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Re: Discussion: Do US Math Teachers Suck?
Posted:
Mar 27, 2012 2:43 PM
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The "94" metric (actually I just rechecked, it is 93) was for a single state, Florida. Some states are better and some states are, well, probably better. The details are in this post...
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7746419&tstart=15
This is how college works, isn't it Lou? Unreasonably high rates of attrition that everyone takes for granted. The cost of doing business. Do you have a lot of experience with teaching classes where more than half of your students fail? This is what 70% of the AP classes in Florida look like. You are right, it is a local issue. That is how our schools are run. But it has national importance. I think it is also important for parents to realize that AP is not a uniformly run program. AP had every reason going for it to be a standard bearer, but something or someone else had other plans.
Bob Hansen
On Mar 27, 2012, at 1:57 PM, Louis Talman wrote:
> On 3/26/12, Robert Hansen <bob@rsccore.com> wrote:
>
>> Some of this stuff looks too absurd to be "planned". For example, that high
>> school here in Florida with 600+ students in AP and less than 15
>> (essentially zero) students passing. And that is just one high school at the
>> top of a list of 94 such high schools. When I see absurdity such as this I
>> am thinking "mindless",
>
> The mindlessness here lies in accepting this particular datum as indicative of
> a problem that needs to be addressed an any level other than the local level.
>
> About 250,000 students took the AB Calculus exam last year.
> <http://www.macalester.edu/~bressoud/talks/2011talks.html>
>
> So many hundreds---if not a few thousands---of schools were involved. That
> 94 schools performed very badly is no surprise, incompetence being always
> among us.
>
> --Louis A. Talman
> Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
> Metropolitan State College of Denver
>
> <http://rowdy.mscd.edu/%7Etalmanl>
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