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Reaping Whirlwind of Math Ignorance- What Else Don't They Know?

by Roy C | November 12, 2009 at 12:14 pm

93 views | 24 Recommendations | 7 comments

At one time, the public school system of New York City was considered the best in the world and was the one that had produced more Nobel Prize winners than any other system.

Now, thanks to social promotion, the erosion of authority, the subversive rebellion against Euro-centric knowledge, the freshman class can only do arithmetic. Great!

Hey, hey, but they are legally equal to everyone else while they demand tax dollars to subsidize the overcoming of a total lack of math preparation.

One last thing. If you can't do algebra, you can't learn chemistry, and if you can't do algebra, and then trigonometry and learn calculus, you can't learn physics, either.

I will guarantee you that they can't write an essay worth a damn, either. Not all of them, mind you, but a very high percentage who, not only shouldn't be in college, should never have been permitted to graduate from high school or, in many cases, junior high.

This is why Obama's kids are in a Quaker private school. But, why, oh, why has he canceled the charter schools of Washington, DC? We smile because we know the answer.

And the result of that attitude is in the article below.

More city kids are graduating from high school, but that doesn't mean they can do college math.

Basic algebra involving fractions and decimals stumped a group of City University of New York freshmen - suggesting city schools aren't preparing them, a CUNY report shows.

"These results are shocking," said City College Prof. Stanley Ocken, who co-wrote the report on CUNY kids' skills. "They show that a disturbing proportion of New York City high school graduates lack basic skills."

During their first math class at one of CUNY's four-year colleges, 90% of 200 students tested couldn't solve a simple algebra problem, the report by the CUNY Council of Math Chairs found. Only a third could convert a fraction into a decimal.

The lack of math skills means the CUNY students - nearly 70% of which come from city schools - could struggle to keep up with peers, fail classes or even drop out, the professors charged.

The council submitted its report in September 2008 to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein with a plea to work with city schools.

"We didn't hear anything until this past June," said Lehman College professor and math chairman Robert Feinerman, noting there was a discussion about working together at the time. "But that whole thing seems to have petered out."

CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein countered that he and Klein joined forces several years ago to "tackle the problem head on.... At the senior colleges, we've seen massive improvement," he said.

City Education Department spokesman David Cantor said the agency had been working to improve standards even before the professors' report.

"We had already moved to action," he said.

Still, several Hunter College freshmen approached yesterday had trouble figuring out some of the problems.

"I just did this earlier. Now I forgot it again," Jennifer Fortune, 18, who graduated from Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School, said when asked to answer one of the questions. "I was only required to take two years of math in high school, but I forgot a lot of it."

John Jay College sophomore Ahmed Elshafaie, 19, who graduated from Long Island City High School, said he avoids math classes.

"I don't want to ruin my GPA," he said. "High school standards were really low."

rmonahan@nydailynews.com

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jazzyzazzy

at 14:47 on November 12th, 2009

Same the world over.

smkovalinsky

at 16:07 on November 12th, 2009

Oh, in the 1990s I was finishing my degree at a super expensive private college in a wealthy area. No one could write an essay, they were frighteningly illiterate, and their math and science skills were poor. As jazzy said, the world over. And Charter schools, yes, it all makes me ill: What my own son missed out on, my own youth---ugh. Healthcare for all will not help us overcome being a nation of idiots.

rng

at 16:19 on November 12th, 2009

Might make us health idiots , though not too sure if that is a positive

Hugh Askew

at 16:28 on November 12th, 2009

I did okay in the algebras, but all them maps in geometry was over my head.

caj1

at 17:13 on November 12th, 2009

Hugh, don't you mean triangles and rectangles? :)

Hugh Askew

at 04:08 on November 13th, 2009

PIM of SPAIN

at 02:30 on November 13th, 2009

Indeed it is the same in Europe. After learning became everyone's right and obligation, the quality in teaching went down hill rapidly. I'm from the old school and learned math the old fashioned way in all its different aspects as separate subjects taught. Every high school of about, at the time, 200 pupils had at least two highly qualified math teachers. We were examined every period of 4 weeks and had to attend school 40 hours a week, totaling 1600 hours annually. Although at a private college, discipline was the basis of success. Today pupils strike at school because they have to fill 1040 hours that they want to have reduced to 900 per annum. No wonder that quality math and essay writing isn't in the cards anymore. They even can't add and subtract without a calculator! Dreadfully, the west should take an example from Asia, where China and Japan are training their students in math and everything that goes with it.

With my own children the decline became obvious, having been a par time math teacher during my study years I was able to bring our both sons to the higher level of math with a very good support from the math teachers of the private college they attended. But as I learned from my old math colleagues they had a very tough job to maintain higher standards. At university level in Europe many good Universities first take a math exam themselves of new entrants before acceptation. They also have learned their lessons by experience, and admit that the number of science students and graduations are in decline.