US Better at Math, But Asians Lead, Equal to White Reading

US BETTER AT MATH, ASIANS LEAD EVERYBODY ELSE, = WHITES IN READING

National Assessment of Educational Progress

The Nation's Report Card

AP Oct 19, 2005 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9750535

http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2005/s0026.asp?printver=

AP reports that Americans are doing better in math on the NAEP
nation test. Blacks are "catching up" with whites. But they don't mention
that Asians are still leading whites in math, as Asians have in most years
since 1992. In grade 4, Asians lead whites by about the same margin that
Hispanics lead blacks. Asians are equal to whites in reading at both grade
4 and 8, on most tests like the SAT, Asians tend to lag in verbal scores,
but they appear to be assimilating at these grades, or just studying a lot.

Grade 4
  1990  1992  1996 2000  2003  2005  Rank
W  220   227   231  234   243   246  2
B  188   193   199  203   216   220  5
H  200   202   205  208   222   226  34 
A   NA   231   226  NA    246   251  1
N   NA    NA    NA  NA    223   226  34
L              207  208   222   225
L = free / reduced lunch
Asians lead whites by same margin as Hispanics
lead black.
Free/Reduced lunch students score better than black
average.

Grade 8
  1990  1992  1996 2000  2003  2005  Rank
W  270  277    281  284   288   289  2
B  237  237    242  244   252   255  5
H  246  249    251  253   259   262  4 
A   NA   290    NA  287   291   295  1
N   NA    NA    NA  NA    263   264  4

Asians score equal to whites in Readng
Grade 4
  1990  1992  1996 2000  2002 2003  2005  Rank
W  224   224   226  225   229  229   229  12   
B  192   185   193  190   199  198   200  5
H  197   188   195  190   201  200   203  4
A  216   220   221  224   224  226   229  12
N                         207  202   204  3 
L                   203        201   203

Grade 8
  1992  1994 1998 2002 2003  2005  Rank
W 268   267    271  272  272  271  12
A 267   265    267  267  270  271  12 
N                   250  246  249  3
H 241   243    245  250  246  246  4 
B 237   236    243  245  244  243  5

Kirkland Jr High PTSA WASL and Math

Some observations from the Kirkland Jr High School PTSA meeting: (Lake Washington / Kirkland)

KJH wants WASL scores from the high school broken down by feeder jr high schools. The principal mentioned that WASL scores were disappointing (I think it was lowest of the district jr high schools). The PTSA state convention puts #3 and #4 top items as "alternatives to the WASL test", evidently they still don't have the guts to challenge the beast outright, and "improving math and science education" which unfortunately sounds like they've bought into the fuzzy math and science teaching crowd.

A math teacher didn't give a formal presentation on the new "discovery based" math, however, I looked over the new Algebra books my kids are getting at 7th and 8th grade, it introduces matrix muliplication, and later uses matrices to solve linear equations, something I didn't even do much of in college. For the normal 7th grade track, they are using the 2nd version of Connected Mathematics. It seemed to be a minor improvement over the series we got in 6th grade that had infinite nonsensical homework, and spendng 4 times as many pages to make sure that the one standard method was NOT covered or explained to do averages, or adding or multiplying fractions. I was surprised to find solving for a linear equation, which used to be the culmination of an entire algebra course, covered in all of 2 pages. Just add, subtract, factor or divide both sides, yeah, right. Solving quadratic equations was similarly covered in just two pages.

Compare that to MY 7th grade math worksheet, which was a 8.5 x 11 sheet of 1 digit by 1 digit multiplications, which I completed about 85%, and got 1 or 2 wrong. I wonder how many of these kids who are expected to solve quadratic equations with 2 pages of instruction know how to add fractions with uncommon denominators, or divide a 5 digit by a 3 digit decimal number.

Some parents commented that their students were having big problems with Math Analysis in high school after going through integrated math in middle school. My peek at McDougall Littell was that this curriculum aimed at high school, but offered at middle school level crammed a shot gun ful of college level material concepts all over the place, while providing no instruction in basic arithmetic, nor the old fashioned baby-step per week build up of algebra. I couldn't even FIND how to solve a simple equation like 2 x + 8 = 15 among all the instruction in graphing, statistics, and problem solving.

I don't know if moving from integrated back to to Algebra is better or worse, but so far not too many complaints from my kids and I haven't had to do their homework left.

Parents in LWSD are still pretty much clueless as to the harm of fuzzy new-new math.

Hu's On First Introduction

OK world, I'm going to take a shot at blogging again. I'll be posting interesting tidbits on Asian Americans, education, and the rest of Humanity, and whatever I find is worth posting to the outside world.