No. 54
Thursday, June 2, 2005

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Early returns show overwhelming support for the "discursive style" of yesterday's article, "1945: Local Politics, World Politics and Popular Culture."  If you haven't seen it yet, we sent it out at about 5 pm yesterday.  It should be in your computer by now, and it is currently posted on our website, www.nycivic.org.  We appreciate all the people who took the time to write back and let us know what they thought.  We welcome additional reviews, whether favorable or not.
 
The bad:   
NEW MONOPOLY CARD:  PAY $75 TO CHANGE SUBWAY CARS
 
One of the most harebrained (many people think the spelling is hairbrained, because the hair is so near the brain, but in fact the word derives from the brain of a rabbit, which is said to be small, cf. birdbrain) ideas in recent years has come from the MTA.  This cockamamie proposal would -impose a fine of $75 on people who go from car to car on the subway.
 
People change cars for many legitimate reasons: fear of a potential assailant, dislike for a dirty or smelly car, overcrowding in one car while another has available seats, lack of air conditioning or proper lighting in a car, or the desire to be in a car closer to the exit you want to use.  To criminalize changing cars on a subway train is so obviously foolish that one wonders who it was who was responsible for this proposal, and whether that person might not be better suited for picking up the used and discarded Metrocards which now clutter so many stations.
 
Yesterday's Daily News had a sensible editorial on the subject, and their reasons overlap with ours.  They also deride the MTA's proposed "loony ban" on taking photographs on the subway, a scheme which has apparently been dropped.  The News' style is as vivid as ever.
 
The good:   
CRIME DECLINES AGAIN, KELLY TELLS CITY COUNCIL
 
Good news in the perpetual war on crime, reported by Stephanie Gaskell in an article in yesterday's Post, "CROOKS GOING DOWN: City Slashes Crime."  Commissioner Ray Kelly reported this finding at a budget hearing in City Hall.  The most interesting part of the story came in the last paragraph.  Kelly said that this is the first year the NYPD academy's graduating class had more minorities than whites, 55 percent to 45 percent.  Does that mean that, for police purposes, they will no longer be considered minorities?
 
The downright ugly:
NEW PUBLIC SCHOOL MATH SENDS KIDS TO PRIVATE TUTORS,
STUYVESANT TEACHER EXPLAINS JUST HOW LUDICROUS IT IS
FOR STUDENTS TO LEARN MATH BY TALKING TO EACH OTHER
 
There is a Sun column on an old front in the school wars: how to teach mathematics.  The author, Bruce Winokur, is a mathematics instructor at Stuyvesant High School, now probably the best in the city.  His argument cannot easily be expressed in snippets, so you should link to the article if you want to understand fully what this is about.
 
Two paragraphs frame the issue: 

"I'm a firm believer in public education, the great equalizer.  Sadly, over the past ten years, I've witnessed how badly things can go wrong.  I'm referring specifically to the constructivist math curricula that abound in our city public schools in general and more specifically in District 2, where I live, teach, and raise my daughter.

"Constructivist curricula, such as TERC and CMP, forsake algorithms, postulates, and theorems (the foundation of math) as well as teacher-centered learning.  Instead, they have students working among themselves in groups, loosely guided by the teacher in a drawn-out attempt to 'discover' math truths."

 Winokur tells us a startling story:

"In my Upper East Side neighborhood, an incredible number of intelligent young students from the fourth grade and up are seeing private math tutors.  Many of these are not the type of children who would normally struggle in arithmetic or elementary algebra.  As a result of the way they're taught elementary math, they find themselves unable to do real math.  When they're taught math in a more traditional way by their tutors, they invariably find themselves relieved and highly critical of the way they've been taught mathematics."

 
What about the children whose parents can't afford private math tutors?  They are disadvantaged by the same people who claim to be their champions.  If the situation were not so hurtful, it would be ludicrous.  Do not be deceived by claims about test scores.  Think of how much better they could be if children were taught math sensibly.  
 
The problem here, again, is that the Teachers College clique of 'progressive thinkers' is worshipped by the current bosses of our school system, non-educators who swallow the views of deluded professionals who teach what their own teachers tell them.  Some day this illusion will be fully exposed, and it will end up in "the dustbin of history", a phrase which with its devotees should be quite familiar.  BTW, did you ever hear the one about the emperor who had no clothes?