Right Wing Nation

Thanks to Darren, I saw this story about a study.
Douglas Reeves, an expert on grading systems, conducted an experiment with more than 10,000 educators that he says proves just how subjective grades can be.
Like me, you’re thinking, “Well, duh!” and wondering how much money was wasted on such an obvious study. Well, keep reading.
Reeves asked […]

in response to Darren’s article. Here’s a picture of where I used to teach classes.

Vodkapundit:
Yes, the speech itself will almost certainly be harmless. I don’t expect anyone’s kids to be coming home and berating their parents for being against this program or that agenda. I do expect Allah has it quite right, that this speech will be just another Daddy Speech, meant to encourage my son to work hard […]

Ponder the st00pidity of this:
while teaching kids how to read is important, teaching kids to love to read is even more important.
Because, of course, it doesn’t matter if your kids are illiterate, as long as they love to read?

I saw this on Photon Courier:
But parents are not simply shirking their own responsibility, they are encouraging kids not to take any. “There is a tutor culture [of] parents who don’t let their children fail once in a while. They’re scared it’ll look bad on their record,” says Caleb Rossiter, a professor at American University, […]

I’ve reworked this to make it a bit more readable (particularly to the non-math folks), and here and there, I’ve clarified or added material. I hope it helps. I’ve also added a section for those of you who use mostly written assessments, like papers or esssay questions (yes, you can use statistics to help […]

H/T to Ace and Allah for this.
Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do.
Because their union contract […]

Math wars heat up here.

The stupidest President in American history, part 15. But he did have his tongue way, way, way up there, and that was the point.

Math wars come to State College.

Thanks (I’m not sure that’s the right word) to Bird Dog for this, which speaks for itself.
When one Dickinson College alumna recently applied to work at a public school, she had a photocopied version of her Latin diploma returned as foreign and illegible.
Education school graduates in action.

Or not.
CBO: Whoops, We Need to Revise Our Deficit Projections Up by a Tad*
* A “Tad” is an Accounting Term Meaning 50%
Then, if liberals could do basic arithmetic, they wouldn’t be liberals, would they?

MSNBC:
Survey: Weather forecasts often misinterpreted
What does a 20 percent chance of rain mean? Keep reading
Oh, that’s not the scary part. This is:
But only half the population understands what a precipitation forecast means well enough to make a fully informed answer, a new study finds.
If, for example, a forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of […]

I’m not the only one (thanks to Uncle for the link).

H/T to Maggie’s Farm for this 20-minute talk by Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs and narrator of Deadliest Catch. Although he doesn’t say it, what he does say is the best argument against the “everybody needs to go to college” line I have seen.

Rasmussen:
Nearly one-third of Americans under the age of 40 say satirical news-oriented television programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are taking the place of traditional news outlets.
There’s that crucial critical thinking focus!

Grace Prep High School, here in Centre County.
We believe in academic rigor.
Awful!
We believe that schools should be efficient enough to teach your kids in the 30-40 hours per week of class time.
Disgusting!
We believe it is the school’s privilege to help them discover their spiritual gifts and to show them who God meant them to be.
Un-American!
We […]

Blogosphere rumbling: “Two Friday the thirteenths in a row! Has that ever happened before? OHMYGODWE’REALLGONNADIE!!!!!!”
How many days are there in February (save in a leap year)?
Is the number of days divisible by seven?
If so, what does that tell you?

Chanman relates an interesting story from his class, surprising them that he knows when a series of thug rappers died. I’m afraid he’s out of my league. I’m profoundly uninterested in pop culture. I saw a commercial some weeks back that Rihanna was going to be on some awards show (Grammy?) and said, “Who?” I […]

(forget caps) as i discovered just now reading joanne jacobs, where she links to this NYT article on catholic schools becoming charter schools. she didnt quote the beginning of the article, or i would have known that reading it would send my blood pressure through the stratosphere.
On his first day of eighth grade at the […]

note: i have injured my right wrist and its quite painful, particularly using my little finger (hence, the absence of caps and apostrophes). because typing is such a pain — literally — i will use the “just add water and microwave” carnival version (sorry). the last couple of times i have hosted, i have seen […]

There’s been a great deal of talk lately about universities’ making SAT scores optional for admission or dropping them entirely; today, Kimberly Swygert pointed to this article in the WSJ. Many of the articles about this topic have been of the moaning variety, largely because the authors are making unwarranted assumptions.
Let’s get a couple of […]

just go read. i’d love to see her salary.
and follow the link.

I bet you think this is going to be about creationism or something like that. You’re wrong.
William Briggs, statistician (and if you don’t think statisticians can be humorous, you really need to drop by his blog), commented on an article I had sent him in one of those “Seen this?” email messages. The article, on […]

The Ed Carnival is up.

you know how that goes. Unfortunately, it applies even where it shouldn’t.
For some really bizarre reason, I would solicit twenty test questions each from the other core faculty. I say “for some really bizarre reason” because, well, you’ll see.
Let’s take — oops –let’s call him John. John’s office was right next to mine in the […]

Ken has a story about streamlining processes (we call that operations):
Last year, we used a scoring template built by a math teacher at one of the participating schools (a GREAT GUY!) which required sorting to find the individual and teams scores after. Being a bit of a “Spreadsheet Jockey” (dubbed so by a former coworker) […]

The Ed Carnival is posted.

There’s a story in today’s local rag, “Daughter’s devastating illness helps change professor’s perspective on Thon.” If you’re not local, you probably don’t know what Thon is, so let me tell you.
Thon, short for the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, is the largest and most successful student-run philanthropy in the United States. Proceeds go to […]

Two colleagues and I were sitting in the office between classes, when an MBA student suddenly swept through the open door and interrupted our conversation.
“Can somebody who knows the material teach my class for me?”
“Come again?”
“I didn’t go to the teacher training seminar Friday, so I missed the material. Can somebody teach my class?”
“When?”
“Right now. […]

Would you want to be reminded of the incredible PC stupidity, I mean, even more than usual? For example, today, we have this idiocy:
Penn State has placed controversial apparel supplier Russell Athletic on probation, several university officials said Wednesday.
Russell, a supplier of licensed apparel to Penn State and other universities, is currently in the midst […]

Joanne Jacobs points to this article by a Penn State accounting professor, and he comes out swinging:
I have been teaching full time for over thirty years. If you toss in my apprenticeship teaching as a graduate student, I have taught for almost thirty-five years. During that span of time, one sees many, many students, and […]

The Midway is open at Reading Workshop!

I’m working on a project, a preparatory business math text (more like workbook) for kids who will be going to business school. Anyway, I’m digging around for ideas, and found this, which I wrote in 2006.
 
I was curious to see what was on the web and what links I could collect for that stats rewrite, […]

If you want an example of how unethical and nasty anthropologists can be when their “World peace, social justice, and pass the bong, man!” fantasy of humanity is challenged, read John J. Miller’s account of Tierney’s attempt to ruin Napoleon Chagnon, and follow the link at the bottom to the second part. What he does […]

I got very little sleep last night, so you will have to forgive my lack of creativity. Here are the entries, in the order in which I got them. That’s really all I can do today. I hope I got everybody. If I didn’t, please drop me a line, and I’ll put you in.
Scott Palat […]

Dear university freshman:
Now that your first semester is over and you got your papers back with so much red on them you couldn’t read what you had written, here’s a friendly word of advice (if you haven’t figured it out already). Proofread your work before you turn it in. Yes, yes, I know, if any […]

I don’t know what the doctor gave me, but it’s kicking in, and I’d better lie down before I slide out of this chair.
The carnival of education will be posted here early tomorrow morning. Given the medication, it may not be presented very creatively. We will all get over it, I’m sure.
And who put me […]

The Forbes list of America’s twenty most educated small towns. State College came in at #15:
Total Population: 39,603
Advanced degrees: 45.0%
Bachelor’s degrees: 27.9%
Associate degrees: 3.2%
West Lafayette (home of Purdue) came in at #6:
Total Population: 27,664
Advanced degrees: 46.9%
Bachelor’s degrees: 30.3%
Associate degrees: 3.3%
You can, of course, quibble about either being a small town. I wouldn’t call any community […]

I was prompted to write this by a comment Rory made on another post. He said:
Jetgirl, I truly sympathize with you in the group learning setting. In the military we have to attend leadership courses that require group speeches. I always ended up writing the whole speech and coaching the other members of my team, […]