Private Tutor for Math & Science Success

IN the 12th century A.D., when the Arabic treatise “On the Hindu Art of Reckoning” was translated into Latin, the modern decimal system was bestowed on the Western world — an advance that can best be appreciated by trying to do long division with Roman numerals. The name of the author, the Baghdad scholar Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, was Latinized as Algoritmi, which mutated somehow into algorismus and, in English, algorithm — meaning nothing more than a recipe for solving problems step by step.

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When growing up, I remember being frequently told the proverbial stories about Einstein as a child, how he did poorly in school and even failed in mathematics. While Einstein was not necessarily the best student in class, he never did particularly poorly in school, aside from a handful of instances where he ran afoul of teachers that he didn’t get along with. And he certainly never failed mathematics.

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By KEITH J. WINSTEIN
The Wall Street Journal
September 22, 2007

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology helped invent radar, high-definition television, computer memory and the Black-Scholes model for pricing stock options. Its faculty and staff include 20 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipients.

But for some time, MIT now says, it wasn’t properly calculating the average SAT scores of its freshmen.

Those scores are closely scrutinized as a barometer of college quality. They are part of the formula used by U.S. News & World Report’s influential annual rankings of schools.

When MIT dropped this year to seventh place from a three-way tie for fourth, its student newspaper, the Tech, asked why. In response, MIT revealed that its latest numbers factored in the SAT scores of non-native English speakers — and that the school had excluded them for years.

The change contributed to a 16-point drop in MIT’s average SAT scores between 2005 and 2006. The reported SAT average was inflated by six points in 2005 and four in 2004. The school says it isn’t sure the scores ever were correct before this year.

“We were not at all trying to do this in any way to increase our rankings,” says interim admissions dean Stuart Schmill.

Excluding the test scores of foreign students — which tend to be lower than those of U.S. students in reading — is one of many tricks that have plagued the U.S. News numbers. These days, the magazine asks schools to certify that international students who provided test scores are included, and deducts points for those who don’t. MIT said it did.

Mr. Schmill says the Cambridge, Mass., school excluded some lower-scoring students because its admissions criteria don’t consider SAT scores when a student’s native language isn’t English. Students who scored better on a rival admissions exam, the ACT, also were excluded — another violation of the U.S. News rules.

Mr. Schmill says MIT realized its mistake only by chance, after switching database software, and redid its methodology.

In the end, says Robert J. Morse, director of data research at U.S. News, a number of fluctuations — including an increase in class sizes — caused the school’s drop in the rankings.

Says Mr. Shmill: “It was a pretty harmless error, or we wouldn’t be talking about it.”

Courtesy photo Danica McKellar, now 32, played Winnie Cooper on “The Wonder Years.” McKellar, who graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a math degree, recently wrote a book titled “Math Doesn’t Suck.”

bjohnson@VenturaCountyStar.com

Winnie Cooper’s a math wiz, Winnie Cooper’s a math wiz.

That sounds like it could have been a playground taunt from the nostalgic ABC show “The Wonder Years” — and actress Danica McKellar, who played Winnie on the hit 1988-1993 series, takes it as a compliment.

This A student loves math, to the point where she shelved acting for it. McKellar has a degree in math, co-authored a mathematical theorem on the properties of magnetic material that was published in the British Journal of Physics, and spoke to Congress several years ago on the importance of math education for women. Now, she’s penned an ode to a subject many abhor.

McKellar, 32, has written a new book called “Math Doesn’t Suck.” Released last month, it’s geared toward getting young people and specifically young girls interested in math.

That’s because her research has shown that the middle school years are when kids struggle with math as it morphs beyond mere multiplication tables to complex, conceptual ideas such as algebra.

“That’s when the majority of kids will decide if they are good at math and if math is for them,” McKellar explained in a recent phone interview from her Los Angeles home. “And girls get the additional negative message that math is for boys and not for them.”

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baltimoresun.com

Drop among steepest in nation; reading, writing in line with U.S.

By Gadi Dechter
Sun reporter

August 29, 2007

The average math SAT score of Maryland high school seniors dropped significantly last academic year for the second year in a row – and is now 13 points below students nationally, the College Board said yesterday.

State education officials said scores fell in part because more students are taking the SAT, particularly minorities, and because the math portion is harder than before. But other educators said the decline in math scores in one of the nation’s most affluent and well-educated states is troubling.

“I think the sharp decline is a cause for great concern, if not alarm,” said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland. He said the state needs a work force “that is highly skilled in math, science and technology. And the fact that there’s such a gap between Maryland and the national average is very disturbing.”

This year’s seven-point drop in Maryland’s average math score, to 502, was among the steepest in the country, a College Board official said. The state’s reading and writing SAT scores remained in line with national averages.

The results came as College Board officials announced yesterday a second year of declines nationally in average reading and math scores, and a slight drop on the mandatory writing portion introduced in 2006.

The average score nationally in math dropped from 518 to 515, while the average critical reading score fell one point to 502, the lowest since 1994. Maryland’s average reading score was 500.

Officials with the State Department of Education acknowledged that the drooping math scores are a cause for concern. But they also expressed satisfaction, saying that the 2007 results reflect increased ethnic and socioeconomic diversity among students taking the influential standardized college-admissions test.

“We have more students engaged in the SAT than ever before, and that’s wonderful,” said Donna Watts, who oversees K-12 mathematics instruction for the state. “The concern is … what might it be in their preparation for the SAT that is lacking?”

Students from some minority groups, or who come from less affluent homes, historically have tended to score lower on the SAT.

Watts speculated that in some of the state’s school systems, “instruction didn’t keep up with the number of students” taking the math SAT, which was revised in 2005 to include Algebra II concepts and is considered by some to be more difficult.

Francis “Skip” Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Math, said math teachers nationally are still adapting to the new exam.

“This is still a relatively new test,” said Fennell, a math professor at McDaniel College in Westminster. “We haven’t figured out what it is one needs to prepare for to the extent we had with the prior measurement.”

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By Janis Edmon
Action News 36
Lexington, Kentucky

On any given Saturday, thousands of high school students wake up, grab their number 2 pencils, and head to a testing center…hoping they’ve studied enough to score well enough the tests to get into the colleges of their choice.

A central Kentucky student studied more than enough.

John Liu from Danville High School got a perfect score on his SAT and ACT exams.

John says it didn’t come easy. While he thrives in math and science, he says the reading and writing sections scared him.