NotTheWholeStoryPart2

So just how far back does the U.S. fraction deficiency go, you ask.

Answer: really far.

In 1923, the NEW YORK TIMES reported that fewer than half of seventh grade students could convert the fraction 1/5 into a decimal.

The Columbia Teachers College had a plan.

The new aim of the progressive arithmetricians is to abandon drilling in artificial problems and to bring mathematics close to every-day life.

from: 'New Teaching Puts Life into Dreary Arithmetic', NYTIMES December 9, 1923

Apparently, the plan was working.

The new method is so successful, according to its sponsors, that one school has playfully threatened to abandon it for the reason that the pupils are so enthusiastic over arithmetic that their teachers can scarcely interest them in other subjects.

This was the start of progressive education in America.

So flash forward to 1989, and we find NAEP reporting that 60 percent of seventh grade students can 'express simple fractions' as decimals.

A mere 70 years of progress, and 10% of American seventh graders who wouldn't have known that 1/5 is the same thing as 20% back in 1923 do know in 1989.

That was my first thought.

My second thought was, OK, I'll take it. 10% is 10%.

Then I noticed Chris Correa's second post on the subject.

I browsed through the publicly released NAEP questions and found the most comparable question to be from 1992: Of the following, which is closest in value to 0.52?

A) 1/50
B) 1/5
C) 1/4
D) 1/3
E) 1/2

Only 51% of eighth-graders correctly answered this question. Nearly 30% of students responded that 1/50 was closest in value to 0.52.


This is my beef with constructivism.

It's not like constructivism hasn't been given a fair shake.

Constructivists have had a good hundred years to show us what they can do.

I say it's time to move on.

[Thank you, Chris Correa.]

NotTheWholeStory

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