Outstanding. You Must Be Joking!

Recently the Oregon Department of Education issued their yearly “Report Cards” for public schools.  A number of Central Oregon high schools received an “Outstanding” rating — the highest rating awarded by the state.

The State considered the following Central Oregon high school Outstanding where:

(1) on the SAT college entrance exam 28% of the students took the test compared to a national average of 47%.

(2) on this same entrance exam the students scored significantly below average in reading, writing, and mathematics (the 3 tested areas) —  in reading 476 vs 501, in writing 445 vs. 492, and in mathematics 485 vs 516 (on a 800 point scale).

(3) on state testing the students scored just below the state average on 3 of 4 measures (reading, writing, and mathematics) and above average on 1 measure (science).

Since when is below average academic performance considered worthy of an “Outstanding” rating for a high school?  We (parents, taxpayers, and students) should be outraged by the blatant mis-representation from the Oregon Department of Education.   We deserve better than this.

Bend Nordic – Kudos

by Kevin B. English

Great article in the Bend Bulletin this morning about what sports should be.  (Also — another great way to supplement your kids education in the Bend system.) 

Younger kids will give up on ski racing before they really know what it’s all about if the training isn’t fun, so instead of leading the team on a heart-pounding, lung-searing race through the forest, Warburton and his fellow coaches planned a soccer game on skis, and a bit of Frisbee-tossing as they make their way around the trails for about an hour’s worth of low-pressure skiing….

Bill Warburton also said, “This youth program is totally designed to have fun, to explore the woods, get to know the trails, to get to ride in the van and have a team experience, feel like they’re part of a team and get to know each other,” Warburton said. “The idea is to build up their excitement; that’s really all we’re trying to do now.”…

“It’s one thing to be a great athlete — that’s wonderful, it really helps kids through life with the lessons they learn through athletics,” Knowles said. “But you can’t be completely selfish. You have to give back to your community. That’s a component we are busy developing right now.”

Way to go Ben and Brenna and Bill!!

Sloooowww Internet and …

by Kevin B. English

My Internet connection has come to a complete standstill making it nearly impossible for me to post.  I will also be traveling back to the States on Tuesday.  I have many things to write about, so look for some new posts beginning on Wednesday.

Until then ….

Kevin E.

Enrich Your Kid’s Education through Parks and Rec

by Kevin B. English

As many of you know, I strongly encourage parents to supplement their student’s education in addition to their school work.  Otherwise, your student will be left behind compared to other students in the US and across the world.  See my post comparing Bend education days to those in Glastonbury, Connecticut.

Bend Parks and Rec provides some great enrichment opportunities for elementary through high school students. Some of the classes that caught my interest include:

• Early Childhood Spanish
• Highland Spanish Immersion
• Miller Fun Science Experiments
• KPOV Kids Radio Camp
• Kids Theatre Introduction
• Animal Planet
• ACE Beginning Piano
• 4H Lego Robotics
• and many, many more.

Some of the classes offered after school, some on weekends, and some on early release Wednesdays (a really good idea.)

To check out more of their classes, see the catalog.  Click on 2010 Spring / Winter catalog, about half way down the page.  Registration begins January 7th.

Fact Checking the Experts

by Kevin B. English

The Internet has made self publishing very easy and convenient and, most importantly, available to the masses.  In turn, many comments and remarks are taken out of context.  This morning I ran across such a case.

1. I received the following tweet from Daniel Pink, a famed and respected author and lecturer.

DanielPink: RT @skap5: In 1960 75% of college instructors were full time tenured or tenure track professors. Today only 27% are.

My take away from this was “this is bad”.  Not sure if that is what the author intended, but that was my take away.

2.  I then pasted the entire tweet into Google to see if I could source the Tweet.  Below is what I came upon next.

Strangle the Future

By Tim Tyson on December 31, 2009 6:46 AM

“In 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors; today only 27 percent are. The rest are graduate students or adjunct and contingent faculty — instructors employed on a per-course or yearly contract basis, usually without benefits and earning a third or less of what their tenured colleagues make. The recession means their numbers are growing.”

“When a tenure-track position is empty,” says Gwendolyn Bradley, director of communications at the American Association of University Professors, “institutions are choosing to hire three part-timers to save money.”

I’m glad I went to university when I did. I had some of the most amazing professors!

Ooohhh, this is really bad.  The implication is that non-tenured professors are worse teachers than tenured track teachers.  Better be careful.

3.  After some more researching I found the original source material,

The Luggage Problem (Solution)

by Kevin B. English

The following is the solution to the luggage problem that I proposed a week or two ago.

To refresh your memories here is the original problem.  Click here to read the full post of the original problem.

The Problem:
Suppose I went to Alaska salmon fishing and caught a bunch of fish.  I then had the fish filleted, smoked, and packed.  Note the packages are rather small and can be stacked very tightly together.  Now I want to bring as much salmon home with me as I can.  I have one bag to pack all the salmon into.  What size bag will maximize the amount of salmon that I can bring home?  You can design any type of rectangular bag that you want.  For instance, the bag could have a width of 10″, a length of 42″, and a height of 8″.  Remember the Width + Length + Height cannot exceed 60″.

The Answer:
Width = 20″
Length = 20″
Height = 20″

Or, in words, the rectangular box design that gives the greatest volume is a cube (all sides of equal length).

Middle School Student – Justification
I would expect a middle school student to justify their answer through a series of examples.  For example,

Trial # | Width | Length | Height | Volume (= width X length X height)

1                1            1               58            V = 1 X 1 X 58 = 58 cubic inches

2               10          10            40            V = 10 X 10 X 40 = 4000 cubic inches

3               15         15             30             V = 15 X 15 X 30 = 6750 cubic inches

4               20         20           20              V = 20 X 20 X 20 = 8000 cubic inches

5               19          21            20              V = 19 X 21 X 20 = 7980 cubic inches

From this table, and this table is the least amount of work I would expect as a teacher, I would expect the student to venture a conclusion that 20 inches by 20 inches by 20 inches gives the greatest volume.

High School Student – Justification
I would expect a high school student who has completed Pre-Calculus to get the correct solution and provide a proof or illustration of why 20 inches by 20 inches by 20 inches is correct and there are no other solutions.  Note that in the Middle School solution we found the answer by trial but we could not guarantee that we have the correct answer.  There are an infinite number of possibilities for the rectangular box design and we only checked 5 possibilities.  For example, what about the possibility of 19.8 by 20.2 by 20?  (This gives a volume of 7999.2 cubic inches.)

Here is what I would expect of a high school student. 

Numbers Need Context Too

by Kevin B. English

Too often I see statistics (or absolute numbers) used to justify an argument or premise.

Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture Blog does a nice job of explaining such a case.

One of the themes I’ve heard recently in the climate debate is that there is no scientific consensus — that there is actually strong disagreement.

The main basis of this argument is that 31,486 dissenting scientists have signed a petition against the belief that Global Warming is man-made at the PetitionProject.org.

I don’t want to debate climate change; rather, I want to look at that argument to see if there are any statistical flaws in it.

My problem is whenever anyone uses a single, out of context, data point. What does this number actually mean? Is 31,486 a lot or a little? How many scientists are there in the US? etc.

I heard this argument the other day, and went hunting down a visual way to express it, and found this via Information is Beautiful:

>

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This does not resolve the debate — there are more variations (Climate Change: A Consensus Among Scientists?) — at but it demonstrates an obvious flaw in the “dissenting scientist” argument.

Here is the breakdown of skeptics, by field:

Interesting stuff . . .

Journalists and Statistics – A Disaster!

by Kevin B. English

This morning I was reading in the Auckland newspaper about airport safety in regards to the latest bombing attempt.  The author quoted a source as saying that flying  was 99.999% safe in regards to terrorists threats (that is you getting from point A to point B without your plane being blown up).  OK, that seems reasonable, there are many, many planes in the air these days and few are blown out of the sky by terrorists.

Here is where the mistake happens.  The author goes on to say that the safety measures taken at airports to protect us from bombers is 99.999% effective.  FALSE!!

Let’s do a little back of the envelope math here. 

High Desert Meseum Science Party

by Kevin B. English

One of the mantras/themes I keep repeating is that parent’s must supplement their students classroom education with outside activities.

A perfect opportunity, this week, is to attend one the High Desert Museum’s science parties.  By reading the Bulletin article, it looks like this is age appropriate for elementary and early middle school students.

“The idea behind the Science Party is to bring to life the strange matter through demonstration,” Benton said.

The Science Party at the museum continues through Thursday. Parents must accompany children, and the cost is $7 or $5 for members. Shows are held at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Sexting – The Must Have Convesation with Your Student

by Kevin B. English

Sexting, the sending and/or receiving of text messages that contain nudity or partial nudity. From the New York Times today:

Four percent of the teenagers indicated that had dispatched “sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images or videos of themselves” via text messaging, while 15 percent claimed they had received such images of a person they know.

In the NYT article,

A 16-year-old honors student took a nude photo of herself, used her cellphone to send it to a friend and, bingo, for the last two weeks the photo has made the rounds of the three-year-old school with 1,300 students.

The possible outcomes,

The school is contemplating punishment, the police are interviewing students and James Glasgow, the Will County state’s attorney, is mulling whether to prosecute anybody under Illinois child pornography statutes.