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A Close Examination of Jo Boaler’s Railside Report (pdf file)
Catherine here, parachuting into Concerned's post. Here is Mark Roulo's reaction:
Something that this paper makes clear, although only in passing, is that 40% of the CSU incoming freshmen cannot pass a test of 7th grade math.
CSU's charter is to take students from about the top 1/3 of the state (and effectively, mostly the bottom ½ of that 1/3 because the UC system tends to get the better students).
Pessimistically, one could conclude that only about 25% of California high school graduates can do math above a 7th grade level (NOTE: UC freshmen often need to take remedial math, too ...).
6 comments:
I understand they finally decided to post this paper in response to Jo Boaler's article. Read the two and decide which group you want defining math education for your child.
Something that this paper makes clear, although only in passing, is that 40% of the CSU incoming freshmen cannot pass a test of 7th grade math.
CSU's charter is to take students from about the top 1/3 of the state (and effectively, mostly the bottom ½ of that 1/3 because the UC system *tends* to get the better students).
Pessimistically, one could conclude that only about 25% of California high school graduates can do math above a 7th grade level (NOTE: UC freshmen often need to take remedial math, too ...).
This isn't new ...
Sigh.
-Mark Roulo
".. cannot pass a test of 7th grade math."
You would think this would be a clue that the damage is done in K-6. Unfortunately, I see most efforts being put into remedial courses in high school. The math department at our high school received many kudos for their (remedial) Algebra I class with a "lab". The K-8 schools are in a different educational world and the high school teachers have little or no influence on their thinking or curricula. At best, the high school will tell the lower schools that kids need to learn to work harder. Blame it on the kids.
"This isn't new..."
And there is no guarantee that life will be perfect in places like Scarsdale, which just adopted Singapore Math. I am, however, encouraged when I see quotes like this:
" But this year he planned to teach the basics until his students can "feel it in their bones."
I also hope that teachers will complain loudly if students come into their classes without having their bones properly prepared. It's not normal or acceptable to have most kids operating below grade level.
I've barely begun reading the paper, but can it possibly get any better than this?:
...the two post-tests that were relevant to her study were found to be, on average, roughly 3 years below the grade level where they were being administered. Additionally, all four exams had serious mathematical difficulties - including mathematically incorrect problems, problems with hidden assumptions, a multiple choice problem with all the answer choices incorrect, and a problem that was incorrectly graded since, even though the problem was not entirely well-posed, it was solvable. However, the actual solution was far more difficult than the graders seemed to understand.
I absolutely adore that last line. It's like every educrat stereotype known, rolled into a single sentence.
I'm about 1/4 of the way through the paper. The short version so far: Dr. Boaler is lying her arse off.
--CSU's charter is to take students from about the top 1/3 of the state (and effectively, mostly the bottom ½ of that 1/3 because the UC system *tends* to get the better students).
oh, it's worse than that. The UC system mandate is that it must accept the top 8% of high schoolers state wide(based on SAT and GPA) and the top 4% of high schoolers based on local criteria (meaning the top 4% ay any given school as long as their gpa is 3.0 or higher.) so the csu system takes more than the bottom half of the top third, on average. they probably get 3/4s of that third. and yes, even the UCers need remediation.
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