Proving once again that children\u2019s interests are the last thing they care about, New York state\u2019s educrats are pushing to make math instruction less effective.<\/p>\n
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa<\/a> & Co. are moving to recommend that teachers stop giving timed math quizzes lest they overstress students.<\/p>\n That\u2019s right, quizzes make some kids anxious, so they must go for all students \u2014 no matter what the benefits.<\/p>\n Rosa plainly doesn\u2019t care that Empire State kids are still doing math below pre-pandemic levels<\/a> and lost ground on the latest \u201cgold standard\u201d national exams.\u00a0<\/p>\n Worse, the proficiency gap is widening for the lowest-performing students, especially minority ones. He\u2019s one of 200 math academics who signed a letter calling on Rosa to rescind the rotten math guidance.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n Back in 2021, the Biden Education Department published a teachers guide<\/a> that recommended regular timed activities to help kids build their command of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Timed activities help improve cognition and memory, the way playing \u201cpepper\u201d in baseball improves bat control, hand-eye coordination and quickness.<\/p>\n It\u2019s that kind of brain \u201cmuscle memory\u201d training that charter schools engage in to great success.<\/p>\n
As SUNY-Albany prof Benjamin Solomon rightly says, the reason kids \u201chave math anxiety isn\u2019t because they\u2019re taking the test \u2014 it\u2019s because they\u2019re bad at math\u201d; that is, the \u201canxiety\u201d is a \u201csymptom\u201d of they\u2019ve \u201cgotten poor instruction in math.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n