting her older sister.
There is, however, one important difference between them: Sasha attends private school, while Eva goes to public school. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support your decision to send Malia and Sasha to private school, where it is easier to keep them safe and sheltered. I would have done the same. But because she is in private school, Sasha does not have to take Washington’s standardized test, the D.C. CAS, which means you don’t get a parent’s-eye view of the annual high-stakes tests taken by most of America’s children.
I have been watching Eva take the Massachusetts MCAS since third grade. To tell you the truth, it hasn’t been a
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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It’s not important to Hussein’s puppeteers that he knows what is actually going on.
In fact, they probably prefer that he remain clueless — and just sticks to following their scripts.
www.commoncoremovie.com
www.hslda.org
Homeschooling is the answer.
I actually prefer this method. And yes, I scored nicely on the various aptitude tests through GRE and GMAT.
This reminds me of the “new math” from the sixties. The new math did much harm to so many students.
skoool??? we don need no skool... we be gangstas and stuff... 
I tend to do math problems in my head. I had this one solved by the time I read the words “by breaking.” It went like this: 7 plus 7 is 14, minus one is 13, carry the 1, 2 plus 1 plus 1 is 4, the answer is 43.
On columns of numbers, I’ll add up the digits that add to 10 or 20, then add up whatever is left over. I have never broken numbers down to get numbers that will add to 10, that seems like unnecessary complication.
I hate math and totally suck at it. As such, I have my own quirky methods when it comes to numbers. In this example, I would add 20 to 26, then minus 3, which equals 43. Voila, and in 2 simple steps I’m done. CC requires unnecessary and confusing steps that would boggle most minds.
casue that's SO much easier than saying 26+10=36 and 36+7=43... now i get it
See, I added 4 to the 26 first and then subtracted 4 in the end.
I think my way is faster.
One might point out that “breaking” 17 into 10 and 7, “makes a ten”, which can be added to 26 to get 36, which is 30 + 6. That still leaves us with 7+6, but is 7+6 = 13 really any harder than “thinking” 13+4 = 17 ? One has to subtract 4 from 17 leaving 13 ... and where were we?
I agree this is very poor pedagogy.
The ruling class always exempts themselves.
I’m old. I added the right-hand column, got 13, mentally *wrote* down 3 then carried the one to the left hand column, added the left hand column and got 4, resulting in the answer of 43 in about a half second.
Yesterday we had a meeting with a forester. He is about 40 and has, obviously, a college degree. The arithmetical problem concerned $8.00 per acre and 40 acres. He struggled. I said “8x4 is 32”. He looked at me, impressed, and said :”I can’t do math in my head.” I said, “It wasn’t *math*, it was the times tables. You are too young to have memorized them.” He looked at me blankly. He did not know there were times tables that people used to memorize. I, BTW, am NOT good at math.
I have a Master’s Degree in Business with a Bachelor’s in English, had straight A’s all through high school and college. I also read this mother’s entire letter. She is being way too kind to BO IMO. With all my years of education plus 40 plus years of actual experience there is no way I could answer any of these questions.
I also showed the article to my son and DIL, both have Master’s degrees and are teachers in the private school system. Both just scratched their heads and expressed concern about what and how the students are being taught as part of Common Core.
I am appalled at the questions and not sure if the students answered them correctly - whatever that means - what ability this would exhibit.
My grandson is also a seventh grade student but does attend a private church based school. Questions on the exam he recently completed bore no resemblance to those on this exam.
If this material is an example of what our kids are learning in today’s schools, they couldn’t get a job even if one were available.
“...ruling class...”? I’d call them “criminal class”.
Follow the money...
The new math was set theory and group theory, in the form of “clock arithmetic”. At least this is what I got in 9th grade as groundwork for algebra. It was real math, at least, and did teach the basics of Abstract Algebra.
Since then there has been “fuzzy math” and the “new new math.”
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