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The kid in early spring was in so much trouble as to not even know how to calculate the slope of a line or what an X and Y intercepts were. Of course, that is taught in October. Teacher simply kept passing him. Confrontations with the Superintendent eventually resulted in a lawsuit in State court. The school board paid $60,000 to reeducate the kid - a trust fund. They lost on all six counts in court - a slam dunk.
And BTW, that lady's Congressman Gerlach refused to help. The Congressman from another district (who will run for state Senator), Sestack, stepped forward to assist.
So I did some of the tutoring. I asked him what one quarter was. He started dividing one by four - long division. So, what is a quarter of a dollar? A quarter. A quarter of one - write 25 cents. Without being challenged by his teachers, even that relationship was never learned.
Doing volunteer house construction, many volunteers could not even identify one quater inch marks on a tape measure. At least some were college graduates. One I remember in particular was a communication major.
Now this is one of the better public school systems in the county - according to published stats. What happens in Philadelphia when 50% of students drop out?
Consumer Reports made this problem obvious when creating simple failures. Then taking that computer to a shop to fix. Most problems were never solved the first time. “Follow the evidence” – a simple concept that comes from even doing math – was never learned. Technical competence even among computer repairmen is so pathetic that repairmen immediately start swapping part - starting with the power supply. Cannot think through a problem. Do not even understand how to first define a problem. Never learn that simple concept as taught in math. Since relationships such as one divided by four is same as a quarter of a dollar.
Ask many cashiers to make change without using the cash register. They cannot even do what was done routinely in the jungle 100 years ago. Nobody needs a calculator to make change. But even that simplest concept that comes from learning how to solve problem by doing things is …
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