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Government educators are bureaucrats owned by the unions.
Professional educators are folks concerned about children.
Government educators, with the unions wanting more bribe payers, forced schools to put kids in 8th grade Algebra--whether they could do it or not. This was about hiring teachers and making more union members, not education for children. "A new study sponsored by the Noyce Foundation that looked into the dark art of math placement found that unexplainably large numbers of eighth grade Algebra students are being assigned to repeat Algebra in high school, to their detriment. At least half of these students end up doing worse in the course the second time around. A high proportion of the repeaters are non-Asian minority students, the data indicate."
This policy is harming students. " The implication is that subjective and restrictive math placement policies are inhibiting students from pursuing and qualifying for a four-year state university.
The filters also may be turning students off to technical and scientific careers by branding them as math failures early in high school. Steve Waterman, a retired Bay Area superintendent and lead researcher, went as far as to tell the Silicon Valley audience that the Valley wouldn’t have to import so many engineers if schools stopped disenfranchising students from higher math. Its that serious a problem."
Time to get unions out of education and get the government out as well. Our kids need professional educators, not unionized bureaucrats.
What do you think?
More...
Professional educators are folks concerned about children.
Government educators, with the unions wanting more bribe payers, forced schools to put kids in 8th grade Algebra--whether they could do it or not. This was about hiring teachers and making more union members, not education for children. "A new study sponsored by the Noyce Foundation that looked into the dark art of math placement found that unexplainably large numbers of eighth grade Algebra students are being assigned to repeat Algebra in high school, to their detriment. At least half of these students end up doing worse in the course the second time around. A high proportion of the repeaters are non-Asian minority students, the data indicate."
This policy is harming students. " The implication is that subjective and restrictive math placement policies are inhibiting students from pursuing and qualifying for a four-year state university.
The filters also may be turning students off to technical and scientific careers by branding them as math failures early in high school. Steve Waterman, a retired Bay Area superintendent and lead researcher, went as far as to tell the Silicon Valley audience that the Valley wouldn’t have to import so many engineers if schools stopped disenfranchising students from higher math. Its that serious a problem."
Time to get unions out of education and get the government out as well. Our kids need professional educators, not unionized bureaucrats.
What do you think?
More...