Archive for 'Analysis' Category
Another Look at PISA
Letter published in Education Week (January 4, 2011) from Diane Ravitch to to Deborah Meier Dear Deborah, I have been fascinated by the continuing commentary and controversy about the results of the international tests of reading, mathematics, and science known as PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment). President Barack Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan [...]
A Reformer’s Change of Heart
By William J. Rees (A review of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch, published in 2010 by Basic Books. This review appeared in Science, May 28, 2010 and is available on-line, subscription required.)
George Polya (1887-1985) Twenty Five Years On
A moving reminiscence of George Polya, arguably the father of problem solving in mathematics.
In the Trenches: Three Teacher’s Perspectives on Moving Beyond the Math Wars
By Susan Brown, Antoinette Seidelmann, and Gwendolyn Zimmermann Why can’t they remember how to graph a line? It’s January, and we are beginning the unit on systems of equations. Graphing is one way my students are expected to solve a system of equations, but they can’t even graph a line. We spent how many weeks [...]
Math Standards, Division, and Constructivism
By Joseph G. Rosenstein, Department of Mathematics, Rutgers University The day after “mathematics education” was featured on the New York Times Op Ed page [in the summer of 1997], I was scheduled to speak to a group of high school mathematics teachers and mathematics and computer science researchers about “The Standards Approach to Education”.