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  • DUMBING THEM DOWN

    Filed at 11:32 am under by dcobranchi

    Not the kids, but the parents.

    An interesting lede in this WaPo column:

    Karen Budd is one of those parents that school administrators try to avoid.

    To begin with, she understands math, having a bachelor’s degree in the subject, plus some graduate work in engineering, from the University of Pittsburgh. Every school superintendent who has ever attended a PTA meeting knows the math-savvy parents are the worst. They often have complaints about the way teachers are handling the subject. And the average administrator, having like me successfully avoided taking any math since high school, knows he is ill-equipped to defend himself.

    The rest of the column falls under the category of dueling data but is interesting, nonetheless. Saxon Math figures prominently.

    One Response to “DUMBING THEM DOWN”


    Comment by
    Laura
    August 25th, 2004
    at 1:30 pm

    “John Saxon, a former military officer who created the textbooks, ‘discovered a way that builds skills in an incremental manner, with frequent repetition, leading to an understanding of mathematical concepts and the connections between them,’….”

    That is the key. There’s no other way to do it.

    Good for Karen Budd.