May 2008

Samples of Student Art #1.

May 27, 2008

For the “free response” part of their AP exams, students are given green booklets that contain the questions and pink booklets in which to write their answers. They can scribble whatever they wish in either book, but the pink ones get sent off to be scored while the green ones end up in my file [...]

Read the full article →

“Only in education,” redux.

May 20, 2008

Evidently several school districts are moving to the “Minimum 50” grading system, in which the lowest possible grade on an assignment is 50%. The first quote in the article is perhaps the most egregious: “It’s a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F,” says Douglas Reeves, [...]

Read the full article →

On the occasion of the AP economics exams.

May 15, 2008

Greg Mankiw, an economics professor, wrote the textbook that I would like to use in my economics courses (sadly, the district has adopted a heavier, more verbose and more confusing text). Mankiw’s text is celebrated enough within the economics community that the self-styled “Stand-Up Economist,” Yoram Bouman, has created a comedy routine about Mankiw’s “Ten [...]

Read the full article →

In lieu of leaving work early enough to visit his grave…

May 5, 2008

My grandfather’s birthday is May 5, which is appropriate because his initials are a pair of Roman fives: “V. V.” He would’ve turned 108. I rushed over to the cemetery after work today, thinking that it would close at six. It had closed at five. Whoops. Since I missed him at the cemetery today and [...]

Read the full article →