Quote of the Day - Grade Inflation

In American schools, grade inflation is so out of control that a B minus is a classroom teacher’s best and safest choice for indicating an actual grade of F.

Earl P. Bell
Letter to the Editor
New York Times
June 27, 2010

Quotes of the Day

Some freshmen do not know that “one-half and .5 represent the same number,” said Dennis Piontkowski, chairman of the mathematics department. “We don’t want to keep students in math classes forever, but you can’t just snap your fingers and bring them up to college level.”

and then too...

Students are leaving high school with a diploma, but “most are testing at middle-school reading comprehension” and many at elementary-school level, said James Sauvé, an English department instructor in charge of revising the remediation classes.

The remediation should be addressing 'how to be an effective learner' instead of explaining that .5 = 1/2. If a student had effective learning skills, he/she would have a command of basic skills before entering college.

And students should know that education takes work and failing is an option.

Thank you The Bay Citizen.

Grade Inflation

This is one of the ways grade inflation starts.

Face Memory Game

It was interesting to wander around the Washington.edu site and check out the different memory tests.

I will be using some of the games to help my students learn memorization strategies, specifically for addition and multiplication facts given that surprisingly many high school clients do not know these facts.

My elderly clients often have trouble remembering new facts, especially in regards to new technology. "Why on earth would you click on the Start Up button to turn your computer off?", was one of the comments I heard. There are physical changes that occur in the brain as humans age that make it more difficult for many people to learn new things, so it is not surprising that it takes some practice to learn how to program TIVO.

On the other hand, my teenage clients are able to remember all sorts of facts: phone numbers, how to use the many functions of their graphing calculators and cell phones, how to download and keep track of thousands of songs, and how to manage their social networking pages yet these same students cannot remember the product of 6 and 7. Even more disturbing is the fact that a number of the parents are likely to tell me that their children are incapable of memorizing their math facts rather than admit that their child might be a bit lazy or unmotivated to do the work.

Memorization takes work. And some memorization, such as math facts, may be tedious and unpleasant work. It has been my experience that most of the students lacking math facts are UNWILLING to do that work.

Crazy Things Can Happen When Math gets into the Hands of Legislators

I stumbled upon a blog post by divine caroline that stated that in Indiana

π = 4.

The blogger cited no references.

In my search to find the story, I found a treasure, The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams who may or may not, actually be Ed Zotti.


Cecil tells a great story about how an amateur, and possibly crazy, mathematician, Edward J. Goodwin, persuaded an Indiana Representative, in 1897, to introduce a House Bill #246 that would legislate:

π to be 4,

π = 3.2 in another instance, 

and π to be about 3.23 in yet a third instance. 

According to Adams, Bill #246 made it through the house.

Bill #246 also passed the Indiana Senate but before it could be enacted into law, a Purdue Professor, C. A. Waldo was able to point out the absurdity the idea to a Senator and Bill #246 was postponed, possibly infinitely, or until the end of time.

Ed Zotti as he appears on his Blog, The Barn House.

Apparently, the legislators didn't know their history as well as their math. Mathematicians had only been working on determining the value of π for roughly 3800 years by the time Goodwin appeared on the scene and decided not only to change the value of π, but its definition too.

Lesson #1 - Education has come a long way since 1897. Almost all of my students know that π is approximately equal to 3.14 and I want to believe it would take a lot of work to convince them otherwise.

Lesson #2 - It is still true today that it is sometimes dangerous to let mathematics and science get into the hands of legislators.

Lesson #3 - Passing and enacting a law have different meanings. Who would have ever thought it? So, even though Bill #246 was passed, in both houses, it was never a law on the books and to this day, people in all walks of life in Indiana are allowed to use π at the common value of 3.14, close enough for many purposes, the 14 digit accuracy of the TI-84, or the 2.7 trillion digit accuracy level determined by Monsieur Bellard of France, January of 2010, using his desktop computer. (Oh by the way, it took 131 days to complete and check the result, if you were thinking of choosing that option).