Article from Sandra Stotsky
a National Math Advisory Panelist who is the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality with the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas
http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/73491/
from the article:
Even where Wagner does use research, it's not clear that we can trust what he reports as fact. On page 92, to discredit attempts to increase the number of high school students studying algebra and advanced mathematics courses, he refers to a "study" of MIT graduates that he claims found only a few mentioning anything "more than arithmetic, statistics and probability" as useful to their work. Curious, I checked out the "study" using the URL provided in an end note for Chapter 3. It consisted of 17, yes 17, MIT graduates, and, according to my count, 11 of the 17 explicitly mentioned linear algebra, trig, proofs and/ or calculus, or other advanced mathematics courses as vital to their work - exactly the opposite of what Wagner reports! Perhaps exposure to higher mathematics is not the worst problem facing American students!
Key Markers Relating to Organizational Health
12 years ago
1 comment:
Yes, liars get rich and kids grow up poor. Next time the NSF pays colleges to do educational research, perhaps they will do better audits. Its a bit like Madoff - for five years the SEC was alerted and no one lifted a finger to stop an obvious Ponzi scheme. The first thing that needs to be done is clean up the government. School was a disaster ten years ago - it won't be fixed in our lifetimes.
Post a Comment