Edgemont High School

Jay Mathews' Newsweek Challenge Index is now at the Washington Post (very glad to see it survive Newsweek's sale), where it is now called The High School Challenge.

How schools are ranked:

The formula is simple: Divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other college-level tests a school gave in 2010 by the number of graduating seniors.

Edgemont High School is ranked 197 in the country, which is not surprising given the high socioeconomic status of its students.

What is surprising - what is astonishing, really - is Edgemont's "Equity and Excellence" score, which gives the percent of graduating seniors who have scored a 3, 4, or 5 on at least one AP exam by graduation: 86.6% of Edgemont's graduating seniors passed at least one AP test.^*

Can that possibly be true?

I assume it can, given that Rye and Chappaqua have reported similar scores now or in the recent past. 

Their figures over the past several years are very high compared to the percent most schools - including most affluent suburban schools - post.

^*IB scores count, too, but I don't think Edgemont has IB courses.

edu-fads at home

Found this comment on Jay Mathews' 2009 column about 21st century skills:

One of my friends holds advanced degrees in education, and she used cutting-edge methods to teach her own kids. What she forgot was the classic problem of the teacher being all fired up and motivated, and the student feeling left out of the picture. After all, fundamentals may be old-hat for teachers, but for students they're all new concepts. Her son was all but forgotten in her enthusiasm and fascination with the perpetually new. She has asked me a hundred times what I think is "wrong" with him (answer: "you").

She force-fed her son this and that fad over the years while he quietly turned off to learning. He recently dropped out of the marginal college he was able to squeak into with his middling test scores, yet it is obvious to anyone who talks with him for five minutes that he is very bright. I think he'll probably drop back in some day when he returns for his own reasons, but his mom's incessant buzz-speak about the latest pedagogical gewgaws of the day (I suspect 21st-century skills were part of it) really did a number on him. Poor kid.
1/5/2009 7:10:48

The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills
by Jay Mathews
Washington Post
Monday, January 5, 2009

I wonder if this boy was being homeschooled or afterschooled.

KIPP for high-SES kids

in the comments thread

Customer Review

Just left this review of Work Hard. Be Nice. on Amazon:

By the end of Work Hard. Be Nice., I found myself weeping in every chapter. I think this book may become a classic.

I hope teachers will include Work Hard. Be Nice. on summer reading lists for upper middle school and high school students. Boys especially may cherish this book given how feminized our public schools have become.

Mike Feinberg and David Levin are teachers, yes, but they are fighters, too. They broke rules and they crossed lines. In this era of character education and "collaborative learning environments," the story of two young men who refused to collaborate with a failed system is strong medicine.

I need to get my Amazon review of Dan Willingham's book written, too. (Preview: 5 stars)

a beautiful book

Work Hard. Be Nice.

It's incredible. By the end I found myself weeping in every chapter.

This book may become a classic.

2001 NCTM editorial on constructivism

I don't know why I Googled on "Constructivism; math". I should know better at my age. But it did take me here to an editorial written by Lee Stiff, president of NCTM from 2001-2002. In it, he talks about a familiar theme: Constructivism doesn't exist. Gee, where have I heard that before? Well, last time I heard it, Jay Mathews of the Washington Post was talking about it.

Lee Stiff says all the right buzzwords:

"Constructivist math is a term coined by critics of Standards-based mathematics who promote confusion about the relationships among content, pedagogy, and how students learn mathematics. It is how they label classes where they see students engaged and talking with one another, where teachers allow students to question and think about the mathematics and mathematical relationships. Critics see these behaviors and infer that the basics and other important mathematics are not being taught."

[Reform-minded teachers] "promote making connections to other ideas within mathematics and other disciplines. They ask students to furnish proof or explanations for their work. They use different representations of mathematical ideas to foster students' greater understanding. These teachers ask students to explain the mathematics. Their students are expected to solve problems, apply mathematics to real-world situations, and expand on what they already know. "

So, the Hay Baler problem in IMP expands on what students already know? Is that true?

So, asking a student the solution to 5 divided by 1/2 in the midst of a problem set of whole number division problems prior to students receiving instructions on fractional division (as Everyday Math does) expands on what students already know?

He prattles on about how working in groups allows "students help one another create richer meanings for new mathematical content." And "that students should be encouraged to create their own strategies for solving problem situations."

First of all, I don't know what a "problem situation" is. And I probably don't want to know. But I do know that when I see essays talking about how math should be taught so that students "make connections" between "concepts" and "real world" situations, I head for the Dolciani, Saxon and Singapore texts and even my old Arithmetic We Need texts from my grade school days. Somehow these "traditional" texts make connections.

I really don't think this 2001 essay is outdated, even with the Focal Points in place.