Dear Editor,
Wayne Scott’s (March 22) arrogance shines when he states,
”
It is impossible to randomly distribute students to all teachers
within a high school schedule. Period – end of debate.
”
Dear Editor,
Wayne Scott’s (March 22) arrogance shines when he states, “It is impossible to randomly distribute students to all teachers within a high school schedule. Period – end of debate.” I originally described a system in a private high school, stating, for example, that students are taking Algebra One were divided at random into two classes.
I said this was used in the science group (which includes math), not for “all teachers within a high school.” Misleading the debate in this manner is Mr. Scott’s tactic, so that his opponent has to waste limited space fending off false accusations – I counted four lies in his previous letter.
His colleague, Michelle Nelson, even brought Hitler into a debate about Social Security! At least these are more creative than Dale “More Money” Morejon’s tired, typical Democrat reaction, which is to throw money at everything.
Mr. Scott, if the following procedure is not random, please explain why: Each student’s name gets a random number (a computer-generated number uniformly distributed between 0 and 1) assigned to it. The list is then sorted by the random numbers, the first half of the list going to one class and the second to another. (The definition of random is, each element has an equal chance of being selected.)
Additionally, please tell us why measuring progress – as opposed to simply the test scores – cannot be done. I do not dispute that ANOVA – or any statistics – require a random sample.
Not randomizing within a year is one thing, but why is it not so between years? Are you going to claim that if one teacher is, year after year, making less progress than another, this cannot be quantified? The only way for that to happen is if some were being set up for failure, which would probably be the replacement for Principal Bob Bravo’s current “not a good fit” excuse.
Alan Viarengo, Gilroy
