The San Francisco Schools Endorse Mediocrity


The San Francisco Department of Partial Education has decided not to offer Algebra 1 for its students until high school.   Lizzy Hull Barnes, speaking for the SFUSD says that exposing all students to high-quality math instruction is a social issue.  [Damn, I thought it was good instruction!]  She goes on to say that SFUSD considers the practice of tracking students or separating them based on talent and ability is simply wrong.  [Does that also apply to allowing anyone to play on intramural teams?]  She then goes on to say that being good at math is no longer about answer-getting.  [Trust me, this is not the woman I want in charge of figuring interest rates at the bank!]

            Ms. Barnes has never taught anything but elementary level math and I doubt she has an advanced degree in pure mathematics.  In any event, her words speak to a total lack of understanding of good math, good instruction or good intent.  She then, predictably, goes on to blame all of this change on Common Core.  It is a good scapegoat. 

Let me make this very clear: a good teacher, supported by a responsible administration, could teach all of the common core standards within a socially neutral environment. They could teach all of these standards by making education more rigorous, not watering it down.  But that is not their intent. The Big Brother minions are trying very hard to socially engineer our children.  The problem with the CCC is that it gives those want our children to be goose-stepping marionettes, marching to the left’s drum, a tool that they did not have previously.

San Francisco is sabotaging the curriculum.  But that is not all.  They are also sabotaging the teaching.

You can’t teach what you don’t know.  These nation-wide statistics are depressing.

Your child has less than a 50/50 chance of getting a mathematics teacher who actually holds a degree in mathematics!  In truth, only 41% of eighth grade math teachers have a degree in subject they are required to teach.  The story in science is even worse where only about 27% of middle school or junior high science teachers have a degree in science. Frequently those degrees will only be in general science or the biological sciences.  Virtually none of the teachers will have degrees in physics. 

These schools may tell you that the teachers are “certified” to teach in math or science, or that they are “certified” to teach in the school (whatever that means!).  But being certified does not mean the same as having a degree. 

Algebra 1 is a gateway math course.  If you don’t get it by 8th grade it becomes very difficult to complete the higher level courses needed for STEM degrees.  These, by the way, are degrees where women and minorities are in short supply.  But SFUSD doesn’t want competence, they want mediocrity.  The ignorant are so much easier to lead. 

Here is a quote from the second edition of my book Beating the Bell Curve (amazon.com) that every parent needs to know:

 Factors influencing the opportunity to learn are the presence of a curriculum, the presence of a teacher, and the presence of a student.  Given these factors, the next variable is the quality of each factor.  A high level of quality in one (let’s say teacher ability) can offset a low level of quality in another (for example, curriculum).  To get superlative results from the opportunity to learn put a high level of quality in each of the three components.  To get unsatisfactory results, put a low level of quality in each one.  To get negative results, leave one of the factors out completely.  It is these three factors: teacher, curriculum and student, who make up the opportunity to learn.  And it is the opportunity to learn that can influence, positively or negatively, your child’s placement on the bell curve of academic success.

Arm yourself with knowledge and keep the faith. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Generation of Serfs

  On October 25, 1415, Henry V of England laid some serious hurt on the French at the Battle of Agincourt at Pas-de-Calais, France.   Part of the success of this campaign was due to Henry’s use of the longbow, but part of it also goes to the creative use of military indentures.   These legal contracts required all the English captains to provide specified amounts of men, material and time to the King’s cause.             An indenture was a document, written in duplicate and then torn along a jagged line, like little teeth ( dents ), in the paper.   One portion of the contract was in possession of each party and when the required conditions and period of service were fulfilled, the parts reunited, and the debt was considered paid.   Many of the people who first came to this country from England came as indentured servants, worked off their debt and became the backbone of the country.             Today we are creating a nation not of indentured servants, someone with a carefully
Read more

Our Beautiful Constitution and its Ugly Opponents

 The Constitution is our anchor of stability in a turbulent world!   We can withstand a bad President and a petulant Congress (for the short term, at least) because our Constitution both guides and limits.   If someone asked me to provide proof of a loving God, I would simply ask them how else so many geniuses in the matter of human governance could have been clustered together in the right time and place to create both our country and the means to govern it.    Our founding fathers had the vision to devise a way to not only govern themselves, but govern a country that they could not imagine, yet believed would prevail. The constitution of the United States is like a good parent.   It has allowed us to grow up as we have grown older, with the result that the United States of America is the oldest living democracy in the world.   The miracle of this document is that it lives, breathes and moves with the times.   The three branches of our government work together while standing alone
Read more

"You Didn't Build That:" Part I

Late in the day on Friday, July 13 th , President Obama mounted the stage of Historic Firehouse Number One in Roanoke , Virginia .   The room held around 800 people but it was hot and several people fainted.   In front of a carefully screened group of supporters he gave one of the most important speeches of his reelection campaign.    It was not meant to be a major speech.   That will come in the even more carefully scripted Convention Hall in Charlotte , North Carolina this September in front of adoring media and rabid political supporters.   But this speech in Roanoke is crucial to the 2012 election because on Friday, in Virginia , President Obama went off message.   Whether through error or hubris, he abandoned his script and spoke off the cuff.   And in so doing, he showed us the man behind the curtain.   The angry but controlled, insecure yet charismatic, market fearful, socialistically inclined man that Barrack Obama really is. I am speaking, of course, of the now famou
Read more