In all the hubbub of commenting and contradictions on last week's post on the infamous geometry question posed to Governor Bush, I completely forgot to go find what Charles of Reform K-12 had to say on the topic. An unforgiveable mistake, on my part.
Charles is not only a superb geometry teacher, but is more willing to go out on a limb than I. While I tactfully said that I didn't think the item mentioned by Ms. Marques was on the FCAT, Charles said, "We have no doubt that there was some question involving either a 3-4-5 right triangle or a 30-60-90 right triangle, but not both. We will publicly eat a copy of the FCAT if anyone can prove us wrong."
Like me, he also found it appalling that it was "news" that the Governor got the item wrong, but not that the girl herself got it wrong:
No one expects grownups in non-scientific fields to remember high-school geometry, so the Governor's ignorance is understandable. But here is not only one student, but her friends as well, who are confoundingly ignorant on basic facts from 10th grade geometry, while being convinced they know their stuff.
In other FCAT-related news, I received an email from Devoted Reader, and concerned parent, V.G., who is an FCAT supporter but has some questions about a "research" FCAT remediation class. It seems that schools receive funding to place students in this remediation class and may be, um, overeager to place students (even those who are performing at grade level) in the class. Has anyone else had an experience like this?
Posted by kswygert at July 12, 2004 01:05 PM