alvin e. toda

In today's Star-Bulletin,

http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/21/news/story3.html

The way it goes IIRC according to what I heard is that
some questions can be taken in ways other than what to
you and me, might be obvious. From our experience, we
zero in on what could be obvious solutions. Actually,
this "obviousness" is a measure of our maturity and
experience rather than math reasoning.

Especially a young student, or one from a different
culture (we have many in Hawaii) will just use pure
reasoning to figure out the question, and solve the
word problem according to how he understands the
question. So for example, if the question asks how long
a drill to drill a hole in the middle of a 2X4, then a
number of sizes (answers) are (acceptable) possible
depending on how the students reasons the problem: 2
inches (flat side), 4 inches (edge), 1 foot (end to
end), more than 1 foot (corner to corner), etc.

All these holes go through the middle of the board,
although parents might think that only one answer is
correct. If they can draw a picture of how the hole
looks like, or describe it's location, then they get
full credit no matter where it's location. Word
problems are scored a little like an essay question.
And if the scorer cannot figure out what is the
student's answer-- one big problem I guess is not
circling your calculated answer on a sheet full of
numbers-- then there is no credit.

Having word problems is a good practice. It goes a long
way back before multiple (guess) choice SAT tests. And
it's actually the way math is used in the real world.
In theory, it's should raise scores because it allows
more than one answer. But parents think otherwise. I
guess parents also need to learn how to do these
problems, before they have the right to criticize.

--alvin

The problem may be attributed to the No Child Left Behind mandate, or
as my wife would put it, the No Public School Left Standing law.

And if you think the math tests are hard, wait till you see the science
tests. Is electricity a form of potential energy, kinetic energy or
neither? Explain.

If you listen to the private schools, the pace of learning in public
schools is inappropriate or too accelerated, i.e., kids are not ready
for certain concepts before grade 6. Nice way to increase enrollment in
the private schools, but at whose expense? The world is growing more
competitive. We import more science/math talent than we seem to grow
locally. I don't know what the answer is. Our account deficit grows
deeper each year, our federal budget is in the red, yikes, the sky is
falling.

jerry okamura

That is utter nonsense. The public school system
cannot fail, because there is nothing to take its
place. Private schools occupy a very small niche
in the overall market, and besides, private
schools could not even handle a fraction of the
student population in any major population center,
and most parents cannot afford even the tuition at
these private schools without some government
assistance. Besides, have you heard of any
particular public school being shut down
completely because their students are not
measuring up? No, what happens is, the
"officials" simply try to "fix" the perceived
problem at that school. Besides, would you want
your children to attend one of the bottom rated
public schools, or one of the top rated public schools in the district?


our federal budget is in the red, yikes, the sky is

If you are really concerned about the size of the
federal deficit, I have a very simple response.
Do you/have you supported a balanced budget
Amendment? If the answer is yes, how have you
made your wishes known, i.e. how much effort have
you put in to encourate our legislators and your
fellow citizens to support such an activity.
Finally, how much support have you given to
organizations like the Concord Coalition in their
efforts to get a Balanced Budget Amendment through
Congress. What is your positin on that portion of
the Federal Budget that is on automatic control,
ie. it increases every year without having
Congress having to determine if that spending
should increase every year, or even how much it
should increase every year....which by the way
represents about 37% of total government spending.
Have you complained to your elected
representatives, or even bothered to find out what
kind of pork barrel spending projects your elected
representatives, "bring home"?

alvin e. toda

There's a tendency now in a few schools to have physics
first as a 9th grader instead of general science. But
if 12th graders can't answer this question then we
really have problems in our school system.

It not that. Until we can sucessfully bring schools up
to 100% compliance, there is really no hope. Students
must also be accountable when taking these tests.

In this country, teachers, like a good smoke and
mirrors person, must "sell" these subjects to students.
Unless students can see something glamorous about the
field, then there is little chance in them taking any
interest in the field. At best we can hope that their
high school preparation will be useful in further
training in this technical world. That's why we have
H1B visas. There's always a foreign person who wants a
job in the field for every American that opts out.

--alvin