Weekly Math Updates

April 11, 2007

Contents:

  • Concerned Parent
  • Mitt Romney on Math
  • Media Articles
  • Weekly Comic

Concerned Parent

Hi all,

I got emailed this sad story yesterday and wanted to get feedback from anyone in Orem about options this woman has. Please email me if you have any thoughts about this.

Dear Oak,

    I'm an admirer of yours up in SLC.  My friend [name removed] forwards your stuff to [me].  I'm writing for your advice.  My friend just moved from a small district (Provo) to a huge one (Alpine).  [She] now lives below the poverty line (she and her American husband have three kids, and he's still paying child support for his two from a previous marriage...and he's manual laborer.  You get the picture).  Anyway, their oldest child has been in Head Start and was learning to read and do math well in kindergarten.  He is a bright kid, and so are his parents despite their circumstances.  I've gotten materials to [her] and she also works with her kids at home.

    SO...they move from their horrible apartment on a highway (thus her Provo public school wasn't exactly in prime demographics) to a better duplex just barely in Orem.  She called me after two weeks completely distraught at how bad the Orem school seems compared to the other.  The little boy's not reading anymore, learning phonics, doing math (and what bugs her the most is that he's not saying the American pledge of allegiance, which has nothing to do with curriculum, but which I found interesting).  The whole school, she found, seemed fraught with low expectations and a terrible learning atmosphere.  I told her she needs to get on a charter list immediately and to find at least 3 educated parents in her area and discover which public schools she should open enroll at.   Do you have any suggestions or know of any charters that don't have a 600 student waiting list?  Any decent district schools you know of on the far southern tip of Orem?  Do you think vouchers will stand and they could send the kid to Meridian, if that private school still exists?  They'd definitely qualify for the $3000, but couldn't pay anything over that, so private may be out.

    Sorry to bother you, but I care a lot about this family and couldn't think of anyone more knowledgeable on this subject.

Thanks very much,

[name removed]

Mitt Romney on Math

Someone emailed me this page discussing Mitt Romney's view of math education which I thought would be appropriate to send out. :) Personally I'd like to see Mitt get into the Presidency so we'd finally have a fairly "non-bureacrat" cost cutter go through our bloated government and attempt to eliminate some of the waste.

http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Math

Media Articles

Oops. The big super collider has an accident due to scientists forgetting some basic physics laws.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626728.ece

Weekly Comic

Archive: http://www.weaponsofmathdestruction.com

Till next week,

Oak Norton

http://www.oaknorton.com/mathpetition.cfm

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