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.

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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, a New York Times article.  Guess what,  there are some positives and negatives to having non-tenured professors.

The possible negatives:

1.  “It’s sometimes harder to track down adjuncts outside of class, because they rarely have offices or even their own departmental mailboxes.”  Hmmm, this could also be said of tenured track professors.  I know that our local community college requires the same office amount of office hours of tenured track and non-tenure track professors.

2. “It’s not unusual for adjuncts to be hired at the last minute to teach courses they’ve never taught. And with no job security, they may consider it advantageous to tailor classes for student approval.”  A very valid point in my opinion.

The possible positives:

1.  “If you take a strict anti-adjunct stance, you may miss out on some star instructors — Barack Obama taught a seminar on racism and the law at the University of Chicago Law School as an adjunct.”

2.  “Professoring part-time is a hobby for overachieving architects, graphic designers, lawyers and entrepreneurs, all of whom can share insights from real-world experiences (my emphasis) that full-time academics haven’t had.”

The crux is that,

“Before making assumptions that an adjunct is bad, Google them,” Mr. Cohen says. “You may find that real estate teacher is one step removed from Donald Trump’s V.P. on LinkedIn, and these are the types of people you want to meet.”

And lastly, back to the contention that

“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.”

I never could find the source for this quote.  The New York Times article doesn’t refer to the source, nor is the author’s email address made available.  I wrote the New York Times requesting the source of the quote. I will keep you posted.

(As an aside,  I think an interesting high school classroom assignment would be to take a piece of quoted writing and source the quote back to the author and make the determination of whether the quote was used in context or out of context.)

Comments?  Thoughts?

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.  First, lets write out the volume equation and the perimeter equation (which is the constraint).

Volume = Width X Length X Height or V = W X L X H

the Perimeter constraint is
Width + Length + Height = 60 cubic inches or W + L + H = 60

re-arranging the perimeter equation we get
H = 60 – (W +L)

Replacing H in the volume equation, we get
V = W X L X [60 - (W+L)]

Doing some simple algebra this can be re-written as
V = 60WL – W^2L – WL^2

Here is where the problem gets tricky, but elegant.  We have two unknown variables (W and L) that define volume (V).  This should trigger the thought of a 3D graph.  On the X-axis we will place W, on the Y-axis we will place L and on the Z-axis we will place V.  W and L are in the horizontal directions, but perpendicular to each other and V is in the vertical direction.  Using a simple 3D graphing tool we can graph the Volume equation as I have done below.

Using the trace tool of the 3D graphing program (or the max tool) we find the greatest volume by tracing to the peak of the green contour which is a width of 20 inches and a length of 20 inches and a volume of 8000 cubic inches.  The height is found by default from the perimeter constraint equation, P = W + L + H or 60 = 20 + 20 + H, giving H = 20 inches.

We know that this is the correct and only answer since the contour graph shows only 1 peak.  I would expect the student to do a bit of investigation around this idea by zooming in to look for other peaks that are not as evident.  You won’t find any others.  A more formal proof that there is only one solution could be done using calculus.

Summary:
This is a classic math problem that I would expect students to start working on in the middle grades and progressing on into high school (the more formal mathematical word being for this is “spiraling”).  For example, in middle school I would expect students to investigate this problem in 2 dimensions, not 3.  For instance, the problem would be stated something like “You need to build a corral for your horses, you have a total of 1000 feet of fence.  Build a coral that provides your horses with the greatest amount of room to roam.

In Algebra 2 I would expect students to tackle the above problem as I have outlined.  For calculus students, I would expect them to solve this problem through differentiation.

One last note.  I urge you to “test” your students mathematical knowledge with this problem.  This problem can be a very difficult problem for some students (even A students) because it requires them to be problem solvers / creative thinkers.  Some mathematical curriculums fail to emphasize and teach problem solving.  If your student cannot get started with this problem, it is time to get some outside help — specifically in problem solving.  I would recommend a program of study based on the following two texts (look towards the bottom of the page):

• The Art of Problem Solving Volume 1: The Basics and
• The Art of Problem Solving Volume 2: and Beyond

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.

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.  Say in 1 year, world-wide, there are 100 attempts by terrorists to bring bombs or bomb making equipment aboard planes with the intent of blowing up the plane.  Further, it has been 9 years since the shoe bomber and this latest incident.  (There may have been other public instances between these two incidents, but I can’t remember one, which will make the result more alarming.)  Thus, there were 900 hypothetical attempts to bring bomb making equipment aboard planes in 9 years and in one instance the bomber passed through security and got on the plane.  That is 1 out of 900 attempts or .1111%.  Or said another way, airport security was 99.8888% effective.  That is much different from 99.999%, which is 1 out of 100,000.  Again, 1 out 900 compared to 1 out of 100,000.

Now, I really think the situation is actually much worse.  I would be surprised if there were 20 worldwide attempts per year to bring bomb making equipment of bombs aboard planes, not 100.  If you redo the math with 20 attempts per year, then airport security is 99.444% effective or about 1 out of 180 times.

Hmmm?? 1 out 180 attempts (actual) compared to 1 out 100,000 attempts (as erroneously reported).  I don’t find this very comforting.

Back to one of my themes on education — statistics versus calculus.  This is a simple statistics problem, not a calculus problem.  Again, I would argue that most students should take AP Statistics, not AP Calculus in high school.

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 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.

Worse yet, I would hate being the parent

… of Joey, the boy who received the sext and passed it on to his buddies …

opposite innocent little daddy’s girl Sally, who is a pure legal hound.  Can you imagine how much time, money, and headache this could be?  And if you are the Mum or Dad of Sally, have a talk with Sally.  Those pictures may “haunt” her professionally some day.