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Calculators flunk important test in Florida schools

Feb. 27, 2000

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Students using state-issued calculators during achievement tests got incorrect answers when math problems were entered too quickly.

School officials in Palm Beach County reported problems with Casio HS-10 calculators during the recent Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests. And teachers in other counties got wrong answers when The Palm Beach Post asked them to test the calculators.

"Three times three times three. Oh, no, I got 81," said Carol Ann Whitehorse of Bay High School in Panama City. "This is funny, in a bad way."

About 17,500 middle and high school students used the calculators during the test. (By Associated Press)

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-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 27, 2000

Answers

Does anyone else find the idea of a calculator in a test disturbing?

And this was during ACHIEVEMENT TESTS?!?!?

"Three times three times three. Oh, no, I got 81," said Carol Ann Whitehorse of Bay High School in Panama City. "This is funny, in a bad way."

Yeah, you couldn't figure 3x3x3=27 in your head, and you're in HIGH SCHOOL! Even worse, the context implies that this woman WORKS there, not ATTENDS. THAT is sad in a sickening way.

Any wonder why other countries are kicking our colective asses in basic skills tests?

O d d O n e

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), February 27, 2000.

Odd One,

Don't know if I should laugh or cry...but, you make a good point.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 27, 2000.

Slide rule baby!

Used em in high school myself. It is the only acceptable method of calculations that should be used in school, besides scratch paper and pencil.

If it werent for the display on the cash register, allmost all clerks at your favorite fast food joint would be dumbfounded when giving change!

-- Electman (vrepair1@tampabay.rr.com), February 27, 2000.

I'm not so convinced we have to educate everyone at everything. Some people are uneducable at some things. Contrary to an above post, our collective asses are NOT being kicked; we remain one of the most productive work forces on earth. It is reasonable to assume calculators will be common enough to be relied upon, and math in the head will be relegated to the arcane.

But even if it WERE possible to educate everyone, and we succeeded as a society in doing so, who would collect the trash Monday morning, and who would paint my house? Who would create the artwork at the civic center and who would play professional basketball? As a rule of thumb, people excel at what their gifts enable them to do. You cannot make a mathematician sing opera, and I would not look for a physicist in the ranks of professional hockey players. I'm all for giving everyone the basic reading, writing and arithmetic, but for some the calculator will replace what mother nature never wired in, and the best we can hope for is to teach the lame how to use their crutch.

-- I'mSo (lame@prepped.com), February 28, 2000.

True - in part.

But WHY are the taxpayers paying for 17,500 calculators?

Did anybody down there consider that parents should be providing these - and, if the family has them already- which most responsibile families do, that just perhaps the taxpayers didn't need to spend 17,500 times 10.00 - 15.00 - 20.00 dollars each?

And some calculators now cost 90.00 - 100.00. It's easy to imagine a total expense of over 500,000.00 dollars here.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 28, 2000.

Some good comments here. Thank you everyone for your input. I just wish calculators were invented when I was in school *many* moons ago...could have used one. LOL

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 28, 2000.

Well, I didn't even *see* a number during my last few years of math. And even early math classes ought to concentrate on how to set up problems for solution. Plugging in the numbers and doing the physical calculations aren't education, they're busywork. Practical math is knowing *what* to calculate -- the how part is fine for calculators.

I think the example is being misunderstood. Anyone who's debugged computers knows one important step is to reduce the steps necessary to replicate the problem to a minimum. If the minimal set of steps is to press one key 3 times, that's good diagnosis. It doesn't imply that those steps NEED to be complex or the diagnoser is dumb!

And I agree that you should have some ballpark idea of what the answer should be before you start, so you can recognize immediately that your calculator is WAY off.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 28, 2000.

Good input Flint. Thank you.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 28, 2000.

< -- Flint >>

Concur completely. The problem, the tragedy now is: the kids have NO idea what the proper answer is. They don't have a solid, or even a hazy, concept of what the answer "should be" - just whatever is printed on the calculator (or from the cash register!) - is assumed "truth"

Enough "old timers" remain to double check things - and obviously, not all are incompetent or unaware. but the trend exists - and will only get worse as "automated" processes (in inspection, operation, or manufactoring, finance or computing - all design and all processes that use a "design sense") are vunerable now, and will get more vunerable as time goes on.

We used to be good enough to build the Empire State Building, Golden Gate, or Boulder or Grand Coulee Dam with slide rules, pencils, and drafting tools - and on the shop[ floor and high in the sky - with yard sticks, drills and steel.

Now? I wonder if those jobs could be repeated at all - much in the same schedule or in the same time - at the same quality.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 28, 2000.