Mathematics disaster -- B Shortt

[COMMENT: Speaks for itself. Science and academics as we know them were generated by the universities of the Middle Ages. When we lose our Biblical foundations, we lose also science and honest academics. See items on return to totalitarian education. A tyrant must produce controllable, not educated, people. That has been the aim of "progressive" education from the very start with Horace Mann, John Dewey, et al. We are still progressing -- toward "1984". E. Fox]

Dave Preston, the same Seattle film producer who produced Math Education: an Inconvenient Truth, has posted a follow-up on YouTube. As you will recall, Math Education: an Inconvenient Truth illustrates how the adoption of reform math curricula in elementary schools is crippling our children intellectually.

That video, which was originally intended for parents in Washington State, has now been viewed nearly 130,000 times by people all over the country. In fact, the response to the video has been so significant, that the publishers of reform math curricula have had their employees publishing comments about the video defending reform math.

A few days ago Preston posted a second video giving a University of Washington science professor's view of how government school math curricula have dramatically reduced the math skills of university students and, interestingly, how the curricula affected his own children. Here is the 12 minute video (you only need to see the first 10 minutes - the last 2 minutes consist of "reform" ideas for Washington State): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymvSFunUjx0

These videos need to be circulated widely for two reasons. First, they challenge very effectively the typical suburban parent's complacency about how their local government schools are educating their children. Dispelling that complacency is critical to getting them to eventually reach the decision to leave the government school system.

Second, the videos will help Christian schools and homeschooling organizations reinforce the value of what they are offering with their constituencies . Moreover, the videos are also useful for marketing to new prospects.

1. Please circulate Math Education: A University Perspective
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymvSFunUjx0) to everyone on your email lists, and urge the recipients to watch AND send the link on to the people they know.

2. Please also include the link to the original video (Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth) in your emails: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

3. For those of you in the media, please talk and write about the videos and urge people ot watch them.

These are very effective tools that have been provided free. A large viral email and media campaign could do a lot to change our educational trajectory.

Bruce Shortt on Math Ed Disaster