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Re: Discussion: Do US Math Teachers Suck?
Posted:
Mar 27, 2012 6:28 PM
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On 3/27/12, Robert Hansen <bob@rsccore.com> wrote:
> 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.
Let's be clear here. (Yes---I know. You think clarity unimportant.)
The AP program *is* "uniformly run". It isn't run by the State of
Florida, nor is it run by individual schools or school districts. It's
run by the College Board.
Florida evidently has a preparation problem---whether it pertains to
teachers, to students, or to both I can't say. But it seems clear that
a large fraction of Florida's students who enroll in AP Calculus are
not prepared to do so, or that a large fraction of Florida's teachers
who teach AP Calculus are not prepared to do so, or that both
statements are true. That's a local problem---not a problem with the
AP program.
As to your continued complaints that the passing scores for the AP
Calculus exams are too low, I suggest that you, yourself, would have
grave difficulty in achieving what you think a good score might be on
the Free Response portion of the exam if you were to take it,
sight-unseen, under the conditions students do so.
- --Louis A. Talman
Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Metropolitan State College of Denver
<http://rowdy.mscd.edu/%7Etalmanl>
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