LGP Education thread

[Pavel Bure]

Much appreciated. Would be easier to say 2 years from now.

[tjand72]

I received a letter from PSERS asking if I want to be a class E or F. It seems like F takes new out and pays more but I don't quite understand it. Are there any PA teachers here that can explain this in non-legalspeak?

The F has a 2.5 multiplier in retirement, while the E has a 2 multiplier if I remember correctly. F is around a 10% deduction towards retirement, while E is about 7.5%, I think.

[count2infinity]

Apparently teachers in British Columbia have been on strike since June? Had no idea.

[MWB]

Public schools in Chicago, a city with one of the bigger pushes for charters and closing public schools, far outperformed charters in the most recent testing.
So will Rahm Emanuel continue to push for more charters and to close more public schools?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews ... Abo1bm9LCT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[yubb]

I feel that if you send your kids to private school you shouldn't have to pay public school taxes.
That would allow more people to send their kids to private school and perhaps up the level of healthy competition between schools.

However, I believe the main problem is our culture. Parents are now their kids' friends and we sue over everything. And kids don't fist fight, they shoot up a school. Things are so messed up.

I'm not sure which is worse, though: unions or tenure.

[canaan]

Public schools in Chicago, a city with one of the bigger pushes for charters and closing public schools, far outperformed charters in the most recent testing.
So will Rahm Emanuel continue to push for more charters and to close more public schools?

depends on if the kickbacks from charter keep coming? rahm loves his money.

[count2infinity]

I feel that if you send your kids to private school you shouldn't have to pay public school taxes.
That would allow more people to send their kids to private school and perhaps up the level of healthy competition between schools.

If we were allowed to pick and choose where we pay taxes, our economy/government would fall apart pretty quickly.

[Factorial]

I feel that if you send your kids to private school you shouldn't have to pay public school taxes.
That would allow more people to send their kids to private school and perhaps up the level of healthy competition between schools.

If we were allowed to pick and choose where we pay taxes, our economy/government would fall apart pretty quickly.

[columbia]

I feel that if you send your kids to private school you shouldn't have to pay public school taxes.
That would allow more people to send their kids to private school and perhaps up the level of healthy competition between schools.

If we were allowed to pick and choose where we pay taxes, our economy/government would fall apart pretty quickly.

That is the goal of some.

[Digitalgypsy66]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/upsho ... 0002&abg=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I really should paste the entire article in here, but that's not a good thing. If you have any interest in it, read the whole thing and the comments.

“Academically Adrift” studied a sample of students who enrolled at four-year colleges and universities in 2005. As freshmen, they took a test of critical thinking, analytic reasoning and communications skills called the Collegiate Learning Assessment (C.L.A.). Colleges promise to teach these broad intellectual skills to all students, regardless of major. The students took the C.L.A. again at the end of their senior year. On average, they improved less than half of one standard deviation. For many, the results were much worse. One-third improved by less than a single point on a 100-point scale during four years of college.

This wasn’t because some colleges simply enrolled smarter students. The nature of the collegiate academic experience mattered, too. Students who spent more time studying alone learned more, even after controlling for their sociodemographic background, high school grades and entrance exam scores. So did students whose teachers enforced high academic expectations. People who studied the traditional liberal arts and sciences learned more than business, education and communications majors.

Yet despite working little and learning less — a third of students reported studying less than five hours a week and half were assigned no long papers to write — most continued to receive good grades. Students did what colleges asked of them, and for many, that wasn’t very much.

“Academically Adrift” called into question what college students were actually getting for their increasingly expensive educations. But some critics questioned whether collegiate learning could really be measured by a single test. Critical thinking skills are, moreover, only a means to an end. The end itself is making a successful transition to adulthood: getting a good job, finding a partner, engaging with society. The follow-up study, “Aspiring Adults Adrift,” found that, in fact, the skills measured by the C.L.A. make a significant difference when it comes to finding and keeping that crucial first job.

[MWB]

I feel that if you send your kids to private school you shouldn't have to pay public school taxes.
That would allow more people to send their kids to private school and perhaps up the level of healthy competition between schools.

However, I believe the main problem is our culture. Parents are now their kids' friends and we sue over everything. And kids don't fist fight, they shoot up a school. Things are so messed up.

I'm not sure which is worse, though: unions or tenure.

Sending more kids to private school isn't really the answer. Private schools that have success have that success because they have control of the student body, in general. Also, parents who care enough to pick the best schools for their kid are more likely to have successful kids, regardless of the school.

I agree that unions and tenure can both be problems, but neither are the big problems that face education.

[PensFanInDC]

[youtube][/youtube]

Why does 6 automatically become 1 and 5? Why not 2 and 4 or 4 and 2 or 3 and 3?

[count2infinity]

I think she explained it okay... 6 becomes 1 and 5 because the 1 with the 9 becomes 10... adding any single digit number to 10 is really really easy. This is the way I do math in my head, but I think students should be able to find this for themselves later in life rather than being taught how to think it.

[MWB]

This is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I'm not directing this at you, PFIDC. Common core does not tell you how to teach things. It is a set of standards, some of which stress explaining why something is. It doesn't say that you teach addition or subtraction or anything else a certain way. The media does a horrific job on reporting on education, and this area is no exception.
On a related note, a teacher may teach how to add this way. It may be one of several ways that they try to teach the concept. But just because a teacher shows a way to do something that isn't the traditional way, doesn't mean that the traditional way isn't also utilized.

[count2infinity]

I'm going to discredit PFiDC!!!

Why does 6 automatically become 1 and 5? Why not 2 and 4 or 4 and 2 or 3 and 3?

Comment from the video
"Why would she decompose the 6 into 5+1 and not 3+3...or a 4+2???? Why?!?! Why!?!?!? This is over-complicated nonsense."

#DISCREDITED

[columbia]

Is phonics still around?
My oldest brother told me about knowing how to read when he got to first grade and the phonics stuff totally messed with his reading ability (for a period of time).

[dodint]

I'm going to discredit PFiDC!!!

Why does 6 automatically become 1 and 5? Why not 2 and 4 or 4 and 2 or 3 and 3?

Comment from the video
"Why would she decompose the 6 into 5+1 and not 3+3...or a 4+2???? Why?!?! Why!?!?!? This is over-complicated nonsense."

#DISCREDITED

When I watched this video earlier today before I clicked onto the thread, and turned to my wife and asked how the kid would know to split the 6 into 1+5 as the first step. It's not addressed until later why the split was done that way. Could be simple oversight, but first explaining to subtract 9 from 10 to get 1 and then 1 from 6 to get the proper split would've made it seem a lot less easy. I do it in my head that way anyway, and I learned it the 'traditional' way. Also, nobody memorizes "9+6", I've never heard of an 'addition table.' People learn to add 9 to 6 by starting with 9 and counting off 6 more. Then when the you see how numbers fit together the rest falls into place. You'll never have to count higher than 10 for any addition problem regardless of how large it is.

The video is subtly misleading to someone not paying attention. But it doesn't affect me beyond being annoyed at the slick presentation.

[MWB]

You still use counting up to add?

[dodint]

People learn to add 9 to 6 by starting with 9 and counting off 6 more. Then when the you see how numbers fit together the rest falls into place.

You still use counting up to add?

No.

[MWB]

Simple addition facts are memorized before the number patterns fall into place, IMO.

[Hockeynut!]

I feel that if you send your kids to private school you shouldn't have to pay public school taxes.

If that were the case, people like me who will never have kids shouldn't have to pay school taxes too.

[dodint]

Simple addition facts are memorized before the number patterns fall into place, IMO.

You lost me.

Are you implying you learned:

9+1= 10
9+2= 11
9+3= 12
9+4= 13
9+5= 14
9+6= 15
9+7= 16
9+8= 17
9+9= 18

and every other single digit example before ever using:



or other representative number items (like 2 apples plus 3 apples...) which is just glorified counting.

When I learned how to add, I just counted. After doing that long enough patterns emerged and my brain began to express that addition in the way you see in the Common Core video. I'm saying it's very complicated to jump to that step (the 1+5 bit above) without doing it traditionally first. In my case it never had to be told to me at all, and it seems confusing even though I know it makes sense. Explaining it out loud seems to muddle it even if it is how some (most?) people are wired to do it in practice.

When I said you never had to count higher than 10, I was implying that problems like:

Code: Select all

1,524,626
+  53,536
----------

Can be done very easy traditionally regardless of how big the numbers get. There is a certain point where doing it the CC way breaks down and you have to go back to pen and paper anyway.

Or do it practically and precisely:



And the only real justification for childfree individuals paying school tax is that an investment in education is an investment in society and it'll pay off for me eventually. As someone that doesn't stay in the same school district more than a handful of years at a time I'll be shocked if any of my tax dollars come back to benefit me directly in the future, especially with the way things seem to be going. Unless I move to another country it'll come around eventually. I hope.

[Hockeynut!]

Society is overrated.

[dodint]

Yeah, but that's more for a nan thread.

[MWB]

Im trying to say that I did learn first using manipulatives and counting up. That gave me the concept of addition. But then I just did problems repeatedly and memorized that 8+8 was 16 without having to think about it. Then, when doing problems with multi digits, the patterns and concepts came into play.

I agree that jumping to that step in the video would not be good. But I don't think that is being done. That was a 1 minute video illustrating one way to get kids to learn one standard of common core, the standard being numbers in base 10. That if kids can understand how to get to 10s, things are a lot easier. It's not meant to be a tool for how to do every addition problem.