Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

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Thursday, May 5. 2022

Thursday morning links

 My Testimony On New York's "Scoping Plan" To Achieve Net Zero Carbon Emissions


 Why American Children Cannot Do Math?


 Orwell and Dalrymple on English Class


  Say it loud, you’re a peasant and you’re proud


The true story behind a racial incident at a Virginia elementary school is really remarkable


 Homeland Security's "Disinformation Board" is Even More Pernicious Than it Seems


 Elizabeth Warren Has Meltdown at Supreme Court…


 A TYRANNY OF MORAL MINORITIES


Is abortion a Constitutional right? 


What about Amendment X? 


 Losing the People? Then Change the Rules


"Mr. Vance’s win will likely come as a disappointment to some Republicans who have been quietly hoping that Mr. Trump’s grip on the party is slipping."


Isn't Vance the guy who wrote that book? 

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:57 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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Cross-commented from Stuart's blog: At least until Covid, American kids were doing fine in math. I think they will recover as well. On the PISA test, Asian-Americans do better than Asians (except Singapore); European-Americans do better than Europeans (except Finland and maybe Estonia now - and about even with the rest of Scandinavia); American Hispanics do better than every Latin American country, often by far. Africa-Americans wildly outscore all African and Caribbean countries. The difference is that the US actually has all these groups, and the last two groups score much lower, bringing the average down.

The countries scoring higher than us are always from N Europe or NE Asia, genetically powerful IQ areas. We are kicked for not putting our kids' noses to the grindstone like the South Koreans and kicked again for not being laid back like the Finns, but they can't both be right.

As for Covid, that is the one area where students may have lost ground. Above about sixth grade, most of it will be used seldom in the future, and it is a running test over the next six years of how far a kid can rise with uninterrupted block-stacking. That has been interrupted now, at least a bit, and it is likely scores will be depressed for at least a year. I would bet against the effect lasting much longer than that, though, as natural intelligence overrules whatever the schools were doing. We have to remember that no schools do that much, not now, not a hundred years ago. Specific skills may taught, but a number of them might work just as well and end up with the same result a decade later.
#1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-05-05 11:37 (Reply)
I should have mentioned that Steve Sailer has been covering this for a couple of decades now. Go to his columns and search under PISA. Oodles of hard data as well as sharp analysis.
#1.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-05-05 11:40 (Reply)
"At least until Covid, American kids were doing fine in math."

Not from what I can see:

https://hechingerreport.org/u-s-now-ranks-near-bottom-among-35-industrialized-nations-math/
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-05-04/commentary-heres-why-the-united-states-is-so-bad-at-math
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/02/28/math-scores-high-school-lessons-freakonomics-pisa-algebra-geometry/4835742002/
https://www.thebalance.com/the-u-s-is-losing-its-competitive-advantage-3306225

There were some articles that put us in the middle of the pack but even at that, I wouldn't call that "doing fine."
#1.2 mudbug on 2022-05-05 11:48 (Reply)
Did you read what I just wrote? The overall score is not the point because the races differ, and we have actual different races here, unlike many places which call us racist. Asian-Americans beat Asians. Caucasian-Americans beat other Caucasians. Hispanic-Americans beat Hispanics. African-Americans beat all African or descended nations. There's nothing else left to compare. We are not actually behind those other nations in apples-to-apples.
#1.2.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2022-05-05 13:27 (Reply)
Perhaps the USA remains competitive in math because the number of Asian kids in the USA is increasing. Everyone else is sub-par.
#1.2.1.1 mike on 2022-05-05 13:47 (Reply)
In 2017, according to the NAEP, 33% of eighth graders were proficient in math. That was down from 36% in 2013. I really don't care what color the kids are. Since the range proficiency is not defined (highly proficient, least proficient, etc.) I take it to mean acceptable or better proficiency, i.e. passing to excelling so two thirds of the kids marginal or worse is nothing of which to be proud.

As the articles I linked to suggested, we are not teaching math as well as other countries. Having tutored public school kids in math, I can tell you they are only introduced to some basic topics such as long division. Teachers will say that they prefer to teach the concepts rather than things like boring times tables, but if all you know how to do is get the answer from a calculator, you don't know anything.

Teachers are suggesting that Algebra II be dropped from the curriculum. Some are suggesting that algebra be dropped altogether.

To be sure, teachers (and schools) are not the only problem. Social and cultural influences are important too but the bottom line is that kids today are generally less proficient in most subjects (history or English especially) than kids in previous generations. Hear what they know (or how little they know) about history. Listen to the way a professional journalist or writer uses grammar. To expect them to be better in math is silly.
#1.2.1.2 mudbug on 2022-05-05 16:32 (Reply)
It's an interesting argument that both criticisms comparing us to the nose-grinding SKs and the laid-back Finns can't be right, but I wonder if that's true. It might be that nose-grinding works and letting kids find their own way works, but what doesn't work is regimenting kids without really pushing them on the parts that matter. That goes double if the teacher training and selection is indifferent to knowledge or talent in the subject matter and instead focused on irrelevancies or even pernicious traits.
#1.3 Texan99 on 2022-05-06 08:08 (Reply)
Math, what is it good for? Absolutely everything.

” While most of these culture war conversations are kick-started from the right, there are also unpopular ideas from the left that draw backlash…
-Jessica Gros, NY Times

Culture war conversations? It is hard to have a conversation with someone calling everything white people have done bigoted. The left introduces ideas that can’t possibly work, like 2+2 can equal 5, hater. New math, where memorizing a multiplication table is the crown jewel of white supremacy. No, the better way is to break terms down into tens and alway add. A system that is so convoluted that it takes 15 minutes to work through a problem that, having memorized your multiplication table, you could do in your head in a matter of seconds. But yeah, the right kick started the culture war.

Ninety nine percent of the time, the left and their old, recycled marxist ideas are the problem. The core of Marxism is the envy of others; the belief that nothing is your fault, it is the fault of others. Our schools excel teaching these principles. Yes, let’s continue on with the indoctrination of children in schools. Teaching them everything is sexual; that white people suck, and every one of the worlds problems, start and end with white people. There are 57 plus genders; you can have a sex change at age five. Here are some puberty blocking pills, a tucking device to hide your genitalia - manly men are just terrible. Here, take this Ritalin, little boys can be so uncontrollable, their little springs are wound so tight. Oh, speak nothing of these things with your parents, these are our special secrets.

Parents have no rights concerning their children. Their children, humph, what a tired old concept that is. It takes a village, you know? Teach nothing of the three R’s. And blame all the problems on those icky conservatives that are kickstarting the culture wars. And we wonder why American children can’t do math?

There are dozens of federal agencies, that a free America would be much better off without. But they really don’t want us to be free. A free people might not make the right decisions. Since we are in the mist of reliving the days of Jimmy Carter, why not get rid of one of the worst things that came from his presidency? The Department of Education.
#2 B. Hammer on 2022-05-05 11:38 (Reply)
Hoorah!!
Until there is public money vouchers to attend the school of choice, we will find education that more truthfully represents indoctrination and propaganda. Fund the student/parent directly instead of funding the institution directly. The public school monopoly of taxpayer money does not work any more than any other monopoly. Make schools compete.
#2.1 indyjonesouthere on 2022-05-05 12:12 (Reply)
"Elizabeth Warren Has Meltdown at Supreme Court"

She heap big angry!
#3 Erasmus on 2022-05-05 12:19 (Reply)
As one headline mentioned: She hasn't been this mad since she got back her Ancestry DNA results.
#3.1 indyjonesouthere on 2022-05-05 16:26 (Reply)
Math? I was at the corner convenience store today. My soda cost $1.58 (it was 79 cents a year ago, but that's a topic for another day). I gave the clerk a dollar bill, a quarter, three dimes and a nickel. She used a calculator to add up the change.

***facepalm***
#4 Not Sure on 2022-05-05 22:13 (Reply)
I enjoyed a comedy routine many years ago: A fast-food joint had one of those cash registers that figures out the changes and shoots the coins down a little slot toward the customer. The bill came to $9.78, so the comedian gave the cashier a ten-dollar bill and three pennies and said "I'll take a quarter in change." The cashier was so agog when the quarter rolled out that the comedian modestly said, "Lucky guess." The cashier said, "No, you knew. You knew. You are the mighty one."
#4.1 Texan99 on 2022-05-06 08:13 (Reply)

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