Elianna

But what if your work institutes a policy that both restrooms are for anyone, and takes down the signs? Or better yet, labels them as clearly for everyone (at my place we had a male/female symbol on the doors). It's not that people are bigoted, it's that they're used to things the way they're used to, and they don't like change. An even more likely thing to happen: What if your work has two restrooms, a male and a female one, and one becomes broken? I would bet that if that happened, you would not get these reactions, everyone would be accepting of the fact that they had to share "their" restrooms.

And that's why I said stall instead of urinal. But anyway, I don't understand the point you're making. Are you trying to claim that mixed gender urinals wouldn't work because people would then be looking? Granted, I would never use one even if I had one of those tools that allows women to pee standing up while camping, but are you trying to claim that women who do use those would take advantage and look at men's parts? Or that men would then start looking at what's around them? I think that both of these suppositions are silly, so I'm not really sure what your point is. Anyway, anyone who is afraid of someone looking at their parts should be able to use a stall (with a closed door) and if the room with stalls were open to anyone, I imagine that after some time (perhaps a day or so) no one cares what genitals are in the stall next to you. My ideal set up of restrooms is basically what Trinidad said before: A room with stalls labelled as such, and perhaps a side room (can just be set up behind a privacy barrier if a separate room is not needed) with urinals. There should be at least one bigger stall for people with mobility devices, and a changing table available that's not in a stall. (Side note: I always thought that it was a terrible idea to put the changing table in the big stall, plus why is the changing table only ever in the woman's restroom? Don't fathers ever take babies out in public, and then have to change them?) And everyone washes their hands at the sinks when they leave.

Okay, this I kind of get, somewhat (but don't necessarily agree). If bathroom stalls were completely open, or showers in locker rooms had no curtains, I would definitely feel uncomfortable using them in a mixed gender environment, but to be honest, I would definitely feel uncomfortable using them in a single gender environment, too. As of now, I won't change in a locker room, I'll go somewhere private to change. Where I disagree with the tenor of your post is that I don't think that my discomfort should be catered too. Just because I refuse to change in an open locker room doesn't mean that the world needs to change locker rooms, it means that I need to adapt to the world and either get over my discomfort, or else arrange my life so I don't have to change in front of others. I can't imagine what would be the problem of going to the restroom and using a stall next to someone else who is also using the stall as long as I can close the door for privacy, and that it matters to me what is going on with the other person's body as long as it remains confined to their stall. And if it bothered me, I would arrange my day to minimize using the bathroom in public. That's what I did in high school.

My point wasn't that if schools were funded equally everything would be sunshine and roses. It was that IF funding equally was the goal, then relying ONLY on property taxes of the area of the school is ridiculous. I also wanted to refute the claim that all that is needed to equalize funding of schools is for poor areas to raise property taxes and show why that won't work. From your table it seems that the state of MD supplements per student to attempt to bring all counties up to some level, but does not attempt to equalize. CA does the same (although it operates on a per district rather than per county basis) but our minimum is lower than yours. According to the state of CA for '16-'17 it is about 10,600, but I really thought it was $9,000 because the district is supposed to pay us the minimum per student and that's what we get so perhaps those numbers are different for different grade levels? But anyway, it's still about $2200 less than your lowest county.

Read https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Inequalities-Children-Americas-Schools/dp/0770435688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484177696&sr=8-1&keywords=kozol+jonathan.+savage+inequalities+children+in+america+s+schools One of the astonishing (or perhaps not so astonishing) facts is that many poor communities actually set HIGHER property tax rates to fund education than richer communities, but it still leads to lower amounts of money per student. For example, take two high school districts. One is in a richer neighborhood that has much more expensive homes and the other has cheaper homes (and considered a "worse neighborhood"). If each home in the "rich" district was valued at 2.4+ million dollars (the median home price in, say, Palo Alto) and taxed at r%, I leave it to you to work out what tax rate needs to be set for homes in the cheaper area (let's say East Palo Alto - a separate school district whose median home price is 730,000). And if you think that this could be overcome by having more homes in the poorer neighborhoods, remember that with more homes come more children (and therefore students) and so that doesn't help the amount of money a public school gets per student. So yes, people could vote to raise property tax. But by your reasoning - it's poor people's fault that they're not at the same school funding level as rich people - they should raise property taxes to be more than three times the rate!

We may have already moved on from this topic, but I would point out that saying that something someone said is racist is very different than calling the person racist. I don't think it's productive at all to engage in name-calling, which is what calling someone racist would be. I do however believe that everyone is susceptible to racist thoughts, and that the main goal of having a fair and equitable society is to recognize those thoughts (usually coming from a place of fear or ignorance) and not act on them. (And acting includes verbal/written actions.) I also operate from a point of view that very few people actually want to be racist (if someone wants to be, then I really have nothing to say to them), and so pointing out actions that are racist are ways to help people not act in a racist manner. Another example of times I would say something to someone: when someone says something implying "URBAN schools" or "THOSE children" (the latter not said here, but said to me in other locations) - those are clearly codewords about children of color, and if someone doesn't know that, then they need to be told. Going back to the common core thread, I talked about my students, and how I teach them, and what I get them to do. Today I witnessed a teacher doing something extremely similar with 9th graders at my school and having them all on task, forming questions that a certain equation could answer. I know that people in that thread expressed shock when I verified that I taught at a "urban" (90+% Latino/African American students - closer to 100% than 90%) that had about 85% of students on free-or-reduced lunch. I think that showed preconceived notions of what students of color could do, and revealed some racist thoughts. I think that calling those people racist would be a complete overbid, as most when I pointed out where I worked seemed to at least be willing to change their worldview which in my mind shows someone with an open mind. And my goal in life is to reach people who have an open mind (or to open minds, if I can). Basically, calling someone's actions racists allows that they may learn from them, and can change. Calling someone themselves racist will likely entrench them in whatever they're thinking, and not allow that people can grow. The trick, though, is that if it's been pointed out to you that an action/thought was racist (like that employers shouldn't hire African Americans due to fear of litigation) and it has been explained why that thought is racist, you don't then decide that you're being called racist and double-down on your statements.

Fox News is rightwing/conservative but not what I would consider "alt-right". Breitbart is alt-right (even according to the creator).

I may not be making myself clear: My point was that, like the video with President Obama talking to the young woman, that what the mayor said got twisted. Trying to allow residents to vote on local politics is a far cry from allowing them to vote in national elections. I would go so far and not call it "compromised" because I think that undocumented workers who are residents in a given town are contributing to the town by working hard, paying local taxes - mostly in the form of sales taxes - and contributing to the town's way of life. I think that allowing them to vote in local elections would make them better residents (more willing to do things for the good of the town) and I think that they would deserve it just as much as someone lucky enough to be born in the US who moves to that town. So I was not saying the mayor encouraged illegal activity - he wanted to allow people to vote in local elections (make something legal) but that doesn't mean that he was encouraging people to vote WITHOUT it being made legal. I disagree that your questions are the questions that should be asked. I would ask: How can people be such bad readers that they miss the word local when reading that article, and get so angry that they pass it along to others who either also can't read, or don't bother to read and just believe whatever they're told. And then how people use evidence of ONE mayor advocating letting undocumented RESIDENTS vote in LOCAL elections and use that as possible proof that 3 million undocumented workers in CA voted in NATIONAL elections when these two are completely unrelated. I think that the problem is not just believing everything one reads/is told, but critical reasoning. Both in the area of critiquing the reasoning of others (not just disbelieving them because blah), and also in inductive reasoning: If A-> B that doesn't prove some unrelated C. I showed the link to say that it wasn't completely made up, but twisted and misunderstood (or misrepresented), not in support of that ludicrous claim.

I actually looked this up, and according the New Haven Independent, it DOES seem that in 2011 the mayor advocated letting undocumented people vote IN LOCAL ELECTIONS. This is a very far cry from voting in National Elections. And yes, in many places they happen on the same ballot, but it should be fairly easy to separate the local races from the national ones, and therefore have people vote in local elections like for mayor and dogcatcher and such. Now this was five years ago, so I'm not sure it's germane to the claim that 3 million undocumented workers voted in California. (And "I'm not sure" is an underbid of my feelings if that's not clear.)

Besides that, they would have had to register to vote, too. People can't just wake up on the day of an election and decide to vote for the first time. And I hear people say that they don't want to register to vote because they don't want to be called to jury duty (which, btw, is not the case anymore); It sounds very plausible to me that people would be afraid that having their (DOCUMENTED) relatives register to vote would bring attention to themselves.

Said the Physicist. Did I tell you I'm teaching Physics again?

I don't know as much about the English Language Arts (ELA) standards, but you can find them for yourself here: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/ I took a cursory look and what I found jibed with my memory: There were no required texts, it mainly lists what students are expected to be able to do, and is up to teachers (more likely school districts) to choose texts that support students in developing the expected skills. Yes, and no. It's about Math and English Language Arts, but all non-Math courses are expected to support ELA. The new standards for ELA are heavy on being able to read Science/History texts for understanding. As a 1/4 science teacher, I've sat in Literacy training when I haven't felt like attending the Math training. If you look at the link I put above, you can see that ELA is expected to be supported by Science/History. Also, NGSS is coming out for Science. It is not technically part of common core, but it's a similar concept and we in the Science Dept at my school (I teach both Math and Science) are definitely expected to adapt to it, and schools in general have to make sure they are covering it.

You are more than welcome to state whatever fears you have, but I think that the point is to examine them to see if they are reasonable. I have a true and definite fear that people will get hurt whenever they leave the house, but I know in my head that is not a reasonable fear, so I leave the house to go do normal things. It doesn't stop having nightmares about car accidents or dying, but that still doesn't mean that it's statistically reasonable. I don't remember if I was the poster that requested that you back up that argument (my guess is that I wasn't - I see that Hrothgar is claiming to be the person) but not to speak for others, but the point of asking you to back up that argument is not because I (for one) don't believe that you aren't afraid, it's more to try to determine if your fears are ones that we should adopt, too. And also, for you to examine your fears and see if you believe that they are ones that should control how you think. See, and my problem is that this, and common core, should not have political positions. Politicians don't seem to need to take a position on things like the Pythagorean Theorem, the Theory of Gravity, Dark Matter, or String Theory, but they seem to think that they need to take a stance on things like Evolution. I accept that they can dictate that it shouldn't be taught (though I would think that they're wrong) but to expound about how it's wrong when they don't understand the science behind it (or don't want to understand) casts them in a ridiculous light. I feel the same about common core. I don't really care what non-experts think about the math and learning stages detailed in it (of which I would lump politicians), I care more about what experts in how students learn think about it.

That's what I get for not reading the whole thread before I google, I got the same result. First hit, so rather easy to find.

At it's base, common core isn't a system, but more an aspirational set of standards. The "system" is put together by educators (and textbook publishers) who try to meet the hoops that students will be tested on. The main part about Common Core Math is the Standard Math Principles, which many people take as standards, but I (and many people who have thought about math education) take more as explicitly stating what are traits of good mathematicians, and so we need to make sure that students are building skills in those areas. Here they are: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. If anyone is interested in more detail about those or the rest of the "content standards", you can find them here. And the "system" HAS been studied in many ways. There is a giant core of educational theory about this but it's not my area of expertise so I can't link you to studies (I'm not taking the time to search for them past the time I'm spending replying).

Interestingly enough, there is a claim that the World Series was actually named after Pulitzer's New York World (a newspaper).

So am I. I didn't add this because I didn't consider it relevant, but I teach in what would be considered an "inner city school". My school is located at the intersection of three gangs who are busy fighting about that territory. Our school is 99% children of color. We have 4 Asian kids, 10 African-American kids, 330 Latino kids and 2 White kids. You may not be trying to sound racist, but it sure sounds like you are succeeding. And my guess is that your friends may have also been succeeding. Kids are smart and pick up on that. I've had kids say rude things to me before, they don't come in as perfect little angels. The point is to not treat them as "others" or incapable of controlling themselves, but to show that you believe in them, and that they are capable of both learning and behaving.

I'll repeat: While I teach at a charter, it is not a wealthy public school. 85% (down from 90%) of our students are on Free or Reduced Lunch. The "rich kid" at school had a family income of 60,000 which may seem high for US standards but is REALLY LOW for the Bay Area (enough to qualify for Below Market housing). To give context, to qualify for Reduced Lunch in 2015-2016, a family of 4 needed an income of below 44,863 and for free lunch below 31,525 (numbers from http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/rs/scales1516.asp). I think that knowing that 85% of our students have families that have an income below $45,000 will clarify that we are not a rich school. The public school district we are chartered by has 47% FRL. And while I'm teaching an advanced course now, I haven't always and I've not had discipline issues get in the way of teaching. The way I get to teach without disciplining ALL the time is very clear: (not in an order, just as I can think of them.) Proactive List: 1) Proximity (I don't stay in one place, I wander and make my presence known and make it clear that I'm paying attention) 2) Choose interesting problems and make sure that students know why we are doing what we're doing (that everything has a purpose). 3) (Perhaps most important) TALK to students, not at them. Have conversations both while I instruct, and while they are working. Almost always about Math, but if they look like they are having a hard time in general, talk about what's going on with them. Not only will that student be more engaged, other students will see that I am caring and compassionate, and be more willing to do hard work for me. (By talk with them while I instruct, I mean that I usually ask leading questions that they have to think about and share with a partner and basically I try to convince them that they figured out everything going on without my telling them anything more than definitions.) 4) Make sure that all students can experience meaningful success early on in my course, and make sure that they receive positive feedback about it. Again, students are more willing to work hard if they believe that they have a possibility of learning. 5) Realizing that most behavior problems stem from some sort of fear, and that if you can get them to not feel afraid, but feel empowered and able, they are less likely to act out. 6) Asking lower grade teachers if there's a student in particular to watch out for, and then make sure that they in particular get to do something well, and then call their home to compliment them to their parents/guardians. Reactive List: 1) "The Look" - I've worked on it and think that I have it down. 2) Quickly setting all students on some practice problem, and then asking misbehaving student to knock it off if it's something minor. 3) Quickly setting all students on some practice problem, and then talking to a student and asking them what's going on. I usually ask them what they were doing, how they think I feel about what they were doing, how they think others react to what they're doing, questions like that. The point is to get them to reflect. If they refuse, I straight out tell them that I need them to think about what they are doing and how it affects others, and that they need to take five minutes outside to do it. 4) Very rarely have I had to send a student to the office, but I have for things that my school considers Zero Tolerance (flashing gang signs even in jest, racial/sexual epithets, etc.) Again, I'm sure that I do other things, I just can't think of them now. But trying to set up a good learning environment from the start (as much as is possible) is so much better than reacting to things as they happen.

ROTFL!!!!!!!!!!! Most of the students that come to my school come in below grade level. Of our freshmen, 95% test below grade level, over half are 3+ years below grade level. While I currently only teach seniors, I have taught younger classes at this school, and it is with them in mind that I answer all questions. In fact, the example I gave was from our MS coach's 6th grade classroom, which is basically 12 year olds. I expect a lot more of my students this year than what I've written. Just to be even clearer, while I teach at a charter school, it is a school who's mission is to reach first generation students and help them get to-and-through college. While this sounds like we might get the best students, the truth is that the majority of students who are already being served by the regular public school system continue at public school, and we get ones who have struggled, but their parents want them to succeed at school (or the parents don't like their friends and want them to move - probably 25% of our freshmen are gang-affiliated or in danger of it). (The other end of the spectrum of students who aren't being served by the public schools would not go to our school, either, because we do not offer as many AP classes or electives as a public school so that's reverse incentive for them.) about 40 out of 350 students have an IEP (are supported by Special Ed, usually for moderate disabilities but that still hinder education) and another 40 or so have a 504 plan. Barmar's response applies to this: Basically getting them to vocalize their understanding of what's going on (AFTER practice, not INSTEAD of) means they retain it longer, and don't have to memorize the process if they have an understanding of why it's mathematically true. They can then approach a lot of problems that involve using inverse operations with the same principles (like logs are inverses of exponentials and one "undoes" the other so it's the same as solving linear equations and not a whole new process to learn). I don't normally swear, but this made me feel like trotting some out - specifically whisky tango foxtrot! They're "allowed" to YELL at a CHILD? And they DO? I have no other response to this except that perhaps your friends should consider other professions that don't ever involve being around others. I can't imagine that yelling does anything other than make the child more obstinate in refusing to cooperate. I know that if I get yelled at, I make sure to stay the heck away from whoever is the lunatic doing the yelling and it doesn't make me think well of them or what they're trying to tell me. I categorically dispute it (in classrooms where teachers know how to teach - we do have some 1st year teachers who haven't even student taught and that might be their classroom in the first month, but by second semester, I dispute it for all except the ones that refuse to manage their classrooms appropriately.)

I estimated less on the clock problem because reading a clock is not really covered in common core. They've basically cut out analog clocks so students won't be familiar with it. However, your other two seem specifically examples of counting up, which is emphasized as a problem solving method in elementary school math, so that's why I estimated those higher. Your example with change is exactly what common core is attempting to address, and I would be shocked if a student who had common core throughout elementary school could not do it. Right now, my students have at earliest been exposed to common core starting at 9th grade, but to be truthful, my course is the first common core course they've had. ETA: The other big point in common core is to rely heavily on "real-world problems" and modeling, so that's why I think that students will automatically know that they need to add, because that's how Math is supposed to be presented to them. I also will add that your supposed 12th graders will not necessarily have had a true common core math class that challenges them in the way they're supposed to be challenged and works on emphasizing the Standard Math Practices. Another big challenge in Elementary Education is that the teachers usually don't understand Math very well, and therefore don't know where they're supposed to push kids to think for themselves, and don't know how to evaluate correct (but different) answers.

Some common responses are usually versions of 180 + 18 + 18, or 240 - 12 - 12. A few students still do the algorithm (ignoring instructions). A few students might do 180 + 36 but not realize it was the algorithm. Since I make all students wait until all students indicate they have come up with an answer, this causes my more inventive students to come up with less obvious ways like: 225 - 45 + 36 (15^2 - 3*15 + 3*18).

Assuming all neurotypical kids 1. 75% 2. 90% 3. 90% If you are willing to tell them how many days are in October and November, and give them paper to write on. To answer your other question: Yes, I think that Common Core seeks to develop such an understanding. I don't know how successful it is, as the crop of students I have were not exposed to common core. In fact, one of the big criticisms I have seen of common core math is that it stresses concepts of numeracy too much at the expense of procedures. For example, people complain that their kids' math classes teach students to subtract 523 - 476 by adding up 24+23 instead of doing column subtraction. Many teachers are implementing things called "Number Talks" (see Jo Boaler) which encourages students to work on numeracy skills, including multiple ways to solve a problem. An example would be displaying a problem like 18x12 and asking students to solve this in their heads without the "typical" algorithm, and then come up with multiple ways and share them with each other. Students complain about the amount of explaining I require them to do. In other words, it's not enough for them to be able to solve for x in 3x + 15 =75; They must be able to explain why each step is mathematically valid, and be able to critique other methods of solving (as in recognizing correctness/noncorrectness) and be able to explain to others faults in their reasoning. Further, they must demonstrate ability to use this in modeling. So for example, I might require them to create a word problem that this equation would solve (and of course the classical given situations, come up with equations to help solve them). (I actually don't teach this math, I just wanted to use an easily understood example.) Not only is it a complete joke, it's an old one too (I remember this type of thing said about either "New Math" or the Math curriculum that followed it) as a protest to the amount of writing students might do in a Math class, usually stated by people who haven't studied how children learn.

Two really interesting ones are by Howard Kozol: Savage Inequalities and Shame of the Nation. The latter is more recent, but the former has more details about what specifically makes schools unequitable (and history behind it). You can see a microcosm of the inequitable pay scale in the Bay Area. Palo Alto andEast Side Union (in San Jose) are close enough that you can reasonably work at either and not have it affect your commute too much. But if you click on each you can find the payscales. For teachers who are good enough to have choices, you can see where the monetary incentive is. Of course, not all people make purely monetary choices (I'm very lucky that I don't have to), but then again - this is the Bay Area and housing especially is under severe pressure. (I don't work for either of the two districts linked, but my school loses a lot of 2+ years teachers to other districts and the most cited reason of people leaving is salary. Of course, there are other reasons among which the most prominent is fatigue of putting so much emotion into the job because of teaching such high needs students - one can get tired and want an easier job that pays more. I certainly keep getting tempted right around December/May.)

I agree with you about educational inequality being a serious problem, and support your suggestion about offering incentive to work at a low SES school. The problem is that most schools are funded by local tax dollars, and it's a lot easier to get more money from a higher tax base. There are some very interesting books on educational inequality if anyone is interested.

We (at least in CA, I don't know if it's statewide or nationwide) have something that is a twist on this. Instead of signing up ahead of time to "give back", if a someone has worked for (I believe 3+) in certain public service jobs (for example - teaching at a school where a certain percentage of students receive free or reduced lunch) and have a college loan, they can apply for loan forgiveness. So it's not a promise that they MUST fulfil, but an extra bonus if they are working at a high needs but not as high-paying job.