Tuesday, October 09, 2007
In Our Schools - Math Skills
These are the results we are getting for our (tax) money...
At the AmericanThinker.com website, Christopher Chantrill has these quotes and more:
"'[A]fter a haircut, I noticed that the 20-something cashier could not count out change. The next day, at the electronic outlet store, another young clerk could not read - much less explain - the basic English of the buyer's warranty. At the food market, I listened as a young couple argued over the price of a cut of tri-tip - unable to calculate the meat's real value from its price per pound.'
It's not just California. In Washington State Bruce Ramsay writes in the Seattle Times:
'At community colleges, half the students take remedial math. At the University of Washington, atmospheric-sciences professor Cliff Mass says, 'I saw a profound drop in math skills starting in the mid-'90s.' New-age math, he says, has created 'a whole generation of students who can't do fractions.'
'The official measure of math skills is the Washington Assessment of Student Learning... a new-age test... [C]onsultant Michael Cohen, who has reviewed the WASL, says the actual math in it is seventh-grade level.'"
