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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Perhaps it would help if U.S. schools spent more
time teaching math and science and less with the social indoctrination and feel
good nonsense.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2>Courtesy of the dreaded Dale
Courtney:</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2>
<DIV class=post>
<DIV class=posthead>
<H2><A id=bp___v___r___postlist___EntryItems_ctl04_PostTitle
href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/moscoweducation/archive/2007/01/16/49128.aspx">Holding
27 Back for the Sake of the 12</A> </H2></DIV>
<DIV class=postcontent>
<P>Of course, this is a shell game. It does <EM>nothing</EM> for the self-esteem
of the low-achievers to advance them. They don’t feel better about themselves
because they cannot perform at the level of their peers. </P>
<P>Another clear failure of government education. <IMG
alt="Idaho Values Alliance" src="http://idahovaluesalliance.com/img/logo1.jpg"
align=right>From the <A href="http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/"
target=_blank>Idaho Values Alliance</A>:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<P>Yesterday, the Idaho Senate Education Committee approved a curriculum
redesign plan that will bulk up the math and science requirements for Idaho
high school students. While the intent here is laudable, the plan was approved
without an adequate explanation of why Idaho needs essentially to be doing
remedial math at the high school level.<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O
/><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P>Sen. Monty Pearce, the only senator to vote against the rule change,
correctly argued that requiring more math and science in high school won't fix
the problem that kids are arriving in high school unprepared for advanced work
in math. "We need to start with more math earlier," he said. "High school is
too late."<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P>It seems likely that the failure to adequately teach math skills at lower
levels are part of the problem. My children, for instance, were never required
to learn multiplication tables in school (they got drilled with flash cards at
home, you can count on that). <O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P>I remember a conversation with my son's <STRONG>5<SUP>th</SUP> grade
teacher </STRONG>over our concerns<IMG height=134
src="http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/webadmin/my_documents/my_pictures/82ED9_School1.jpg"
width=200 align=right border=2> about the level of math instruction she was
offering to his class. In our judgment, it was below what he should have been
learning at his grade level. The teacher agreed, but told us that <STRONG>in
her class of 27 she had 12 students who could not do math at the
5<SUP>th</SUP> grade level, and she therefore had to adjust the curriculum
downward</STRONG>.<O:P></O:P></SPAN></P>
<P>When we asked what these students were doing in the 5<SUP>th</SUP> grade,
if they had not mastered 4<SUP>th</SUP> grade math skills, she explained that
<STRONG>the district, out of concern for student self-esteem, did not want to
hold them back</STRONG>. We gently pointed out the obvious: <STRONG>because
the district was not willing to hold 12 students back, it was holding all 27
back. <O:P></O:P></STRONG></SPAN></P>
<P>A new math initiative may come forward this year, which will seek to
address some of the failures of the public system to teach math effectively at
the lower grades. Improvement at the lower grades may, in time, obviate the
need for expensive remediation at the secondary
level.</P></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=postfoot>
<DIV><SPAN id=bp___v___r___postlist___EntryItems_ctl04_InlineTagEditorPanel>I
hope I'm not violating any protocols by posting this and that it come through
OK. I thought it highly pertinent to the discussion.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN>g</SPAN></DIV></DIV><FONT></DIV></FONT></FONT></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=ngier@uidaho.edu href="mailto:ngier@uidaho.edu">Nick Gier</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, January 16, 2007 10:20
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] Foreigners in Math,
Science, and Engineering</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Greetings:<BR><BR>It is a song of praise that I note that
Chinese, Indians, and Russians, mainly because of their solid credentials, are
taking positions in our universities that could be occupied by Americans, if
they received enough math and science in our schools and if they worked hard
enough to earn PhDs in these fields.<BR><BR>Correctly for population, the
Chinese graduate ten times more engineers than we do. We cannot compete
unless we transform our educational systems and our increasingly
anti-intellectual culture.<BR><BR>Nick Gier<BR><X-SIGSEP>
<P></X-SIGSEP><FONT size=2>"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the
application of it to human affairs."<BR>--Ralph Waldo Emerson<BR><BR>"Abstract
truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by
proving their readiness to die for it."<BR> --Mohandas
Gandhi<BR><BR>"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system
cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the
interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life.
It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The
whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." --Ma</FONT><FONT
size=1>x Planck<BR><BR></FONT>Nicholas F. Gier<BR>Professor Emeritus,
Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho<BR>1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID
83843<BR><A href="http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm"
eudora="autourl">http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm</A><BR>208-882-9212/FAX
885-8950<BR>President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO<BR><A
href="http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm"
eudora="autourl">http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm</A><BR><BR>
<P>
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