It’s not a bug, it’s a feature: Half of Grade 6 students fail to meet Ontario math standards.
That said, I very much doubt it’s better in the rest of Canada.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature: Half of Grade 6 students fail to meet Ontario math standards.
That said, I very much doubt it’s better in the rest of Canada.
Ontario teachers better get improve their performance or their pupils will not be able to count all the genders.
On the other hand, how good at math do they have to be when they’ll be just rolling in wealth by flipping burgers at $15/hr?
But consider this: the really important math that they have to know are such things as how many polar bears will be saved when a 25% carbon tax is imposed or how many Antifa protesters will be needed to overthrow Trump.
Part of the teachers problem is the human capital that they are working with. When the schools are filling up with refugees and immigrants from countries where the average IQ is twenty to thirty points lower than what it used to be in Canada, the results are going to be seen in school test scores.
So … then lower the standards … problem solved. Whoever wrote the standards … was a hard ass …who was in-sen-si-tive to the children and their neeeeeds. Time to FIRE the “standards writer”. Don’t worry kiddies … I’ve got yer backs. Leave all that math mumbojumbo to the snotty private school kids … and the Asians. Youze gotz textin to do and whatnot. You ain’t got time fer that.
It would seem that revising Canadian history is more important than actually teaching anything.
Math is founded on logic, reasoning and “written in concrete” rules…the stuff schools teach today…gender is dependent on how one feels versus the “written in concrete” rule of one’s gender depends solely on the genitals one possesses. Homosexuality is “normal” versus an anomaly that affects a minute percentage of the population…goes against having and living by “written in concrete” rules. Furthermore, the way they’re teaching kids how to add in common core is ridiculous–so, if these kids’ parents are teaching them the “old” way (and the one that’s worked for a couple of thousand years)…the kid would “fail” the “math” test because he/she didn’t follow the wacky rules of common core math. (AKA wrong-thinking)
Not a bug, it’s a feature – yes because if more people understand math fewer liberals would get elected. Plus fewer people would resort to sociology degrees where indoctrination is certain. At least I hope some STEM professors are still able to think for themselves.
They still have tests at antifa school?
John is good at math. He studies hard and graduates university as an engineer earning $1,200 per day.
Billy is poor at math. He doesn’t study very hard and graduates high school to earn $15.00 per hour flipping hamburgers.
If John works 8 hours a day to make $1,200, how many hours will Billy have to work to make the same amount of money as John?
Bonus question. Convert Billy’s hours to days.
THIS is the problem: “The curriculum emphasizes group problem solving….”
I went through this with my children years ago in Michigan. What happens with “group problem solving” (or group report writing, etc) is that a few children understand or do the work and the rest just defer to those who do. The group then is credited with “they understand”.
In my opinion, it’s all part of emphasizing the collective and de-emphasizing the individual. The philosophy is that collaboration is good for society. But this is wrong for children on several levels because it’s not really collaborating….. all do not start with the same abilities or knowledge or work ethic. And the classroom is structured to PREVENT children with similar abilities from forming groups. Consequently, this is not even collaborating.
One thing “group problem solving” does and does well however. It quickly teaches children that they really don’t have to put in any work to get by. Participation badges for all.
Extra Bonus Questions:
Part 1: How much will Billy earn during the time he quits high school and John graduates university?
Part 2: How many days will John work to earn that same amount?
Part 3: If Billy and John were the same age, based upon a retirement at 65, how much more will John earn over that time?
And a gift for the left:
How much longer will John have to work to pay for his advanced education before he can start to catch up to Billy?
There’s only one solution: lower the effin bar!
Education is an industry with a PR department that promotes its growth. It is not unlike the health care industry which does the same. Surprise, both of these are government monopolies with almost no serious oversight.
Education, in particular, is a sleazy affair since it is dominated by unions who practice a progressive, even communistic, theology. If the CPC Party had seriously wanted to change the direction of Canada this monopoly would have been challenged. It was not.
15 years ago, when my kids moved from Calgary to Ontario at the beginning of grades 3 & 5, their math classes were given a test to see how well (how poorly?) they were going to be for this years class. The twins in grade 5, finished the tests in about 4 and 10 minutes, then went outside to kick the soccer ball around. Towards the end of the hour, a couple of other kids joined them, while the rest struggled with the “exam” for the full hour.
Ben said, he never learned anything in his math or science classes for the first 2 years he was stuck in Ontario, and fortunately for him (and his sisters), he’d studied enough online that when he returned to Alberta in grade 10, he was faced with starting as though he “was from another land” and had caught up by the end of the year.
All of my kids view Ontario’s schools as substandard.
Ontario seems to have stumbled somewhat since they offered grade 13.
Heh. Or….
__________ and ___________ are originally from ____________. They have entered Canada from the U.S. because of persecution by the cruel Trump administration. They have settled in Toronto.
They each get $684 dollars of welfare a month, but their rent is $1320 per month and their hydro cost is another $226. Their monthly food bill is $915 and their transit passes are another $180 dollars per month each.
Question: How much extra money will the government have to give them per month so they can meet their expenses?
More taxpayer money will solve this problem.
All they need to know is how to calculate the BS factor, and know math proficiency is for climate change deniers, then mission accomplished for the Wynne moonbats. Divide the number of genders by the number of biological sexes to get the BS factor. Then multiply that number by the grade that sex education begins in to get the corrected BS factor.
Alberta used to have world class education particularly in math. Most of this was due to a backlash against “progressive” education reforms in the 80s (“St. John’s Edmonton Report”/”Alberta Report” was a major driver of this effort. Standardized testing was implemented and curricula were set according to end-game requirements rather than trendy “educator” theory.
The ATA of course HATED toys and actively fought parents against it. Sadly they had a best friend in Red Redford and now Alberta has fallen to merely be one of the better systems in Canada.
If the CPC was conservative in anything other than name. Corrected that for you, you can thank me later.
Lance in particular hates social conservatives, so I make it a point to not vote for anything he supports. Or send money to anyone he supports. Etc.
When they came for the social conservatives, you cheered, because you did not like those guys. When they come for you, well this social conservative will not be doing or saying anything on your behalf. You wanted the group splintered? It is as you wished. Maybe the red tories will help when the time comes…
Always wondered about that old canard “you can’t legislate morality”. If morality cannot be legislated, then what is the logical basis for muder being illegal? Theft? Why are their “hate” speech laws, if you cannot legislate morality? Why is being “mean spirited” ungood?
We are ruled over, taught by, policed by, get our news from, omnipotent moral busybodies. They torment us for our own good, and with the approval of their own consciences. It would be better under robber barons…
Heh heh. Or how about this one.
Jonny Kim came from Korea in 2004 to start a new life. He opened a convenience store and grossed $200,000 in 2016. His cost of sales was 50% leaving him and his family (wife a 2 kids) with $100,000 of net profit. Combined corporate taxes (provincial & federal) are 28%, which would leave him with $72,000 to pay himself. Instead he pays his wife and 2 children $15,000 each leaving him with $27,000 in income to declare. Their personal income tax rates are 17% so the total take home pay for the family is $59,760, which Mr. Kim is grateful to have.
But the Liberal Government believes that Kim’s children and wife are a “loophole” in the tax system which allows him to unfairly benefit from lower taxes compared to someone who on salary is also earning $72,000. Mr. Kim would have to declare the entire $72,000 as his personal income pushing him into a higher tax bracket of 38% leaving him (and his family) with just $44,640 a full $15,000 less than the previous year for the same gross income.
Question: Why should Mr. Kim remain self-employed?
Bonus Question: How much longer will Mr. Kim vote Liberal?
Extra extra bonus question
Billy and John both go to the same school, John for engineering, Billy takes sociology. The rest is basically the same except they are both in debt to start. Except maybe John made more than $15/hr between terms. Last time I hired any Coop Engineering students the going rate was over $20/hr a few years ago.
So who cares already if students can do sums and such; the important thing is a university degree. And Wynne is on the case with the announcement of a new $ 84 m French language university in downtown Toronto. Never mind that the present 3 such schools are lacking students and are reduced to trolling for foreign French speaking candidates. Wynne has people around that can count, at least the number of votes available in Eastern and Northern ridings.
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/josh-dehaas-ontario-doesnt-need-another-francophone-university-why-is-wynne-promising-one
Math education under the current curriculum is awful. Parents really need to supplement their children’s math studies at home. Online math games and apps, Saxon Math, websites like Khan Academy, Jason Gibson Math Tutor. Anything that teaches basic math skills so students will be able to handle the more complicated math and science in later years. STEMs have high paying jobs and fewer and fewer HS graduates will have the ability to enter those careers, especially applied science and technology (I assume computers, robotics and offshore outsourcing will replace many office and research STEM occupations)
Parents who understand the importance of math and science are already supplementing their kids math education so the losers, once again, are children without engaged parents. In a way the education system is itself creating social and income inequality by providing substandard math education.
Lots of the usual technocratic triumphalist STEM hot air and blather here.
Unfortunately, it’s entirely irrelevant: we’re talking about elementary school students. What elementary students need isn’t something dramatically new; it’s what they’ve always needed: a thorough and rigorous grounding in the essential core subjects, including mathematics, appropriate to their age and capabilities.
Ditch all the added-on trash such as LGBT this-and-that and get back to the basics.
By the way, STEManiacs, if the kids are flubbing their math at the elementary level, your glorious alternate universe of science and technology will become entirely moot.
“….so the losers, once again, are children without engaged parents. ”
a.k.a. the majority.
Here is a feel good, socialist correct, math agenda coming to Canada as per meee too, meee too.
Tucker Carlson Tonight 8/30/2017 – Liberals vs Math
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuBVCjUnN7g
Soon, if you don’t feel good about your subjects, just mix in some socialist agenda, feel good, don’t make them work at it lest they find it hard.
The Liberal imposed curriculum in Ontario is about the Feelz and not the Realz. Growth mindsets, ‘equity’, and no child left behind. Jo Boaler and Carol Dweck seminars abound.
Hahahahaha ha ha ha ha … well done! You DO realize, however, that WORD problems are the HARDEST of all math concepts. And yet the politicians claim there is “little practical use for mathematics” as taught to our children.
It would be interesting if they were to do a demographics breakdown on who passes and who doesn’t, on average. What are the percentages for boys vs girls, or Canadians vs new immigrants, or children from conservative vs liberal families.
Comments on some comments.
To Steve from Rockford: oh I wish the average engineer, let alone new graduates, really made $1200 per day. Even assuming 5 work days a week, that’s $6000 per week, or over $300,000 per year. I knew very few engineers who made that sort of money, definitely not at the entry level.
To Kevin re Lance: can you cite some examples of his anti-social conservative beliefs? Personally, I really don’t notice that much on this site whose name is attached to what article. But since you made the comment, I checked. Lance did not write this article, so ranting about him as a comment on this article is absolutely irrelevant.
To David: I have been retired for a long while, so I don’t know how things are now. But when I was still working, American engineering companies were really into “teams.” It was nuts. They had program workshops with all levels of management, in all fields, attending. And everyone was asked to give their opinions on everything. If the ones who don’t understand really deferred to the experts, I would have been grateful. Instead, women who were in charge of, say, making copies of reports to the customers, and making sure they got out to the right people, had opinions for me about how to run engineering, about which they knew nothing. (And almost all my engineering teams were always on schedule and within budget, as well as meeting the specifications of the customer) They asked the employees which team experience was their favorite, and the engineers always answered with the “tiger teams” they used to have. A “tiger team” is made up of engineers in all areas having to do with the critical problem they are to solve. Perhaps a program is way behind schedule, or faces a problem it doesn’t have the expertise to solve. Members of the “tiger team” each gave his input on his area of expertise, but deferred comment when it was about something else. Those were the good old days.
To JJM re: “technocratic triumphalist STEM hot air and blather”. You bet, at least on the first half of that quote. The easy life most people enjoy now, when even kings before did not, in the “western” and East Asian countries is due to, yes, technologically triumphant STEM. Thanks to Maxwell’s equations and American engineering, we have the cheap (well, until the warmists swindlers got in the act) availability of electricity which is the foundation for most of the unbelievable creature comfort of the average North American. The train in England revolutionized that society. Count all the electrical appliances in your house, from 89 inch TV to smartphones. Potable water from the tap is taken for granted. Travels to London that used to take a whole day was possible in an hour. And the plane further shrank the world. Advances in medicine has extended life expectancy into the eighties, with a much better quality of life before that. And on, and on, and on. And “By the way, STEManiacs, if the kids are flubbing their math at the elementary level, your glorious alternate universe of science and technology will become entirely moot.”? You almost sound gleeful at the prospect. But I have news for you. STEM advancements are not made as a community project. It comes from individual geniuses like Maxwell, Edison, Ford, Pasteur, the Wrights, and those who followed and extended their work. All the people in western countries who enjoy the fruits of their labor who be grateful to the STEManiacs for the good life, and make snide envious remarks.
Stupid leftard teachers equals stupid kids.
My youngest son is a MATH major graduate from UCLA. He relied on the Khan Academy to supplement his VERY HIGH LEVEL mathematics instruction at UCLA. A far better option than his TA’s who usually spoke English as their second (if you want to call it that)language.
As an aside (as I am always want to do) … His graduation ceremony was a HOOT! As the silverware names were called-out one after another … Bing, Wong, Ding, Dang … we get to our Alsatian family surname … and a HUSH goes across the crowd, and I felt thousands of slanty eyeballs looking at the wife and I. And please don’t EVER think me “racist” for pointing out the TRUTH of the ethnic makeup of the graduation class. The UC system is 1,000x more RACIST than I could ever be … for LIMITING Asian students in a bid for “diversity” in their social experimental University system.
Johnny Kim is currently serving a 7-year sentence at Chino prison for wounding a “defenseless” looter during the Rodney King Riots … whilst defending his store from being stripped and firebombed. Seems the “black community” took offense that Johnny charged MORE for TWIX bars than a national chain of convenience stores. And that Johnny caught too many shoplifters which was clearly RACIST. So the “black community” set upon his store.
Yes, Asian people’s success in STEM, overseas and in NA, is damaging to the postmodern narrative from progressive liberals that STEM is racist and sexist. It’s another area where progressives internal contradictions are obvious to everyone but them. Now they’ve added family structures and providing enhanced education as unfair privilege. I half joke that some day they’ll handicap education scores like golf but given the absurdity of SJWs and postmodernism I wouldn’t actually be that suprised.
Who knows, maybe progressive liberals ultimate utopia is the dystopian world of HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut.
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
And, a social studies quiz. No calculator needed….
In Ontario, at any one time, 2 out of 10 workers are government employees and 1 out of the remaining 8 in the private sector is compensated by government for work on government contracts. 6 percent of the working age population is drawing unemployment insurance, and 6.8 percent of the population at large is on social assistance/disability pension. The 16.4 percent of the Province’s 2016 population that is over 65 years of age will increase to 18.4 percent in 2021, 21.0 by 2026, and a whopping 23.3 in 2031. And Ontario’s pubic debt stands at $21,765.00 for every man, woman, and child, on top of a $17,807.00 pp federal load.
Question:
When will Ontario look like just Venezuela?
Bonus Question:
Given the institutional stupidity of Ontario voters, and utter uselessness of the Ontario PC Party, how many seats do you expect the Ontario Liberals to win in the next provincial election?
Ahhh…. future Liberal voters… 1+1= eleventy 4… I’m surprised its not worse… So does this mean that having your kids indoctrinated and dumbed down by corrupt immoral Liberal Party union members is ultimately a bad thing, or is it exactly the type of results corrupt LIberal Party “teachers” were looking for and therefore, a good thing. I guess it depends on which side of the war you’re on… At least by the time these kids reach the grade 3 level they’ll know how to give a good blow-job and how to execute the perfect reach around, which is why the Liberals hired a peadophile to right the curriculum. I guess pedophiles aren’t very good at maths. Either way these Liberal Party “teachers” will all be voting Liberal next election, just like every other immoral greedy “public sector” unionista member and the institutionally corrupting LIberal Party will win another huge majority, despite what the polls say. The good news is that the adults of the future will be too dumb to recognize the decline.
Ontario education system under the Wynne regime is more concerned with matters of sexuality than the basic three R’s.
it is hard to remember times tables when you have to memorize 86 pronouns
Developing strong memory skills around math in lower grades is unhelpful
as it tends to really hinder marxist indoctrination later on. Ever lower math
scores mean the system is working correctly.
You make a stellar point.
It is all very well and good to blame the teachers and curricula (which deserve some of the blame) but parents need to be active in their kids’ education. Some parents simply do not care. Even if the majority of teachers did care about their students, the parents don’t and won’t encourage or otherwise support them.
JJM, you also make a good point. Without the rudiments of ANY study, kids will not do well at all. But schools are puppy mills. If the students get anything, it’s a miracle.
There’s no evidence immigration is damaging schools.
There are mountains of evidence diversity is destroying Western civilization.
Immigration is a big part of diversity and schools are part of Western Civilization.
Thank you for playing better luck next time.
When these kids do not speak English and therefore require extra help or the slowing-down of the class and cannot readily blend in because of the mistaken belief that political multiculturalism is somehow workable, how are you helping them? If anything, you are doing more harm to these kids by making them more alien and less prepared to learn and therefore become fully fledged members of society. Your belief in political multiculturalism and your softness are the reason why these kids will fail.
Pat yourself on the back for failing kids.
I assure you (as if you need it) that you have accurately described public schools as puppy mills. Students are simply a commodity that earn the school a stipend … per head. Public schools could care less if their “pupils” disappeared after roll call each morning. So long as they are reported as “present” and the accounting ledger cashes in on their cameo appearance. And if the poorest of students play post roll call hookey… then their poor test scores won’t drag the averages even lower. A win-win for our cynical school administrators
“There are mountains of evidence diversity is destroying Western civilization.”
No there isn’t. Stop lying.
“When these kids do not speak English and therefore require extra help or the slowing-down of the class and cannot readily blend in because of the mistaken belief that political multiculturalism is somehow workable, how are you helping them?”
To be fair, English lessons should be done first. I’ve never had this problem while I was in school. It’s another ‘scourge’ that’s 90% fairy tale if not more.
As someone who teaches ESL, O Zero-Witted One, I can tell you that if the kids are only getting minimal language skills taught at school, it will not be bolstered by the parents who aren’t learning English at all. This is a growing phenomenon.
Why keep part of the population half literate or not literate at all?
Kenji, bingo. It’s all about money, not about doing what is right for students.