Results of No Child Left Behind Education Policy (1 Viewer)

[London Lawson]

 

[TravisR]

While I understand that this makes me a pig, that made me laugh outloud.

 

[Holadem]

That and the "all things Spanish" comment.

--
H

 

[Brandon_T]

Yeah, the woman one made me laugh out loud, my wife thought it not so funny.

 

[BrianW]

I laughed most at Number 3, the X = Waldo math problem, and Peter's Expansion of (a + b)^2.

Some of those, like the Batman Problem, are pretty advanced.

The Hangman Math Problem, however, I think has to be a joke.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

I actually did that in highschool.

 

[Marianne]

I don't get it - are you trying to say the answers are wrong?

 

[Dheiner]

Only for a given value of "right".

 

[Jeff Cooper]

If they are.... then you're wrong.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

Love the Batman calculus problem.

CJ

 

[Marianne]

Am I wrong because I don't get it or wrong because the answers are right? Or is it that the answers are so wrong that they are right?

 

[andrew markworthy]

Trying to be serious for a moment. I teach at a university and a high proportion of the questions have a structure that would never get past our quality control. Quite simply, they are ambiguously worded and pedantically speaking, the 'here it is' type answer is correct. Of course you can't mark it as correct in an exam because there is also a tacit rule of reasonable interpretation, but if you lecture your students on the need for accuracy. then setting sloppily-worded questions is a little bit silly.

I love the elephant example.

 

[Jeff_CusBlues]

I was thinking the same thing Andrew. I believe when I took algebra, the question would have been phrased "For the given triangle, solve for x". Or maybe I'm bad also. Engineers normally have terrible language skills. LOL

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

You misunderstand; obviously a sign that you've never suffered through 7 years of junior and senior high school in American public education. I was never taught about the need for accuracy; it isn't emphasized, only the need for consistency within an arbitrary framework. The way it works, each state's testing protocol works from a set model of "correct" established by that state's board of education for tests that will be made in another state (usually California, unless of course the state being tested is California) that have no understanding of the issues students would relate to in the state actually being tested. The teacher will spend 60 percent of his time teaching the students how to interpret and play to the exam, and the other 40 percent of his time teaching the actual material.
And I attended public school in New York State, lauded for Regents exams that are considered among the best in the nation...

 

[Francois Caron]

How about simply "What is the value of 'x'?" I can't believe it's that difficult to ask a simple question these days.

And yes, the "She's a woman" answer made me laugh too. Oink, oink!

 

[Marty M]

Another serious point: We all know that NCLB has been a disaster. We are now only teaching children how to take tests. The Bush administration is trying to convince everyone that all the kids will be completely educated by the time they get out of high school.

As a result of that a lot of not-for-profit organizations that deal with adult literacy are finding their funding sources drying up. The organization I work for is one of those casualties, and will be dissolving operations as of January 31, 2008.

 

[KurtEP]

What scares me about this is that I no longer remember any of the HS physics or chemistry. I guess if you don't use it, you definitely lose it. :frowning:


Yeah, that's always a big concern with benchmarking. It's an idea that looks great on paper, but that you really have to be cautious with in the real world. I really don't think it has much of a place in education.

 

[JeremyErwin]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

One thing that I think it has been VERY successful at is pointing out just how dire the education situation is in America. Kids all across the country are failing to achieve basic competency at English and math. Which isn't to say I don't bemoan the loss of history, geography and the other non-math/English subjects we all learned in elementary and middle schools.

 

[Kirk Gunn]

By singling out NCLB and the Bush administration in your feedback, are you implying other administrations (or the Federal Govt in general) were more successful in raising the performance of public school systems ?

Too bad this thread needed to deteriorate as there a number of external forums for this line of reasoning.

Oh yeah, very funny stuff above, most of which I believe pre-dates the current mass of federal "educational" bureaucrats on both sides of the aisle.