Quote:
Originally Posted by gstelmack
The public schools have been dumbing down the kids for a while. I feel very strongly that we can make more effective use of the time the kids are already in school, not that we have to extend the day a single notch.
The "4.5 hours per day kids watch TV" has ZERO to do with the kind of schooling they receive at the school itself and is a stupid stat to pull out here. Sure the parents may be dimwits that do this, but to say we could eat into that time to do more teaching is absurd. We've already lengthened the school year, put mandatory minimum days kids go to school, and test scores still fall and the schools still pass kids that are WAY below grade level, so none of it is helping.
Teach algebra sooner, not tack it on as an extra class hour during the school day.
|
I'm pretty sure we're on the same page here. The answer is not to dumb down the curriculum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA
First, I gotta ask: did you intentionally spell "dumming" that way?  |
It's funny you should ask. I thought it didn't look right. I even got the "red squiggly" in Google Chrome, but it had no suggestion so I figured "dummy/dumby" was not a real word and just moved on. I just looked it up on dictionary.com and while Random House entry does not list it as a form of "dumb", the American Heritage entry does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA
Otherwise, that's probably overstating it for me by a pretty good margin.
I'd say trying to turn it up several notches across the board (by moving algebra several years earlier than it already is) would accomplish very little.
As usual, my opinions are likely influenced by the public schools that surround me.
Here's a link to the current requirements for grades 1-8 in math in Georgia
The most basic fundamental principles of algebra (such as symbols representing unknown numbers) begin by 3rd grade. By grade five, it's solving by substitution, by grade 6 it's solving one-step equations.
Yet, as simple as that sounds, we've yet to reach even 20% "exceeding standards" in grade 6, have between 25-38% every year "does not meet standards". As soon as "solving" appears in the standards, the exceeds rate drops by half (as high as 36% in earlier grades).
That gives me a pretty good indication of how successful trying to move algebra earlier in the curriculum is going to be with the majority of students (as our statewide public enrollment dwarfs our statewide private enrollment).
You can present it whenever, but that's not likely to have a lot of impact beyond having a lot more students who are completely lost in math (and we don't exactly have a shortage of those already). |
I'm not sure when the argument became that it needs to be earlier -- maybe that is just a tangent started by Greg. I apologize if I'm just the asshole that refuses to read every post. But in regards to reducing the math requirements, as the original question stated, I think it's definitely going in the wrong direction. Unless the failure rate has been steady since the current standards existed, why lower them? If it's just a byproduct of a poor education system and the reduction of responsibility by many parents, then I don't think reducing the requirements is the correct answer.