*In 18 U.S. states, not even one elementary math class is required for certification.Pathetic. No wonder things don't add up properly.
*Some teaching colleges allow admittance as long as students have math skills equal to their future students -- that is, as long as they could pass a 5th grade math test.
*It's possible in some states to pass the teacher certification exam (Praxis) without answering a single math question correctly.
*In Massachusetts, there's a special program to reacquaint teachers with math. The man who runs the program says half of teachers can't answer basic questions involving fractions and has concluded that many elementary teachers are "phobic" about math.
*Teachers seem to be math-averse from the start. College bound seniors headed for elementary education have math SAT scores significantly lower than the national average (483 vs. 515).
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Pretty shocking statistics
Found here.
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3 comments:
That is terrible.
I don't blame the teachers though. I blame those people who are unrelentingly anti-tax, and their allies in the Republican Party. Cause you get what you pay for.
Actually, I think teachers share their own portion of the blame. There are a lot of people at fault, and not just Republicans. Throwing good money after bad isn't going to solve this problem, a deep and fundamental change needs to happen ... and I doubt the teacher unions would stand for it.
I seem to recall being told at one point that the only college degree one could get without ever taking a single science course was a degree in education...
(Don't recall where it was that I heard this, but it seems frighteningly plausible.)
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