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Man with multiple degrees fails standardized test for children

322 points by joejohnson 15y ago

petercooper 15y ago
On detailing the contents of the test to his business peers: "Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession." Close to none of the history, RE, French, geography, music, phys ed, or even science (heck, nearly every subject) I took in high school has proven directly necessary for my profession. But the standardized tests aren't for adults, they're for students. (Should we expect to pass their agility/phys-ed tests too? :-)) Being able to learn these things, and developing the skills necessary to learn them, is a worthwhile experience and hopefully provides a lot of the inspiration, brain-shaping, and knowledge exposure necessary to get by as an educated adult, even if you can't pass the tests to some arbitrary standard. I barely remember any of the French I learnt, but I can't help but feel the exposure has given me a better insight into, and a better ear for, my own language. It's a similar story for most of those other subjects.
- jerf 15y ago
  The problem is that math education is not only not relevant to your career, it's also not relevant to your future education! #include <lockharts_lament.pdf> Students are correct and so is this board member, math education as it stands today really is worthless. It is of no value. It has no practical value and it has no theoretical value. And if you think otherwise it is likely because you managed to escape from the system, possibly with a four-year degree in computer science or other relevant field, with little more than a glancing introduction to actual mathematics, which are arguably one of the most valuable things mankind has ever produced. There's no need for the cognitive dissonance necessary to insist that math as learned in school is incredibly value even as you, if you search your heart, know better. All you've got in its favor is that you've been told its valuable, so by golly it must be. It's not. It's taught terribly and all the value has been sucked out of it. http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
  - dpark 15y ago
    What math did you learn in high school that you believe is so worthless? My school taught algebra, trig, and calculus. Some of these are useful for everyday life and some are useful for academia.
    - jerf 15y ago
      Read the linked PDF. Schools teach calculation, not mathematics. Some of the calculations occasionally manage to be useful, but if you developed a mathematically mature mind it sure didn't come from your schooling. If you did not take multiple classes that consisted almost entirely of writing many proofs per week, you never took mathematics. If all you did was problems 6-32 evens due next Tuesday, that's not math.
      - dpark 15y ago
        Putting kids through years of proofs would not improve the situation. They would still call it dumb. They would still hate it. They'd probably hate it even more, because it's harder. Moreover it's necessary to teach kids the basics before you teach them advanced concepts. Despite what the article might have you think, we do teach musical notation first. Kids learn that as they are first learning to play. Composition is reserved for the university. Also, the inefficiency of math education in schools does not mean that what they teach is worthless. Certainly they could do better. And maybe making teenagers do hundreds of proofs would be better. But at the end of they day, the student who took calculus in high school is better prepared for college (and a scientific career) than a student who did not.
        jordan0day 15y ago
        I think jerf isn't really phrasing his position in a palatable way, even though he's right. Since he's referencing Lockhart, I'll go with that. The crux of Lockhart's argument is that math is actually really beautiful, intriguing, and exciting, and the legalistic, browbeating manner in which it is currently taught basically takes all the beauty and excitement out of it. Assuming your high school was like mine, when you learned algebra, trig, and calculus, you were probably taught a few of the whats, some of the hows, but almost none of the whys. It's only in upper-level undergrad and graduate courses that the beauty really starts to be taught in earnest. You're absolutely right to say that putting kids through years of proofs would probably make them hate math even more. Again, that's largely due to the way proofs are taught, especially at the secondary school level. They're all just a bunch of rules listed one after another, "doing a proof" is basically like explaining all the rules of chess to someone who's never played before, and then asking them to put the board in a particular state, thirty-two moves into a game. It ends up as a bunch of trial-and-error guessing... it's frustrating and it's boring. Sure, there are a few savants or folks whose brains are wired in such a way that it's either easy or interesting, but it's just painful for most folks, because there's no intrigue. It's not until three or four years into college that most people are exposed to proofs as an intellectually stimulating game, where intuition plays an even bigger role than "looking at a list of rules and deciding which one fits". But we don't get that in high school. We're not taught how to intuit something and then map the rules to our intuition. In fact, we're usually taught that this is wrong!
deleted 15y ago
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josefresco 15y ago
I know this will come off as critical of the test, but maybe the real criticism should be directed at the institutions where this particular adult received his degrees. Maybe both systems are flawed.
noonespecial 15y ago
"Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession." I know I'm biased. Geek is as geek does, but $deity almighty am I tired of that line. If simple math isn't valuable to your profession, it might at least be worth a think about how valuable your "profession" might be in the first place. Some of the huge systemic problems we are facing right now may have something to do with the fact that we have entirely too many professions where it really doesn't matter if one could master simple math.
- narkee 15y ago
  I think that's the difference between academic education, and vocational training. I've made this point before, but people often conflate the two, and are unable to separate them in their minds. What this person is saying is "these things do not train a person to perform these specific sets of tasks". That's vocational training, and there's nothing wrong with that. Academic education, on the other hand, is about learning to think, about history, rhetoric, science, and all sorts of things that aren't directly applicable to a particular job, but provide a necessary foundation for critical thinking and enlightenment, so to speak. What our system really needs is two streams. An academic stream, for those who choose, and a vocational stream, which is what a large proportion of students and seemingly educators like this guy want. This way, everyone gets what they want. Students truly interested in learning things not directly related to performing a job will have the benefit of a more supportive learning environment, and students who just want to get a job will also attain the required vocational training. It's really win-win.
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    Our system already has those two streams, has practically forever. People still abuse the college stream as if it were vocational training.
    - absconditus 15y ago
      Unfortunately they are winning and academia is being dumbed down so that everyone can obtain a degree.
dos1 15y ago
This makes me angry. How did this man get to his current position? I can't possibly understand how he did not know any of the math questions. I'm sure even I would have forgotten some of the trig, but to not know ANY? But I hear people saying, "his job didn't require much in the way of math." Granted, but I'm sure his job requires lots of reading, and he got a 62%? The real tragedy is that this man was able to rise as high as he did, and our current system supports it.
- Newgy 15y ago
  The man is most likely an incompetent bureaucrat, rewarded by a unionized education system that values seniority and paper degrees.
  - alec 15y ago
    It says in the second paragraph he's an elected official.
    - stickfigure 15y ago
      Is that better or worse?
    - dhugiaskmak 15y ago
      I believe that sentence was in reference to his school board elections. Later in the article he says "I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities."
      - davidhansen 15y ago
        Which is quite meaningless. Organizations of that size will have at least a few data analysts, data mining specialists either in-house or on contract, and tons of tools created to help C-level management understand the complex data the organization generates. My cursory understanding of this man's profession is to make friends, maintain relationships, and occasionally "understand" the pretty charts that the data analysts produce for him. It's no wonder he doesn't need much in the way of intellectual horsepower to execute his responsibilities.
losethos 15y ago
E.E. mag1@ang1 * mag2@ang2 = (mag1*mag2)@(ang1+ang2) Do circle arc with start point and length. Cannot use x^2+y^2=r^2, but can use rotation formula I just posted. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\PILGRIM.TXT ssed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life; but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise" [Micah 7:8]; Christian's victory over Apollyon and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceivi ---- http://www.losethos.com/files/SimStrSetup.exe http://www.losethos.com/files/SimStrSetup.exe Key:A18-W50-U50 Die Satan! God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\2CITIES.TXT I am not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can't see." "Of course, it has been kept for you." "Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?" "And sleeping soundly." "That's right; all safe and well! I don't know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us si
dmbaggett 15y ago
Can someone who actually knows tell us what kinds of math questions were on the test? It's hard to come to any conclusions without any details, and the article didn't seem to include any pointers to the test itself. My personal axe to grind is that number theory and basic finance, rather than calculus, should be taught to teenagers. And in my own US public schooling, I found the teachers completely unable to provide any intuition whatsoever behind calculus. It wasn't until two decades later, when I was studying computational finance for fun, that I actually really understood integration as something other than symbol manipulation. Seriously, this whole "teach to the test" mentality may get kids to answer correctly by rote over the short term, but doesn't help them to learn much in the long run -- at least if they're intuitive learners.
- iamandrus 15y ago
  Junior in college-prep high school here. The math questions are really easy: basic algebra, geometry, and trig. I can do it in my sleep, and I barely studied for that test and did well. I agree with you fully, kids need to be taught based on what they want to do. I've wanted to be an entrepreneur for a while now and the only class that interests me in school is journalism (I enjoy writing). The math class is a joke, English is boring, and the rest of the classes are boring.
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    After 20 years of not using basic algebra, geometry, or trig, you'll forget it too.
    - radiowave 15y ago
      Agreed. I'm taking the online Stanford AI-class at the moment, and it's been half my lifetime since I used some of the necessary skills. Even just re-arranging a formula is slow going for me at the moment. But I am improving.
    - dhoe 15y ago
      It's very hard to imagine you'll forget it, but it really is true. I used to be able to solve integrals while being too drunk to walk, but nowadays basic trig would require substantial effort for me. Time does that.
rdouble 15y ago
I'm skeptical this happened. The guy is anonymous, the town and state are unnamed, and there are no examples of the test questions.
- jxcole 15y ago
  I was particularly annoyed that though they mentioned he has degrees, they never said what the degrees are in.
- baby 15y ago
  Exactly. I'm sorry but the whole article is full of . How is it the Top submission on HN right now...
- lisper 15y ago
  Also hard to believe that he had to guess the answer for every single math question.
talmand 15y ago
I think it's a matter of being up-to-date on the material, which he himself sort of admits to. I learned a great deal of things in high school and college that if I were asked to take a test today I'm fairly sure I would fail. The only way I would pass is if I was able to spend some time to prepare. But that's the thing, what I got out of my education was HOW TO LEARN a subject. I'm confident that you could pick nearly any subject that I know little about and, with a proper amount of time, I could become somewhat proficient at it. The level of my ability will, of course, depend upon the subject and various factors to do with me as a person. Standardized tests are a tricky thing, they are needed to determine a student's progress but at the same time they assume that all students are the same. To me that's the problem with education systems in the US, they assume that they can teach all kids the same thing the same way with the same results. As a father of two children with completely different personalities, attitudes and interests, I can tell you treating kids as emotionless puppets to force-feed information to is a path to failure.
- randomdata 15y ago
  "I'm confident that you could pick nearly any subject that I know little about and, with a proper amount of time, I could become somewhat proficient at it." Wouldn't it be fair to say that is basic human nature, not a result of your schooling? I remember already successfully jumping in and picking up new subjects on my own before I even entered high school, and I imagine much of the HN crowd were too. Though, I admit I may come with some bias. I grew up on a farm where I was out there at a young age trying to solve real problems alongside my father and grandfather. They valued my insight into the problems as much as their own. If learning how to learn is a skill that is taught, that is where I learned it.
  - talmand 15y ago
    Yes, it would be fair. Especially since I did mention the level of ability would be influenced by me as a person. I should have expanded on that. But, as a human, you do have the ability to learn but a proper education does go a long way in helping you discover how to learn a subject. Instead of goofing around on a subject for ten years when you finally figure it out, a proper education lets you learn the subject much quicker and more efficiently. After all, as a basic example, it would be rather difficult to learn physics if you can't read the papers written by the smart people who came before you.
popplebop 15y ago
>It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have [...] 15 credit hours toward a doctorate This statement is suggestive of where the problem lies. A doctoral thesis is supposed to be an original piece of work. The idea of assigning credit hours towards it is meaningless. We don't honour creative people for the number of hours they put in but for the works they leave behind.
- scott_s 15y ago
  I don't think that statement is suggestive of any problems. Most doctoral programs have course requirements that have to be met along with the original research requirement (the dissertation). He probably means he's taken some of the courses that are at the beginning of his doctoral program.
- jollyjerry 15y ago
  I strongly agree. The learning process takes as long as it takes. What might take one person an hour, could take another person a week. But when it comes to education funding in general, the easy way out is to set a easy to quantify metric and use that as the yardstick
- kahawe 15y ago
  And on top of that even more questionable what this having 15 credit hours towards a doctorate are supposed to tell us? That he wasn't good enough to finish it? And more specifically what it is supposed to tell us with regards to children's education? So, let's assume he is a highly trained expert in 1 or 2 fields and then the doctorate is like putting a needle-like focus on one (comparatively) tiny area of those fields and going in deep all the way. This, again, has nothing to do with children's education... it's like complaining that a brain surgeon cannot even pass basic school-level French grammar. All this is flying too close to the "why do kids have to learn all this crap like math, art, music, history?? all they wanna do is become rich managers and bankers or CEOs anyway!" argument.
- barry-cotter 15y ago
  It's probably a J.D.,Psy.D.,Pharma.D. or some other "professional doctorate" abombination. I blame the US for this hideous dilution of the title, and qualification of Doctor. While being a young curmudgeon I will also condemn the practice of M.D.s being called Doctor.
jarin 15y ago
Hmm, yeah I'm not really so sure that the problem with our educational system is that the tests are too hard.
tryitnow 15y ago
In most organizations corporate politics and personality play a greater role than ability. This will change with the continuing revolution in data and the data driven decision making it makes possible. Eventually corporations that reward politics and personality will become weaker and those that reward data driven decision making will become stronger (except in cases where the corporation can depend on government handouts, e.g. Wall Street).
- stfu 15y ago
  Absolutely agree about the first part but I don't see that this necessarily has to be a bad thing. No matter what kind of business you run, the seller knows almost all the time more about the product/service/etc than the buyer. And as long as you don't have perfectly comparable products markets are far from ideal. Therefore the individual relationships between people matter because you can never fully quantify human relationships.
kahawe 15y ago
> "I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities." ...which all requires a completely different skill-set than what kids are being taught in school. Politics, opportunism, cold-blooded back stabbing if necessary and clever PR being just a few of those. Also, when he actually was in school, the curriculum was probably (at least somewhat) different, different tests and questions. He cannot really base an educated opinion on the school system and standardized tests from just that alone - leaving what you personally feel about the school system out of the equation for a second.
raganwald 15y ago
A lot of the criticiscm of the article seems to be missing the point it makes. The author and subject are criticizing the standardized tests as having been put in place without evidence linking its scores to outcomes. Neither the test nor its champions have any accountability for it. To refute this, we either have to come up with a way of measuring whether streaming students based on their scores is a benefit, or we have to come clean and say it's arbitrary. Saying that high school doesn't teach you anything vocational but you learn how to learn is interesting, but to answer the OP directly we need some evidence showing that students are indeed learning to learn. Otherwise, it's just faith. We should be especially wary of survivor bias hre. Most folks here are educated and pleased with their career arc. It's easy to assume from n=1 that our education is the reason. But many who took the same classes aren't doing so well. Maybe our education isn't the reason for our success. One criticism of IQ tests is that they measure the ability to pass IQ tests. Do we have the data to refute the accusation that standardized tests measure only the ability to pass standardized tests?
- dpark 15y ago
  I would be shocked if the department of education were not tracking outcome at some level. The question is, what should they be tracking? My guess is that they track how scores are correlated with success at the university level. Personally, I think that's a reasonable metric. "Learning how to learn" would imply more success in an environment dedicated to learning. "How useful is this in the professional world" is a pretty crappy metric for deciding what to teach, because the common set of useful topics is pretty small. We could easily stop public education at junior high or earlier if that's the goal. I've never, not once, needed anything from history class, or biology class, or social studies, or literature class in my professional life. Most people have probably never needed algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. But I'm pretty certain I would be worse off if school stopped at age 10, or if I just repeated the same stuff for 8 years after that.
- wanorris 15y ago
  Your point is well taken, but I can't help feeling that the original post and this entire discussion are ultimately worthless without specifics and examples regarding the test what the original author was complaining about. Yes, we should confirm our biases with studies, but at an even more basic level, we don't even know what we're arguing about here.
tibbon 15y ago
Despite all the comments about this guy and his incompetence, it might be even better if a public version of these tests were made available (and could be graded automatically) for the public to take and review. Instead of speculating about this guy's ability, of which I know nothing, I'd rather just take it myself and then draw my own conclusions. That being said, I was always very good at taking tests, even if I had no idea on the subject matter. Unless you put in "none of the above" as a choice, I could pass almost any test. It wasn't until the LSAT that I had any problems at all with a test. Here's a novel idea: publicly commented and curated testing system. Wikipedia-like. People write questions, other people can take the test, leave comments, suggestions, etc and those can be factored in to build a smarter and better test.
po 15y ago
For the most part, I think the point of school - elementary through college - is to learn how to learn. Yes, we try to teach students things that will be useful in their careers but I think it's more important to teach students things that are hard. It is the process of learning to internalize difficult concepts that makes you 'college ready'. If you don't use that knowledge for your profession, then yes you will forget it. However, if you don't use it for your profession, it doesn't mean learning it was useless. I would be more worried if he still sucked at math after preparing for the test for a semester or two. I have a degree in Chemistry and yes, that knowledge is slowly slipping out of my mind. However, the skills I learned while learning chemistry - logical thinking, ability to memorize and recall, building a mental model of abstract concepts - these stay with me.
apgwoz 15y ago
I can understand doing badly at the math portions, but the reading portions? Presumably he needs to be reading and comprehending what he's reading in his day to day job responsibilities. Why can I understand the math difficulties? Well, I too forget stuff that I don't use very often. I'd have to go look up the all the trig identities if I needed them. But, I wouldn't take this test blind without any refresher. The advantage "kids" have when they take these standardized tests is that it's very close to fresh in their minds, or at least relatively fresh. That has to count for something.
baby 15y ago
Link to the tests? Because really, I don't want to say anything before seeing the test.
- Technopia 15y ago
  Second that.. If anybody has links to the test, post them.
tokenadult 15y ago
From the submitted article: "A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do." Oh, well, that's the problem. He is on a public school school board. School boards have been known to have adverse selection for dullness for more than a century. Here is Mark Twain's harsh comment on that: "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards." -- Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1903) 2:295 Other than that, the author of the submitted article simply describes the school board member as a "success" who makes money. The genius of the American political and economic system is that people who desire money more than they desire deep understanding can often achieve that goal. America is a wealthy country, and by world standards a lot of Americans are more successful than what you would expect if you look at the success of people in developing countries who know more and who work harder. The submitted article is by a guest author, but it is part of a regular column series in the Washington Post that takes the consistent line that criticisms of the United States school system for inefficiency and waste of resources are misplaced. As an American who has lived overseas, spending the first part of the 1980s in a developing country, I can't agree with that party line. United States schools could do a LOT better, particularly in teaching mathematics in elementary school, http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0805829091 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... and while it may be that many current United States standardized tests in core subjects have poor validity (being designed by state governments more for political than for educational purposes), the answer is NOT to throw away reality checks on how the school system is doing. Rather, the answer is to align reality checks on United States schools more closely with testing programs that identify the most successful countries, http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf and to look to the practices of the most successful countries for policy guidance on how to reform United States schools. http://www.merga.net.au/documents/RP182006.pdf http://www.merga.net.au/documents/RP182006.pdf It is still possible for United States school to improve a lot simply by bringing in better management practices, http://edpro.stanford.edu/hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads/Hanushek%202009%20CNTP%20ch%208.pdf http://edpro.stanford.edu/hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads... and efforts to improve United States education shouldn't be sidetracked by a single anecdote about the occasional well-off school board member who has limited academic ability.
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memset 15y ago
Possibly I missed it, but is there somewhere we can see the test itself? It seems almost silly to try and discuss the pros and cons of testing, or of this gentleman's position in society, without seeing the exam.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
Here is a question for everyone who agrees with this editorial: Suppose that this man is correct - that the material being taught/tested is useless and unnecessary for a successful career. In that case, shouldn't we stop teaching it, remove the material from the curriculum, allow students to graduate a year or two earlier and fire a bunch of useless teachers? If not, why not?
- esrauch 15y ago
  There are almost certainly people (laborers?) who are successful without having any knowledge taught in school at all. Modern schools explicitly aren't vocational, they don't even claim to strive to teach skills that can be directly applied to jobs, the point is that it is useful to understand how to learn and think about things well. They also provide exposure and opportunity; there are plenty of jobs that do require these skills (or more accurately, require skills for which learning these skills is a prerequisite), and if we didn't teach them to everyone then the children of laborers would end up as laborers even when they are capable and interested in being rocket scientists.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    You are disagreeing with the premise - that the skills being measured are not necessary. I nominally agree with you. But I'm asking people who agree with the premise whether they also agree with the logical conclusion - if the tested skills are unnecessary for most/all, why not stop teaching them, fire teachers and reduce spending on education commensurately?
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    - esrauch 15y ago
      I did make a claim about how it makes sense even if the skills aren't directly applicable to any profession. I understood the claim to be "the skills being measure are not necessary" to mean "you don't need the skills to be successful" which I do agree with. That is a completely different claim than the idea that that the skills are useless, the skills are only useful to some (significant) subset of the population, and I argue that we should teach them even to people that they will be useless for to force feed them an opportunity that they might otherwise have ignored as a possibility.
jellicle 15y ago
It's easy to fail a test if you go in deciding to fail it, because you have a already-extant political bias against testing.
absconditus 15y ago
This article is superficial and conflates several issues.
beloch 15y ago
On the test-taker's failure: In order to perform well on a math test you don't always have to really understand the fundamental principles behind what you're doing. Sometimes you can get away with wrote memorization. e.g. You can come up with equations for a lot of things yourself if you understand Gaussian distributions but, if you're being prepped for an exam by teachers who know roughly what's on it, they might just give you equations to memorize for the things that are likely to be asked. You may perform nearly as well as someone with deep understanding of the material, but you are unlikely to remember those equations long after you've taken the test! It is quite likely that the person who took and failed this test was the sort of math student who was able to get by memorizing what he was told to without really understanding things. If he had written the same test in high-school he likely would have done much better because he would have been prepared for it with memorized methods and equations that he never understood and has long since forgotten. On teaching methods: When teachers teach students to pass tests, short-cuts like wrote memorization tend to happen. The useful knowledge learned from this kind of teaching is minimal. Unfortunately, many teachers are unable to teach the deep meaning behind mathematics because they were taught by wrote memorization themselves. When they were assigned to teach math class they probably had to look everything up themselves since, like our test-taker, they never understood the basis behind it and have forgotten most of what they memorized. It seems that we must overcome the problem of educating teachers before they can overcome the problem of educating students.
- bradleyland 15y ago
  You hit upon two important points, but I'd take the conclusion further: A) Our current evaluation methods don't tell us whether a student is simply memorizing steps or learning the subject matter. B) When your primary evaluation critera is to pass a standardized test, the system will optimize to achieve that goal. Since we know that standardized tests don't really evaluate understanding, we have a vicious cycle on our hands.
  - sethg 15y ago
    I would add that it is possible to make standardized tests that teach more than memorization, but those tests will cost more to construct, norm, and grade. Schools are caught between the imperatives of testing and budget-cutting.
pandaman 15y ago
I am willing to bet that none of the subject's degrees has been in a real science or math.
refurb 15y ago
This is sort of silly. I'm sure if the man actually prepared for the test, he would have done much better. Hell, I've taken standardized tests, gotten very good scores, but if I had to take them RIGHT NOW without any preparation, I'd probably fail them.
mikealle233 15y ago
The man's multiple degrees are meaningless without knowing where they're from. We live in a world where literally anyone can enroll in the University of Phoenix. In fact, I've heard many people in the education field do so because union contracts guarantee them raises, regardless of where a degree is from. That one man rose to power in government and obtained degrees, despite poor math and reading skills, doesn't surprise me much less outrage me.
patio11 15y ago
Success, education, intelligence, and credentials are all available independently of each other. If they were binary, you could find all 16 combinations in spades. (Probably not uniformly distributed, but I'm sure I could come up with anecdotes for SeIc or SEiC or any other combination if I needed an editorial written.) With particular relevance to this article, "I am successful and well-credentialed, ergo, if a test suggests that I am not educated or intelligent, that test must be faulty" is not by itself very persuasive to me.
- TheCapn 15y ago
  Although I agree with you I do find it fishy to say this man holds multiple degrees, with one (at least) being in the sciences. If he's capable of defending that degree then he theoretically should have a grasp on the kind of mathematics are being thrown in Grade 10. If the grade 10 mathematics are some odd-ball thing that has no real relevance (and thus the last time he saw it was grade 10) it points at a bigger issue. If my memory serves me, grade 10 was algebra almost exclusively. It wasn't until my grade 11/12 courses that other topics like limits and matrices came into play (and those are still simple by my terms). What I'm trying to say is, although intelligence and success are separate entities the test should be somewhat correlated with his university education. If what high schools are doing is NOT preparing students for real world or post secondary life then what are they doing?
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  - zbuc 15y ago
    Somebody posted a sample question above, asking students to determine if certain triangles in a set are congruent. I don't remember the definition of "congruent". I graduated with honors in Computer Science, and took many math classes along the way and did very well, and the topic of "congruency" never came up beyond high school mathematics. There's definitely something weird going on here. I imagine that it will be tempting for people on Hacker News to argue that they know the definition of "congruent" and it's not a difficult question and I should turn in my degree, but whatever.
scotty79 15y ago
I think that schools are not so much about learning stuff as about training and testing ability to learn dull things that you don't like and/or care about. That's invaluable skill in life. Most people forget 90% of things they've learnt in school after 5-10 years after finishing. If you take a look at the things you were learning in college, you'd be amazed how much of even interesting and seemingly useful things somewhat associated with what you currently do, you can't even remember learning.
ejgejg 15y ago
The problem is the author went to school too many years ago and missed the ubiquitous "how to take standardized tests" curriculum. These days kids are taught from kindergarten on how to take standardized tests. My sixth grader can look at a test question and narrow it down to two answers before even reading the question. And for math, he doesn't solve the problem, he plugs the two answers in to see which is right. I teach math at a community college and it is common to have students test into math classes that they don't have the basic prerequisites for - just because they test well.
bwooceli 15y ago
I could not agree less with the conclusion the board member came to. In my experience, the general education is dual purpose. There is surely a foundation-building aspect to it, where the student's body of general knowledge is expanded. But more importantly, the process of learning builds discipline and habits for success. A successful educator and educational system balances these two purposes.
peterwwillis 15y ago
Before I went to high school (maybe 8th grade?) I took some kind of test to determine what kind of career I was best suited for. It said the least likely position was computer programming because my math skills were so poor. I was already programming in C and Perl at this time. (I'm still not a "real" programmer; I learned early on that sysadmin was easier and pays more on average. I now regret going the easy route)
gmichnikov 15y ago
I tutor all sorts of math students, from middle school and high school students to people preparing for the GRE and GMAT. The most common question I hear, by far: "Why does any of this matter? Will I ever use it again?" Until 8th grade or so (pre-algebra), students learn math that (I think) everyone should know. After that, it can be hard to give a good answer. Why does someone who is not interested in studying math after high school need to know the quadratic formula? Why does someone studying for the GMAT need to know anything at all about geometry? Math curricula simply cover the wrong things (and as a result math tests test the wrong things). Take a look at these two sample 10th grade math tests (the level taken by the guy in the article): http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2011/release/g10math.pdf http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2011/release/g10math.pdf http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/online/2009/taks_g10_math/10math.htm http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/o... There is TONS of focus on geometry and coordinate geometry. There is NO focus on math concepts that are much more important (in my view), like basic finance, basic statistics, basic probability. These are things people need to know in order to be informed citizens, understand policy, process things in the news, rent/buy a home, take on college loans, etc. None of this means that tests are bad of course. I think tests are, generally, a good way to understand what people know (in math). Finally, the guy says: "The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly." If he really knew the answers to NONE of them, I have a hard time taking him seriously. I love how he gives himself credit for managing to guess 10 correctly. These tests are mostly multiple choice!
- rukkyg 15y ago
  These questions are so easy. Half of them are so basic that you do not even need to think before you do some kind of multiplication or addition. An adult cannot do ANY of these??? I call bullshit on at least part of the article.
- Tichy 15y ago
  Doesn't the quadratic equation pop up all the time if you try to solve equations? Which you might do now and then, if you could remember how to solve equations, which is probably also a negative for most people :-( But definitely for personal finance I think quadratic stuff might pop up now and then. Exponential stuff definitely pops up...
nene 15y ago
What struck me most was having multiple-choice answers on a math test... WTF? You shouldn't be able to just guess the answers one-out-of-four. When I was in school (not in US) there never was such a thing. You simply solve the problem and write an answer, which usually is a simple number.
- drblast 15y ago
  One of the easiest ways to take a multiple choice math test is to work backward from the given answers. You hardly even have to know what you're doing; just plug the answers into the question. I don't think any of my classmates or teachers ever figured that out. They just thought I was smart for finishing early with 100% correct. Which, in a way, I guess I was, but not the way they thought.
  - ootachi 15y ago
    "(E) None of the above" is an easy way to solve that problem and is commonly used on standardized tests.
- Natsu 15y ago
  He said that he got 10 out of 60 right. Unlucky or not, I hope it was a choice of five or six to get a score like that.
- ootachi 15y ago
  You can penalize guessing by subtracting a small fraction of a point for each missed problem (but not for those left blank). Easy to do, and with overwhelming statistical probability those who guess on everything will end up with a score close to zero.
swah 15y ago
Can we see the test?
martin1b 15y ago
Immediately, this story looks like link bait. Even the title misses the point of what he's trying to say, true or not. Even more entertaining is all of the discussions of those who have 'real' degrees and who are 'not like this man'. They believe he must be a ignorant bureaucrat who lucked his way to the top. They believe it's inconceivable that schools are to blame, even though many are sold a bill of goods from schools that degrees set the social classes apart from others and they really are more human than others. While in fact, schools have become one of the most clever profit centers ever created. While there, you are indoctrinated to believe only those going through here are human. So, when you go out to the world, only hire those from here (plug for more school business!) Remember, some of the most financial successful people in the US, in the world, do not/did not have degrees > Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuck, the list goes on. Although, my personal believe is financial success is not the true success (even stated by Gates recently) This belief that you must be part of academia to be innovative and this near prejudice of non-academia citizens is appalling. Learn what this man is saying rather that trying to prove him wrong and self-justifying. Yes, we can count, read, apply studied principles learned from books and media. His point is, are we the principle authors? Are we the ones innovating, improving society by our ideas, helping our fellow man/woman by our work? If not, perhaps something IS missing from our schools. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Let's fix it and make our world a better place.
nuje 15y ago
"By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. " Sounds more like a disaster from the rest of the biosphere's POV.
kevinalexbrown 15y ago
Note that this is a person who makes budget decisions. Whenever people tell me math isn't important, I can't help but compare it to spelling/grammar mistakes: a member of the school board would never send out a professional document that had spelling errors, but a math error, hey, what's the problem? It's just the budget.
richieb 15y ago
Have you guys considered that the test could have been written by someone who does not understand math at all? My wife is a teacher and occasionally I look at the crap questions that come on standardized tests and I am appalled. I saw a 8th grade textbook that explained how compute square roots by hand - but the algorithm was wrong. It only worked for examples in the book.
tyohn 15y ago
Wow - after reading the comments on this thread I have to say that I am thoroughly disappointed in the HN community. If you replaced the word math(ematics) with a religion of your choice you'd see the same kind of fanaticism you often see from religious zealots. The God of math has spoken: obey, conform or be cast out...There is nothing other than Me. All other gods require Me to make them whole - in fact you can't even think without Me... Now go forth and preach my wisdom because there is no other wisdom other than Me.
Mc_Big_G 15y ago
School, in general, isn't for learning shit. It's for learning how to learn. He obviously knows how to learn things, has learned the things he needs to know and could (re)learn the material covered by the test. The fact that he failed a test covering material he hasn't (re)learned doesn't mean a fucking thing.
drblast 15y ago
The fact that someone is comfortable saying "all of my friends haven't used math in their successful careers, therefore math isn't useful and shouldn't be stressed and tested" is the exact reason that math should be stressed and tested. This is hindsight bias. Knowing math helps cure you of the affliction of hindsight bias. The fact is, you don't know what career a person will end up choosing, and math is important (as is art, music, philosophy, chemistry, physics) in a subset of them. Therefore, if you want ANYONE to be able to do the math for you later on, you need to expose everyone to it to find the future mathematicians. Not everyone grows up to be a writer, but we all read Shakespeare. Is that a waste of time? Only in hindsight. And maybe, just maybe, this guy isn't all that smart and the test is valid. But of course, the article doesn't address that, as it's more interesting to write about anecdotal evidence and drama for the innumerate audience.
zephjc 15y ago
Are his degrees in psychology, sociology, pedagogy, political science and a teaching qualification?
1100110101 15y ago
What is being tested for? And who decides that? What are their "credentials"?
teyc 15y ago
The man on the school board is drawing the wrong conclusions. His role today is one of management, and he has no need for anything beyond basic maths. However, there would have been a time when mastery of things technical meant a promotion, or an opportunity to supervise younger graduates. I know of many brilliant managers who no longer have their technical chops. For all we may know, his degrees may be in Biology and Marine Science. It means that his profession would be one that doesn't have to worry about differential equations, or chemical reactions, or American History. However, there is an interesting point whether too much irrelevant material is taught at school. I hear this in universities too, that professors keep adding material to the curriculum. I don't have an answer for that. I think schools focus too much on abstract thinking, and too little on effectual thinking.
grot 15y ago
tl;dr Successful man fails 10th grade standardized test, concludes that success is not correlated with being able to do math. Aside from the obvious logical/statistical falacy of making an overreaching conclusion from a sample size of one, and various other illogical claims("if this guy doesn't need math, why does anyone??") this article assumes that the purpose of education is developing vocational skills. Why should that be? Kids should learn to appreciate the world, get exposure to different things. There's no reason to make them hunker down at age 5 and start preparing for their future careers. If they don't like math, that's fine. Likewise for history, science, whatever. But it's a shame for anyone to miss out on the beauty inherent in all of these subjects.
oelewapperke 15y ago
From the article : His "electoral" successes ... much time for himself ... Ok, politicians do not keep their knowledge of science & math up to date enough to beat little kids at math. News at 11. Let's try senior management next ! In all fairness while it's a foregone conclusion 6 year olds will beat politicians and managers at math, I wonder who does best : senior management or politicians. What would be interesting is to see if engineers would do better, well they'd do better than politicians of course, but they'd have advantages and disadvantages compared to kids. They have experience, lots of practice, but also a lot of practice that would be largely irrelevant. Still at my workplace, I'm pretty sure most of our researchers would probably kick the asses of most phd candidates in the math department. But that doesn't apply for the whole engineering department. But how is it a surprise that someone whose job it is to bankrupt America and deny he's doing it doesn't measure up math-wise. That's probably an asset for politicians.
dragonsky 15y ago
Education kills the joy of learning! Situation: I have three children, current ages 11, 10 and 5, parents are University educated and engaged in the children's learning. The progression of learning for each child has been: Age 3: Starting to learn to read at home. Enjoying being read to, and discovering that letters and words have meaning. Starting to understand counting, and a one to one relationship between a number and a quantity of objects. Learning that numbers of objects can be added and subtracted. Really excited to learn, and will try new things if they give a chance to learn. Age 5: Starting formal schooling, with pre-school/prep. Getting readers to take home, very excited at the time that is being spent being presented with new words. Fully understanding numbers and how to count things. fascinated by the idea of infinity and zero. Learning the concept of fractions (of apple). Loves learning. Age 5.5; half a year into formal schooling.... I'm board at school... Parents still introducing new ideas at home and encouraging reading of material to extend ability... Trying to introduce new maths concepts to encourage interest. Age 6: Bringing home standard worksheets for maths and literacy, some conflict to get homework completed... Not really interested in school. Loves reading, not interested in maths. Age 8: Don't want to go to school, Don't want to do homework... What is going on? Just wants to spend time reading. Loves an argument about the physical world. Age 10: Discipline problems at school, no interest. Loves reading, loves computer games.. Still loves a good argument... Age 11: OK We have a problem, High school in one year... he's missing a bunch of the basics What happened? Looks like lots of remedial work over the Christmas Holidays. How is it that kids who are engaged and excited to be learning at five years old can so quickly have this interest buried when confronted by formal learning? How am I to prevent this from happening to my youngest (currently 5yrs) as well? She is very bright, some would say "gifted", I don't want here to start to hate learning as well. There has to be a better way! Digging deeper and talking to the older kids it quickly becomes obvious that they do enjoy learning, they just can't be stuffed doing the boring repetitive stuff once they have grasped the concept being covered. We go over maths concepts at home... They get it, they are interested in it, they just don't want to do it at school. Looking through the kids school books it becomes obvious that what they have been doing all year is not "learning", but more "drilling". Now I'm not an education expert, but I do understand the value of repetitive drill when practising to become an expert at a particular procedure or action, it has great value if you are a dancer, gymnast or swimmer... I'm just not sure at how good it is at instilling enthusiasm for learning and an ability to take what has been learnt and apply it to new situations. My understanding is that the current methods of education came about shortly after the industrial revolution in Europe, and were a way of training people in a standard way that would make them suitable for employment as workers in factories and offices. We are no longer living in industrial Europe c1850, surly we should be looking at better ways of educating our young.
swdunlop 15y ago
That's a safe position to take for the readership of the Washington Post: "kids don't need all that education -- we're doing fine, despite forgetting basic operations and failing reading comprehension."
losethos 15y ago
My shrinks try to paint me into stories. They thought I would relate to a story on uncredentialed people. No. Now, they think I would relate to this. No. I have a fearsome intellect and memory. Run away. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\DARWIN.TXT the most important step towards the formation of a true, picture-forming eye; for we have only to place the naked extremity of the optic nerve, which in some of the lower animals lies deeply buried in the body, and in some near the surface, at the right distance from the concentrating apparatus, and an image will be formed on it. In the great class of the Articulata, we may start from an optic nerve simply coated with pigment, the latter sometimes forming a sort of pupil, but destitute of lens or ------ Leo was my lab partner in Bio 2 in high school. He went off to med school. At one point (visiting while inmed school) the topic of "fovea" came-up. He thought it was the blind spot. I said it was where density of cones is high in the center of vision. God says... bank just_lovely can_you_hear_me_now goods Greece take_your_pick Vegas You_fix_it just_between_us honesty on_occassion economy and_then_what I'm_gonna_smack_someone a_screw_loose refreshing I_could_be_wrong adultery energy it's_my_world abnormal vermin liberal sloth hang_in_there face_palm and_then_what piety I_don't_care laziness these_cans_are_defective frown fortitude wont_you_be_my_neighbor bizarre crazy how_bout_it nerd cursing where's_the_love later where's_the_love Wow you_talkin'_to_me
jacquesm 15y ago
There is a very simple explanation for this: If you are out of the school system long enough then you will forget 'basic' stuff unless you exercise it regularly. It doesn't mean that you're dumb, it just means that you haven't flexed that particular muscle for long enough now that you may simply have to re-learn those things or you will have to invent them on the spot from first principles. The brain is great at throwing out unused (unreferenced) memories. Given proper preparation (like the ones students go through), say a couple of years of relevant re-education I'm sure the author could pass the test.

322 points by joejohnson 15y ago

On detailing the contents of the test to his business peers: "Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession." Close to none of the history, RE, French, geography, music, phys ed, or even science (heck, nearly every subject) I took in high school has proven directly necessary for my profession. But the standardized tests aren't for adults, they're for students. (Should we expect to pass their agility/phys-ed tests too? :-)) Being able to learn these things, and developing the skills necessary to learn them, is a worthwhile experience and hopefully provides a lot of the inspiration, brain-shaping, and knowledge exposure necessary to get by as an educated adult, even if you can't pass the tests to some arbitrary standard. I barely remember any of the French I learnt, but I can't help but feel the exposure has given me a better insight into, and a better ear for, my own language. It's a similar story for most of those other subjects.

jerf 15y ago
The problem is that math education is not only not relevant to your career, it's also not relevant to your future education! #include <lockharts_lament.pdf> Students are correct and so is this board member, math education as it stands today really is worthless. It is of no value. It has no practical value and it has no theoretical value. And if you think otherwise it is likely because you managed to escape from the system, possibly with a four-year degree in computer science or other relevant field, with little more than a glancing introduction to actual mathematics, which are arguably one of the most valuable things mankind has ever produced. There's no need for the cognitive dissonance necessary to insist that math as learned in school is incredibly value even as you, if you search your heart, know better. All you've got in its favor is that you've been told its valuable, so by golly it must be. It's not. It's taught terribly and all the value has been sucked out of it. http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
- dpark 15y ago
  What math did you learn in high school that you believe is so worthless? My school taught algebra, trig, and calculus. Some of these are useful for everyday life and some are useful for academia.
  - jerf 15y ago
    Read the linked PDF. Schools teach calculation, not mathematics. Some of the calculations occasionally manage to be useful, but if you developed a mathematically mature mind it sure didn't come from your schooling. If you did not take multiple classes that consisted almost entirely of writing many proofs per week, you never took mathematics. If all you did was problems 6-32 evens due next Tuesday, that's not math.
    - dpark 15y ago
      Putting kids through years of proofs would not improve the situation. They would still call it dumb. They would still hate it. They'd probably hate it even more, because it's harder. Moreover it's necessary to teach kids the basics before you teach them advanced concepts. Despite what the article might have you think, we do teach musical notation first. Kids learn that as they are first learning to play. Composition is reserved for the university. Also, the inefficiency of math education in schools does not mean that what they teach is worthless. Certainly they could do better. And maybe making teenagers do hundreds of proofs would be better. But at the end of they day, the student who took calculus in high school is better prepared for college (and a scientific career) than a student who did not.
      - jordan0day 15y ago
        I think jerf isn't really phrasing his position in a palatable way, even though he's right. Since he's referencing Lockhart, I'll go with that. The crux of Lockhart's argument is that math is actually really beautiful, intriguing, and exciting, and the legalistic, browbeating manner in which it is currently taught basically takes all the beauty and excitement out of it. Assuming your high school was like mine, when you learned algebra, trig, and calculus, you were probably taught a few of the whats, some of the hows, but almost none of the whys. It's only in upper-level undergrad and graduate courses that the beauty really starts to be taught in earnest. You're absolutely right to say that putting kids through years of proofs would probably make them hate math even more. Again, that's largely due to the way proofs are taught, especially at the secondary school level. They're all just a bunch of rules listed one after another, "doing a proof" is basically like explaining all the rules of chess to someone who's never played before, and then asking them to put the board in a particular state, thirty-two moves into a game. It ends up as a bunch of trial-and-error guessing... it's frustrating and it's boring. Sure, there are a few savants or folks whose brains are wired in such a way that it's either easy or interesting, but it's just painful for most folks, because there's no intrigue. It's not until three or four years into college that most people are exposed to proofs as an intellectually stimulating game, where intuition plays an even bigger role than "looking at a list of rules and deciding which one fits". But we don't get that in high school. We're not taught how to intuit something and then map the rules to our intuition. In fact, we're usually taught that this is wrong!

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

josefresco 15y ago

I know this will come off as critical of the test, but maybe the real criticism should be directed at the institutions where this particular adult received his degrees. Maybe both systems are flawed.

noonespecial 15y ago

"Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession." I know I'm biased. Geek is as geek does, but $deity almighty am I tired of that line. If simple math isn't valuable to your profession, it might at least be worth a think about how valuable your "profession" might be in the first place. Some of the huge systemic problems we are facing right now may have something to do with the fact that we have entirely too many professions where it really doesn't matter if one could master simple math.

narkee 15y ago
I think that's the difference between academic education, and vocational training. I've made this point before, but people often conflate the two, and are unable to separate them in their minds. What this person is saying is "these things do not train a person to perform these specific sets of tasks". That's vocational training, and there's nothing wrong with that. Academic education, on the other hand, is about learning to think, about history, rhetoric, science, and all sorts of things that aren't directly applicable to a particular job, but provide a necessary foundation for critical thinking and enlightenment, so to speak. What our system really needs is two streams. An academic stream, for those who choose, and a vocational stream, which is what a large proportion of students and seemingly educators like this guy want. This way, everyone gets what they want. Students truly interested in learning things not directly related to performing a job will have the benefit of a more supportive learning environment, and students who just want to get a job will also attain the required vocational training. It's really win-win.
- gnaritas 15y ago
  Our system already has those two streams, has practically forever. People still abuse the college stream as if it were vocational training.
  - absconditus 15y ago
    Unfortunately they are winning and academia is being dumbed down so that everyone can obtain a degree.

dos1 15y ago

This makes me angry. How did this man get to his current position? I can't possibly understand how he did not know any of the math questions. I'm sure even I would have forgotten some of the trig, but to not know ANY? But I hear people saying, "his job didn't require much in the way of math." Granted, but I'm sure his job requires lots of reading, and he got a 62%? The real tragedy is that this man was able to rise as high as he did, and our current system supports it.

Newgy 15y ago
The man is most likely an incompetent bureaucrat, rewarded by a unionized education system that values seniority and paper degrees.
- alec 15y ago
  It says in the second paragraph he's an elected official.
  - stickfigure 15y ago
    Is that better or worse?
  - dhugiaskmak 15y ago
    I believe that sentence was in reference to his school board elections. Later in the article he says "I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities."
    - davidhansen 15y ago
      Which is quite meaningless. Organizations of that size will have at least a few data analysts, data mining specialists either in-house or on contract, and tons of tools created to help C-level management understand the complex data the organization generates. My cursory understanding of this man's profession is to make friends, maintain relationships, and occasionally "understand" the pretty charts that the data analysts produce for him. It's no wonder he doesn't need much in the way of intellectual horsepower to execute his responsibilities.

losethos 15y ago

E.E. mag1@ang1 * mag2@ang2 = (mag1*mag2)@(ang1+ang2) Do circle arc with start point and length. Cannot use x^2+y^2=r^2, but can use rotation formula I just posted. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\PILGRIM.TXT ssed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life; but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise" [Micah 7:8]; Christian's victory over Apollyon and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceivi ---- http://www.losethos.com/files/SimStrSetup.exe http://www.losethos.com/files/SimStrSetup.exe Key:A18-W50-U50 Die Satan! God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\2CITIES.TXT I am not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can't see." "Of course, it has been kept for you." "Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?" "And sleeping soundly." "That's right; all safe and well! I don't know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us si

dmbaggett 15y ago

Can someone who actually knows tell us what kinds of math questions were on the test? It's hard to come to any conclusions without any details, and the article didn't seem to include any pointers to the test itself. My personal axe to grind is that number theory and basic finance, rather than calculus, should be taught to teenagers. And in my own US public schooling, I found the teachers completely unable to provide any intuition whatsoever behind calculus. It wasn't until two decades later, when I was studying computational finance for fun, that I actually really understood integration as something other than symbol manipulation. Seriously, this whole "teach to the test" mentality may get kids to answer correctly by rote over the short term, but doesn't help them to learn much in the long run -- at least if they're intuitive learners.

iamandrus 15y ago
Junior in college-prep high school here. The math questions are really easy: basic algebra, geometry, and trig. I can do it in my sleep, and I barely studied for that test and did well. I agree with you fully, kids need to be taught based on what they want to do. I've wanted to be an entrepreneur for a while now and the only class that interests me in school is journalism (I enjoy writing). The math class is a joke, English is boring, and the rest of the classes are boring.
- gnaritas 15y ago
  After 20 years of not using basic algebra, geometry, or trig, you'll forget it too.
  - radiowave 15y ago
    Agreed. I'm taking the online Stanford AI-class at the moment, and it's been half my lifetime since I used some of the necessary skills. Even just re-arranging a formula is slow going for me at the moment. But I am improving.
  - dhoe 15y ago
    It's very hard to imagine you'll forget it, but it really is true. I used to be able to solve integrals while being too drunk to walk, but nowadays basic trig would require substantial effort for me. Time does that.

rdouble 15y ago

I'm skeptical this happened. The guy is anonymous, the town and state are unnamed, and there are no examples of the test questions.

jxcole 15y ago
I was particularly annoyed that though they mentioned he has degrees, they never said what the degrees are in.
baby 15y ago
Exactly. I'm sorry but the whole article is full of . How is it the Top submission on HN right now...
lisper 15y ago
Also hard to believe that he had to guess the answer for every single math question.

talmand 15y ago

I think it's a matter of being up-to-date on the material, which he himself sort of admits to. I learned a great deal of things in high school and college that if I were asked to take a test today I'm fairly sure I would fail. The only way I would pass is if I was able to spend some time to prepare. But that's the thing, what I got out of my education was HOW TO LEARN a subject. I'm confident that you could pick nearly any subject that I know little about and, with a proper amount of time, I could become somewhat proficient at it. The level of my ability will, of course, depend upon the subject and various factors to do with me as a person. Standardized tests are a tricky thing, they are needed to determine a student's progress but at the same time they assume that all students are the same. To me that's the problem with education systems in the US, they assume that they can teach all kids the same thing the same way with the same results. As a father of two children with completely different personalities, attitudes and interests, I can tell you treating kids as emotionless puppets to force-feed information to is a path to failure.

randomdata 15y ago
"I'm confident that you could pick nearly any subject that I know little about and, with a proper amount of time, I could become somewhat proficient at it." Wouldn't it be fair to say that is basic human nature, not a result of your schooling? I remember already successfully jumping in and picking up new subjects on my own before I even entered high school, and I imagine much of the HN crowd were too. Though, I admit I may come with some bias. I grew up on a farm where I was out there at a young age trying to solve real problems alongside my father and grandfather. They valued my insight into the problems as much as their own. If learning how to learn is a skill that is taught, that is where I learned it.
- talmand 15y ago
  Yes, it would be fair. Especially since I did mention the level of ability would be influenced by me as a person. I should have expanded on that. But, as a human, you do have the ability to learn but a proper education does go a long way in helping you discover how to learn a subject. Instead of goofing around on a subject for ten years when you finally figure it out, a proper education lets you learn the subject much quicker and more efficiently. After all, as a basic example, it would be rather difficult to learn physics if you can't read the papers written by the smart people who came before you.

popplebop 15y ago

>It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have [...] 15 credit hours toward a doctorate This statement is suggestive of where the problem lies. A doctoral thesis is supposed to be an original piece of work. The idea of assigning credit hours towards it is meaningless. We don't honour creative people for the number of hours they put in but for the works they leave behind.

scott_s 15y ago
I don't think that statement is suggestive of any problems. Most doctoral programs have course requirements that have to be met along with the original research requirement (the dissertation). He probably means he's taken some of the courses that are at the beginning of his doctoral program.
jollyjerry 15y ago
I strongly agree. The learning process takes as long as it takes. What might take one person an hour, could take another person a week. But when it comes to education funding in general, the easy way out is to set a easy to quantify metric and use that as the yardstick
kahawe 15y ago
And on top of that even more questionable what this having 15 credit hours towards a doctorate are supposed to tell us? That he wasn't good enough to finish it? And more specifically what it is supposed to tell us with regards to children's education? So, let's assume he is a highly trained expert in 1 or 2 fields and then the doctorate is like putting a needle-like focus on one (comparatively) tiny area of those fields and going in deep all the way. This, again, has nothing to do with children's education... it's like complaining that a brain surgeon cannot even pass basic school-level French grammar. All this is flying too close to the "why do kids have to learn all this crap like math, art, music, history?? all they wanna do is become rich managers and bankers or CEOs anyway!" argument.
barry-cotter 15y ago
It's probably a J.D.,Psy.D.,Pharma.D. or some other "professional doctorate" abombination. I blame the US for this hideous dilution of the title, and qualification of Doctor. While being a young curmudgeon I will also condemn the practice of M.D.s being called Doctor.

jarin 15y ago

Hmm, yeah I'm not really so sure that the problem with our educational system is that the tests are too hard.

tryitnow 15y ago

In most organizations corporate politics and personality play a greater role than ability. This will change with the continuing revolution in data and the data driven decision making it makes possible. Eventually corporations that reward politics and personality will become weaker and those that reward data driven decision making will become stronger (except in cases where the corporation can depend on government handouts, e.g. Wall Street).

stfu 15y ago
Absolutely agree about the first part but I don't see that this necessarily has to be a bad thing. No matter what kind of business you run, the seller knows almost all the time more about the product/service/etc than the buyer. And as long as you don't have perfectly comparable products markets are far from ideal. Therefore the individual relationships between people matter because you can never fully quantify human relationships.

kahawe 15y ago

> "I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities." ...which all requires a completely different skill-set than what kids are being taught in school. Politics, opportunism, cold-blooded back stabbing if necessary and clever PR being just a few of those. Also, when he actually was in school, the curriculum was probably (at least somewhat) different, different tests and questions. He cannot really base an educated opinion on the school system and standardized tests from just that alone - leaving what you personally feel about the school system out of the equation for a second.

raganwald 15y ago

A lot of the criticiscm of the article seems to be missing the point it makes. The author and subject are criticizing the standardized tests as having been put in place without evidence linking its scores to outcomes. Neither the test nor its champions have any accountability for it. To refute this, we either have to come up with a way of measuring whether streaming students based on their scores is a benefit, or we have to come clean and say it's arbitrary. Saying that high school doesn't teach you anything vocational but you learn how to learn is interesting, but to answer the OP directly we need some evidence showing that students are indeed learning to learn. Otherwise, it's just faith. We should be especially wary of survivor bias hre. Most folks here are educated and pleased with their career arc. It's easy to assume from n=1 that our education is the reason. But many who took the same classes aren't doing so well. Maybe our education isn't the reason for our success. One criticism of IQ tests is that they measure the ability to pass IQ tests. Do we have the data to refute the accusation that standardized tests measure only the ability to pass standardized tests?

dpark 15y ago
I would be shocked if the department of education were not tracking outcome at some level. The question is, what should they be tracking? My guess is that they track how scores are correlated with success at the university level. Personally, I think that's a reasonable metric. "Learning how to learn" would imply more success in an environment dedicated to learning. "How useful is this in the professional world" is a pretty crappy metric for deciding what to teach, because the common set of useful topics is pretty small. We could easily stop public education at junior high or earlier if that's the goal. I've never, not once, needed anything from history class, or biology class, or social studies, or literature class in my professional life. Most people have probably never needed algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. But I'm pretty certain I would be worse off if school stopped at age 10, or if I just repeated the same stuff for 8 years after that.
wanorris 15y ago
Your point is well taken, but I can't help feeling that the original post and this entire discussion are ultimately worthless without specifics and examples regarding the test what the original author was complaining about. Yes, we should confirm our biases with studies, but at an even more basic level, we don't even know what we're arguing about here.

tibbon 15y ago

Despite all the comments about this guy and his incompetence, it might be even better if a public version of these tests were made available (and could be graded automatically) for the public to take and review. Instead of speculating about this guy's ability, of which I know nothing, I'd rather just take it myself and then draw my own conclusions. That being said, I was always very good at taking tests, even if I had no idea on the subject matter. Unless you put in "none of the above" as a choice, I could pass almost any test. It wasn't until the LSAT that I had any problems at all with a test. Here's a novel idea: publicly commented and curated testing system. Wikipedia-like. People write questions, other people can take the test, leave comments, suggestions, etc and those can be factored in to build a smarter and better test.

po 15y ago

For the most part, I think the point of school - elementary through college - is to learn how to learn. Yes, we try to teach students things that will be useful in their careers but I think it's more important to teach students things that are hard. It is the process of learning to internalize difficult concepts that makes you 'college ready'. If you don't use that knowledge for your profession, then yes you will forget it. However, if you don't use it for your profession, it doesn't mean learning it was useless. I would be more worried if he still sucked at math after preparing for the test for a semester or two. I have a degree in Chemistry and yes, that knowledge is slowly slipping out of my mind. However, the skills I learned while learning chemistry - logical thinking, ability to memorize and recall, building a mental model of abstract concepts - these stay with me.

apgwoz 15y ago

I can understand doing badly at the math portions, but the reading portions? Presumably he needs to be reading and comprehending what he's reading in his day to day job responsibilities. Why can I understand the math difficulties? Well, I too forget stuff that I don't use very often. I'd have to go look up the all the trig identities if I needed them. But, I wouldn't take this test blind without any refresher. The advantage "kids" have when they take these standardized tests is that it's very close to fresh in their minds, or at least relatively fresh. That has to count for something.

baby 15y ago

Link to the tests? Because really, I don't want to say anything before seeing the test.

Technopia 15y ago
Second that.. If anybody has links to the test, post them.

tokenadult 15y ago

From the submitted article: "A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do." Oh, well, that's the problem. He is on a public school school board. School boards have been known to have adverse selection for dullness for more than a century. Here is Mark Twain's harsh comment on that: "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards." -- Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1903) 2:295 Other than that, the author of the submitted article simply describes the school board member as a "success" who makes money. The genius of the American political and economic system is that people who desire money more than they desire deep understanding can often achieve that goal. America is a wealthy country, and by world standards a lot of Americans are more successful than what you would expect if you look at the success of people in developing countries who know more and who work harder. The submitted article is by a guest author, but it is part of a regular column series in the Washington Post that takes the consistent line that criticisms of the United States school system for inefficiency and waste of resources are misplaced. As an American who has lived overseas, spending the first part of the 1980s in a developing country, I can't agree with that party line. United States schools could do a LOT better, particularly in teaching mathematics in elementary school, http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0805829091 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic... and while it may be that many current United States standardized tests in core subjects have poor validity (being designed by state governments more for political than for educational purposes), the answer is NOT to throw away reality checks on how the school system is doing. Rather, the answer is to align reality checks on United States schools more closely with testing programs that identify the most successful countries, http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf and to look to the practices of the most successful countries for policy guidance on how to reform United States schools. http://www.merga.net.au/documents/RP182006.pdf http://www.merga.net.au/documents/RP182006.pdf It is still possible for United States school to improve a lot simply by bringing in better management practices, http://edpro.stanford.edu/hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads/Hanushek%202009%20CNTP%20ch%208.pdf http://edpro.stanford.edu/hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads... and efforts to improve United States education shouldn't be sidetracked by a single anecdote about the occasional well-off school board member who has limited academic ability.

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memset 15y ago

Possibly I missed it, but is there somewhere we can see the test itself? It seems almost silly to try and discuss the pros and cons of testing, or of this gentleman's position in society, without seeing the exam.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

Here is a question for everyone who agrees with this editorial: Suppose that this man is correct - that the material being taught/tested is useless and unnecessary for a successful career. In that case, shouldn't we stop teaching it, remove the material from the curriculum, allow students to graduate a year or two earlier and fire a bunch of useless teachers? If not, why not?

esrauch 15y ago
There are almost certainly people (laborers?) who are successful without having any knowledge taught in school at all. Modern schools explicitly aren't vocational, they don't even claim to strive to teach skills that can be directly applied to jobs, the point is that it is useful to understand how to learn and think about things well. They also provide exposure and opportunity; there are plenty of jobs that do require these skills (or more accurately, require skills for which learning these skills is a prerequisite), and if we didn't teach them to everyone then the children of laborers would end up as laborers even when they are capable and interested in being rocket scientists.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  You are disagreeing with the premise - that the skills being measured are not necessary. I nominally agree with you. But I'm asking people who agree with the premise whether they also agree with the logical conclusion - if the tested skills are unnecessary for most/all, why not stop teaching them, fire teachers and reduce spending on education commensurately?
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  - esrauch 15y ago
    I did make a claim about how it makes sense even if the skills aren't directly applicable to any profession. I understood the claim to be "the skills being measure are not necessary" to mean "you don't need the skills to be successful" which I do agree with. That is a completely different claim than the idea that that the skills are useless, the skills are only useful to some (significant) subset of the population, and I argue that we should teach them even to people that they will be useless for to force feed them an opportunity that they might otherwise have ignored as a possibility.

jellicle 15y ago

It's easy to fail a test if you go in deciding to fail it, because you have a already-extant political bias against testing.

absconditus 15y ago

This article is superficial and conflates several issues.

beloch 15y ago

On the test-taker's failure: In order to perform well on a math test you don't always have to really understand the fundamental principles behind what you're doing. Sometimes you can get away with wrote memorization. e.g. You can come up with equations for a lot of things yourself if you understand Gaussian distributions but, if you're being prepped for an exam by teachers who know roughly what's on it, they might just give you equations to memorize for the things that are likely to be asked. You may perform nearly as well as someone with deep understanding of the material, but you are unlikely to remember those equations long after you've taken the test! It is quite likely that the person who took and failed this test was the sort of math student who was able to get by memorizing what he was told to without really understanding things. If he had written the same test in high-school he likely would have done much better because he would have been prepared for it with memorized methods and equations that he never understood and has long since forgotten. On teaching methods: When teachers teach students to pass tests, short-cuts like wrote memorization tend to happen. The useful knowledge learned from this kind of teaching is minimal. Unfortunately, many teachers are unable to teach the deep meaning behind mathematics because they were taught by wrote memorization themselves. When they were assigned to teach math class they probably had to look everything up themselves since, like our test-taker, they never understood the basis behind it and have forgotten most of what they memorized. It seems that we must overcome the problem of educating teachers before they can overcome the problem of educating students.

bradleyland 15y ago
You hit upon two important points, but I'd take the conclusion further: A) Our current evaluation methods don't tell us whether a student is simply memorizing steps or learning the subject matter. B) When your primary evaluation critera is to pass a standardized test, the system will optimize to achieve that goal. Since we know that standardized tests don't really evaluate understanding, we have a vicious cycle on our hands.
- sethg 15y ago
  I would add that it is possible to make standardized tests that teach more than memorization, but those tests will cost more to construct, norm, and grade. Schools are caught between the imperatives of testing and budget-cutting.

pandaman 15y ago

I am willing to bet that none of the subject's degrees has been in a real science or math.

refurb 15y ago

This is sort of silly. I'm sure if the man actually prepared for the test, he would have done much better. Hell, I've taken standardized tests, gotten very good scores, but if I had to take them RIGHT NOW without any preparation, I'd probably fail them.

mikealle233 15y ago

The man's multiple degrees are meaningless without knowing where they're from. We live in a world where literally anyone can enroll in the University of Phoenix. In fact, I've heard many people in the education field do so because union contracts guarantee them raises, regardless of where a degree is from. That one man rose to power in government and obtained degrees, despite poor math and reading skills, doesn't surprise me much less outrage me.

patio11 15y ago

Success, education, intelligence, and credentials are all available independently of each other. If they were binary, you could find all 16 combinations in spades. (Probably not uniformly distributed, but I'm sure I could come up with anecdotes for SeIc or SEiC or any other combination if I needed an editorial written.) With particular relevance to this article, "I am successful and well-credentialed, ergo, if a test suggests that I am not educated or intelligent, that test must be faulty" is not by itself very persuasive to me.

TheCapn 15y ago
Although I agree with you I do find it fishy to say this man holds multiple degrees, with one (at least) being in the sciences. If he's capable of defending that degree then he theoretically should have a grasp on the kind of mathematics are being thrown in Grade 10. If the grade 10 mathematics are some odd-ball thing that has no real relevance (and thus the last time he saw it was grade 10) it points at a bigger issue. If my memory serves me, grade 10 was algebra almost exclusively. It wasn't until my grade 11/12 courses that other topics like limits and matrices came into play (and those are still simple by my terms). What I'm trying to say is, although intelligence and success are separate entities the test should be somewhat correlated with his university education. If what high schools are doing is NOT preparing students for real world or post secondary life then what are they doing?
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- zbuc 15y ago
  Somebody posted a sample question above, asking students to determine if certain triangles in a set are congruent. I don't remember the definition of "congruent". I graduated with honors in Computer Science, and took many math classes along the way and did very well, and the topic of "congruency" never came up beyond high school mathematics. There's definitely something weird going on here. I imagine that it will be tempting for people on Hacker News to argue that they know the definition of "congruent" and it's not a difficult question and I should turn in my degree, but whatever.

scotty79 15y ago

I think that schools are not so much about learning stuff as about training and testing ability to learn dull things that you don't like and/or care about. That's invaluable skill in life. Most people forget 90% of things they've learnt in school after 5-10 years after finishing. If you take a look at the things you were learning in college, you'd be amazed how much of even interesting and seemingly useful things somewhat associated with what you currently do, you can't even remember learning.

ejgejg 15y ago

The problem is the author went to school too many years ago and missed the ubiquitous "how to take standardized tests" curriculum. These days kids are taught from kindergarten on how to take standardized tests. My sixth grader can look at a test question and narrow it down to two answers before even reading the question. And for math, he doesn't solve the problem, he plugs the two answers in to see which is right. I teach math at a community college and it is common to have students test into math classes that they don't have the basic prerequisites for - just because they test well.

bwooceli 15y ago

I could not agree less with the conclusion the board member came to. In my experience, the general education is dual purpose. There is surely a foundation-building aspect to it, where the student's body of general knowledge is expanded. But more importantly, the process of learning builds discipline and habits for success. A successful educator and educational system balances these two purposes.

peterwwillis 15y ago

Before I went to high school (maybe 8th grade?) I took some kind of test to determine what kind of career I was best suited for. It said the least likely position was computer programming because my math skills were so poor. I was already programming in C and Perl at this time. (I'm still not a "real" programmer; I learned early on that sysadmin was easier and pays more on average. I now regret going the easy route)

gmichnikov 15y ago

I tutor all sorts of math students, from middle school and high school students to people preparing for the GRE and GMAT. The most common question I hear, by far: "Why does any of this matter? Will I ever use it again?" Until 8th grade or so (pre-algebra), students learn math that (I think) everyone should know. After that, it can be hard to give a good answer. Why does someone who is not interested in studying math after high school need to know the quadratic formula? Why does someone studying for the GMAT need to know anything at all about geometry? Math curricula simply cover the wrong things (and as a result math tests test the wrong things). Take a look at these two sample 10th grade math tests (the level taken by the guy in the article): http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2011/release/g10math.pdf http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2011/release/g10math.pdf http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/online/2009/taks_g10_math/10math.htm http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/o... There is TONS of focus on geometry and coordinate geometry. There is NO focus on math concepts that are much more important (in my view), like basic finance, basic statistics, basic probability. These are things people need to know in order to be informed citizens, understand policy, process things in the news, rent/buy a home, take on college loans, etc. None of this means that tests are bad of course. I think tests are, generally, a good way to understand what people know (in math). Finally, the guy says: "The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly." If he really knew the answers to NONE of them, I have a hard time taking him seriously. I love how he gives himself credit for managing to guess 10 correctly. These tests are mostly multiple choice!

rukkyg 15y ago
These questions are so easy. Half of them are so basic that you do not even need to think before you do some kind of multiplication or addition. An adult cannot do ANY of these??? I call bullshit on at least part of the article.
Tichy 15y ago
Doesn't the quadratic equation pop up all the time if you try to solve equations? Which you might do now and then, if you could remember how to solve equations, which is probably also a negative for most people :-( But definitely for personal finance I think quadratic stuff might pop up now and then. Exponential stuff definitely pops up...

nene 15y ago

What struck me most was having multiple-choice answers on a math test... WTF? You shouldn't be able to just guess the answers one-out-of-four. When I was in school (not in US) there never was such a thing. You simply solve the problem and write an answer, which usually is a simple number.

drblast 15y ago
One of the easiest ways to take a multiple choice math test is to work backward from the given answers. You hardly even have to know what you're doing; just plug the answers into the question. I don't think any of my classmates or teachers ever figured that out. They just thought I was smart for finishing early with 100% correct. Which, in a way, I guess I was, but not the way they thought.
- ootachi 15y ago
  "(E) None of the above" is an easy way to solve that problem and is commonly used on standardized tests.
Natsu 15y ago
He said that he got 10 out of 60 right. Unlucky or not, I hope it was a choice of five or six to get a score like that.
ootachi 15y ago
You can penalize guessing by subtracting a small fraction of a point for each missed problem (but not for those left blank). Easy to do, and with overwhelming statistical probability those who guess on everything will end up with a score close to zero.

swah 15y ago

Can we see the test?

martin1b 15y ago

Immediately, this story looks like link bait. Even the title misses the point of what he's trying to say, true or not. Even more entertaining is all of the discussions of those who have 'real' degrees and who are 'not like this man'. They believe he must be a ignorant bureaucrat who lucked his way to the top. They believe it's inconceivable that schools are to blame, even though many are sold a bill of goods from schools that degrees set the social classes apart from others and they really are more human than others. While in fact, schools have become one of the most clever profit centers ever created. While there, you are indoctrinated to believe only those going through here are human. So, when you go out to the world, only hire those from here (plug for more school business!) Remember, some of the most financial successful people in the US, in the world, do not/did not have degrees > Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuck, the list goes on. Although, my personal believe is financial success is not the true success (even stated by Gates recently) This belief that you must be part of academia to be innovative and this near prejudice of non-academia citizens is appalling. Learn what this man is saying rather that trying to prove him wrong and self-justifying. Yes, we can count, read, apply studied principles learned from books and media. His point is, are we the principle authors? Are we the ones innovating, improving society by our ideas, helping our fellow man/woman by our work? If not, perhaps something IS missing from our schools. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Let's fix it and make our world a better place.

nuje 15y ago

"By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. " Sounds more like a disaster from the rest of the biosphere's POV.

kevinalexbrown 15y ago

Note that this is a person who makes budget decisions. Whenever people tell me math isn't important, I can't help but compare it to spelling/grammar mistakes: a member of the school board would never send out a professional document that had spelling errors, but a math error, hey, what's the problem? It's just the budget.

richieb 15y ago

Have you guys considered that the test could have been written by someone who does not understand math at all? My wife is a teacher and occasionally I look at the crap questions that come on standardized tests and I am appalled. I saw a 8th grade textbook that explained how compute square roots by hand - but the algorithm was wrong. It only worked for examples in the book.

tyohn 15y ago

Wow - after reading the comments on this thread I have to say that I am thoroughly disappointed in the HN community. If you replaced the word math(ematics) with a religion of your choice you'd see the same kind of fanaticism you often see from religious zealots. The God of math has spoken: obey, conform or be cast out...There is nothing other than Me. All other gods require Me to make them whole - in fact you can't even think without Me... Now go forth and preach my wisdom because there is no other wisdom other than Me.

Mc_Big_G 15y ago

School, in general, isn't for learning shit. It's for learning how to learn. He obviously knows how to learn things, has learned the things he needs to know and could (re)learn the material covered by the test. The fact that he failed a test covering material he hasn't (re)learned doesn't mean a fucking thing.

drblast 15y ago

The fact that someone is comfortable saying "all of my friends haven't used math in their successful careers, therefore math isn't useful and shouldn't be stressed and tested" is the exact reason that math should be stressed and tested. This is hindsight bias. Knowing math helps cure you of the affliction of hindsight bias. The fact is, you don't know what career a person will end up choosing, and math is important (as is art, music, philosophy, chemistry, physics) in a subset of them. Therefore, if you want ANYONE to be able to do the math for you later on, you need to expose everyone to it to find the future mathematicians. Not everyone grows up to be a writer, but we all read Shakespeare. Is that a waste of time? Only in hindsight. And maybe, just maybe, this guy isn't all that smart and the test is valid. But of course, the article doesn't address that, as it's more interesting to write about anecdotal evidence and drama for the innumerate audience.

zephjc 15y ago

Are his degrees in psychology, sociology, pedagogy, political science and a teaching qualification?

1100110101 15y ago

What is being tested for? And who decides that? What are their "credentials"?

teyc 15y ago

The man on the school board is drawing the wrong conclusions. His role today is one of management, and he has no need for anything beyond basic maths. However, there would have been a time when mastery of things technical meant a promotion, or an opportunity to supervise younger graduates. I know of many brilliant managers who no longer have their technical chops. For all we may know, his degrees may be in Biology and Marine Science. It means that his profession would be one that doesn't have to worry about differential equations, or chemical reactions, or American History. However, there is an interesting point whether too much irrelevant material is taught at school. I hear this in universities too, that professors keep adding material to the curriculum. I don't have an answer for that. I think schools focus too much on abstract thinking, and too little on effectual thinking.

grot 15y ago

tl;dr Successful man fails 10th grade standardized test, concludes that success is not correlated with being able to do math. Aside from the obvious logical/statistical falacy of making an overreaching conclusion from a sample size of one, and various other illogical claims("if this guy doesn't need math, why does anyone??") this article assumes that the purpose of education is developing vocational skills. Why should that be? Kids should learn to appreciate the world, get exposure to different things. There's no reason to make them hunker down at age 5 and start preparing for their future careers. If they don't like math, that's fine. Likewise for history, science, whatever. But it's a shame for anyone to miss out on the beauty inherent in all of these subjects.

oelewapperke 15y ago

From the article : His "electoral" successes ... much time for himself ... Ok, politicians do not keep their knowledge of science & math up to date enough to beat little kids at math. News at 11. Let's try senior management next ! In all fairness while it's a foregone conclusion 6 year olds will beat politicians and managers at math, I wonder who does best : senior management or politicians. What would be interesting is to see if engineers would do better, well they'd do better than politicians of course, but they'd have advantages and disadvantages compared to kids. They have experience, lots of practice, but also a lot of practice that would be largely irrelevant. Still at my workplace, I'm pretty sure most of our researchers would probably kick the asses of most phd candidates in the math department. But that doesn't apply for the whole engineering department. But how is it a surprise that someone whose job it is to bankrupt America and deny he's doing it doesn't measure up math-wise. That's probably an asset for politicians.

dragonsky 15y ago

Education kills the joy of learning! Situation: I have three children, current ages 11, 10 and 5, parents are University educated and engaged in the children's learning. The progression of learning for each child has been: Age 3: Starting to learn to read at home. Enjoying being read to, and discovering that letters and words have meaning. Starting to understand counting, and a one to one relationship between a number and a quantity of objects. Learning that numbers of objects can be added and subtracted. Really excited to learn, and will try new things if they give a chance to learn. Age 5: Starting formal schooling, with pre-school/prep. Getting readers to take home, very excited at the time that is being spent being presented with new words. Fully understanding numbers and how to count things. fascinated by the idea of infinity and zero. Learning the concept of fractions (of apple). Loves learning. Age 5.5; half a year into formal schooling.... I'm board at school... Parents still introducing new ideas at home and encouraging reading of material to extend ability... Trying to introduce new maths concepts to encourage interest. Age 6: Bringing home standard worksheets for maths and literacy, some conflict to get homework completed... Not really interested in school. Loves reading, not interested in maths. Age 8: Don't want to go to school, Don't want to do homework... What is going on? Just wants to spend time reading. Loves an argument about the physical world. Age 10: Discipline problems at school, no interest. Loves reading, loves computer games.. Still loves a good argument... Age 11: OK We have a problem, High school in one year... he's missing a bunch of the basics What happened? Looks like lots of remedial work over the Christmas Holidays. How is it that kids who are engaged and excited to be learning at five years old can so quickly have this interest buried when confronted by formal learning? How am I to prevent this from happening to my youngest (currently 5yrs) as well? She is very bright, some would say "gifted", I don't want here to start to hate learning as well. There has to be a better way! Digging deeper and talking to the older kids it quickly becomes obvious that they do enjoy learning, they just can't be stuffed doing the boring repetitive stuff once they have grasped the concept being covered. We go over maths concepts at home... They get it, they are interested in it, they just don't want to do it at school. Looking through the kids school books it becomes obvious that what they have been doing all year is not "learning", but more "drilling". Now I'm not an education expert, but I do understand the value of repetitive drill when practising to become an expert at a particular procedure or action, it has great value if you are a dancer, gymnast or swimmer... I'm just not sure at how good it is at instilling enthusiasm for learning and an ability to take what has been learnt and apply it to new situations. My understanding is that the current methods of education came about shortly after the industrial revolution in Europe, and were a way of training people in a standard way that would make them suitable for employment as workers in factories and offices. We are no longer living in industrial Europe c1850, surly we should be looking at better ways of educating our young.

swdunlop 15y ago

That's a safe position to take for the readership of the Washington Post: "kids don't need all that education -- we're doing fine, despite forgetting basic operations and failing reading comprehension."

losethos 15y ago

My shrinks try to paint me into stories. They thought I would relate to a story on uncredentialed people. No. Now, they think I would relate to this. No. I have a fearsome intellect and memory. Run away. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\DARWIN.TXT the most important step towards the formation of a true, picture-forming eye; for we have only to place the naked extremity of the optic nerve, which in some of the lower animals lies deeply buried in the body, and in some near the surface, at the right distance from the concentrating apparatus, and an image will be formed on it. In the great class of the Articulata, we may start from an optic nerve simply coated with pigment, the latter sometimes forming a sort of pupil, but destitute of lens or ------ Leo was my lab partner in Bio 2 in high school. He went off to med school. At one point (visiting while inmed school) the topic of "fovea" came-up. He thought it was the blind spot. I said it was where density of cones is high in the center of vision. God says... bank just_lovely can_you_hear_me_now goods Greece take_your_pick Vegas You_fix_it just_between_us honesty on_occassion economy and_then_what I'm_gonna_smack_someone a_screw_loose refreshing I_could_be_wrong adultery energy it's_my_world abnormal vermin liberal sloth hang_in_there face_palm and_then_what piety I_don't_care laziness these_cans_are_defective frown fortitude wont_you_be_my_neighbor bizarre crazy how_bout_it nerd cursing where's_the_love later where's_the_love Wow you_talkin'_to_me

jacquesm 15y ago

There is a very simple explanation for this: If you are out of the school system long enough then you will forget 'basic' stuff unless you exercise it regularly. It doesn't mean that you're dumb, it just means that you haven't flexed that particular muscle for long enough now that you may simply have to re-learn those things or you will have to invent them on the spot from first principles. The brain is great at throwing out unused (unreferenced) memories. Given proper preparation (like the ones students go through), say a couple of years of relevant re-education I'm sure the author could pass the test.