<p>[Education</a> officials may scrap MCAS test - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2010/05/20/education_officials_may_scrap_mcas_test/]Education”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2010/05/20/education_officials_may_scrap_mcas_test/)</p>
<p>That article was published in May, 2010 – has anything happened since?</p>
<p>The proposed changeover is 2015. So we’ll see.</p>
<p>We can do a few simple things that don’t cost a lot of money.
These are just opinions from observation among children, and in school systems. My child is not into Math. </p>
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<li>Stop portraying kids who like Math and Science in the media negatively. They are often shown as wierd, nerdy, unfashionable and victims of bullying. This puts kids off from Math and science more than we can imagine. I’ve seen even gifted students try to hide the fact they are good at Math.
2… Challenge all kids more in Math in Elementary school. US elementary schools spend a lot of time reviewing material that is obvious to more than 80% of the classroom. This bores most children. Raising the bar will help even those who are currently trailing behind. </li>
<li>Our educational system, currently expects an academically excellent child, with STEM interests to depict that he is a well rounded extrovert, to gain recognition, get admission to colleges etc. We don’t expect this of our athletes or music prodigies… we recognize that they need space to create. Well,Math-Science needs dedication and passion and time too. Kids struggle to be ballet dancing, volunteering, debating Math whizzes, when all they really want is to do Math and be respected for it. Let us teach kids that they are valued, even if they are focused on STEM, and are introverted.</li>
<li>The very obvious: Get teachers who love Math and Science. In my experience the shortfall is more in Physics than in any other subject.</li>
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<p>There are many shows that portray the math and science guys as the heroes.</p>
<p>I don’t watch television aimed at children and teenagers so there might still be problems there.</p>
<p>BCEagle91: I agree that there are shows with heroes who are science/math guys… but all adults. It is the portrayal of the kids, that influence children more.
Off the top of my head, I can’t remember a single school kid character on contemporary TV who was a math/science whiz, was considered cool and was popular with the girls/guys.
The Math-Science kids are shown with buck teeth, trousers that are too short and being dunked in the toilet too often for kids to think it is a good thing.</p>
<p>Kyle XY.</p>
<p>Though that’s was a few years ago.</p>
<p>hey guys i am a nob here i want to ask a question</p>
<p>@Ordinaryparent: Would a new TV show with a school kid character that is a STEM whiz and is considered cool and/or popular with the guys/girls help?</p>
<p>Around here I don’t think that being good in math or science makes you a “geek”, being a “geek” makes you a ‘geek’ and there are kids that aren’t good in math or science that most certainly are geeks :D. We are lucky, I guess, that being a good student is the “cool” thing to be.</p>
<p>I’m no unschooler having sent my kids to school, but I found a lot of the philosophy very attractive. IMO successful unschooling also involved taking actions that your kids want to learn the things they need to know. So if you have a budding non-reader on your hands (and assuming no learning difficulties) you might have too much TV in your house and not enough books. I had two very different kids - one started reading at 2, the other at 7. But the younger one always wanted to read - I read aloud to him for hours and one day it finally clicked and he went straight from Nate the Great to Harry Potter. Their SAT CR scores were virtually identical.</p>
<p>I think a huge problem in the US, is the lack of readiness of a huge underclass. They come to school with smaller vocabularies and fewer books in the house. The gap just widens. That’s where Finland has it over us. </p>
<p>I agree BTW with Hunt, it’s ridiculous to say the US has a “system” of public education - we have thousands ranging from pretty good to terrible. </p>
<p>While mini may be right, that Walmart greeters are what’s in demand, couldn’t we be a country with higher aspirations?</p>
<p>mathmom–I disagree. Sure, in your house that might be the way it worked but in our house, I have 1 that detested reading. He started reading in kindergarten, but hated reading books. He would read video game cheat books though. We read to all the kids a lot when they were younger though. Until 7th grade, he never picked up a book that he wasn’t required to read for school. In 5th grade, he tested out reading a the level of a junior in college. We had him tested for learning disabilities because he just wasn’t producing what he should in school. ACT/SAT scores for the kids–my most avid reader scored the lowest in the reading sections for those tests, the above child scored the highest. He now LOVES to read, thankfully.</p>
<p>I was more like him growing up. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I enjoyed reading for pleasure. I HATED reading required books in college and high school. I started reading at age 3. It wasn’t that I couldn’t read, just never liked it. I did just fine on my college entrance tests :D. My parents were avid readers and we had 1000’s of books at home as well as living near the town library and being brought to the library weekly at least.</p>
<p>As for “unschooling”-- :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Speaking as a chemist who worked in a research lab and who now wants to teach in my state’s high schools - I STILL have to complete 10 teaching/pedagogy courses and then student teach before I can get that teaching job! I know that some states have alternate certification routes but not here.</p>
<p>Those scenarios of which argybargy speaks don’t really work here…</p>
<p>SteveMA, not everyone has to love reading. I think a lot of people haven’t figured out what they like to read. One thing I like about the Common Core curriculum is that it recognizes that there’s a big world out there beyond fiction. Nothing wrong about getting your reading practice from video game manuals.</p>
<p>@Catria: I do believe that popular TV shows or movies or even advertisements that show Math-science kids as mainstream, cool, and popular will make a difference to the “desirability” of these subjects, and hence the performance of children in this area.</p>
<p>There was “Cyberchase” on PBS. It’s aimed at kindergarten to maybe 10 year olds. The main characters go on exciting adventures where they use math to solve problems and save the universe! The kids are pretty cool, too. 
I learned the triangle inequality from that show. </p>
<p>IDK if Nick or Disney or Cartoon Network would be interested in such shows, though.</p>
<p>“And it’s acceptable to say that you are basically math illiterate. People are embarrassed to admit that they cannot read and write. In fact they often go through their lives hiding it and functioning on the margins. Would that we were comparably embarrassed by our inability to add fractions!” </p>
<p>Thank you thank you thank you! And when some of those people (who are unembarrassed that they don’t like math) are the classroom teachers OMG what do you expect!</p>
<p>And have to taken a good look at the math and science requirement of the IB program. What a joke!</p>
<p>you cannt compare this is wrong</p>
<p>It’s tough when you have mainstream writers, like NY Times Andrew Hacker advocating for the abandonment of math altogether in this country, because of these statistics. <a href=“Opinion | Is Algebra Necessary? - The New York Times”>Opinion | Is Algebra Necessary? - The New York Times;
<p>I wrote a response to this article (<a href="http://www./blog/bid/163378/The-Importance-of-Math-for-College-and-Life%5B/url%5D">http://www./blog/bid/163378/The-Importance-of-Math-for-College-and-Life</a>) but I feel like this is a multi-pronged issue. How can gain an increased number of quality teachers when the education system is typically the first to receive budget cuts? Math is important, and so is understanding multiple languages in a globalizing world, yet many students are tied to their own set of circumstances and don’t prioritize these subjects given the context of their surroundings, which do not necessarily show a need for math skills or language development. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to education, and it is a national problem</p>
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<p>Hey, the math guys never have Nobel prize. Go figure!</p>