DEAR EDITOR:
I really don’t know how Cynthia Walker does it. I really don’t.
Doesn’t she know when to quit?
DEAR EDITOR:
I really don’t know how Cynthia Walker does it. I really don’t. Doesn’t she know when to quit? Well, I guess not because I once again find myself writing another response to another article. I have come to classify her words in what I call the three I’s: irresponsible, incompetent, and impertinent.
Who are you to say what happens in Mr. Scott’s class? Where is your evidence to back up your accusations? Do you think that I am not competent enough to write in on my own free will? Do you actually think that I can’t defend my teacher, with my own opinions?! I’m full of opinions!!
I really had to laugh when I read your latest argument, oops I mean opinion column “Data: math problems to solve at Gilroy High.” You say that “With statistics, one can find the range, median, mode, mean, and standard deviation. One can find a percentile, for an individual student, for a class, for a school, or for a district. One can then compare one student to another, even one district to another.”
That is only partially correct. You could find the basic measures of central tendency; however (and most importantly) you cannot in good ethics make arranged comparisons such as that! For example, you cannot compare me, a 17-year-old white male with one parent with a college degree, belonging the middle class, living in a middle class neighborhood, with a household income of $70,000, to another student living in a state project in New York, both parents deceased, no household income, prior criminal record, who is 15 years old. Even a person with no statistics knowledge whatsoever can reach that assertion.
But, in your recent article, you say that I can? What?! This makes no sense, I am obviously under very different conditions. What makes it ethically possible to compare me to that student? So, what makes you think that our school is any different? Schools are no different, you cannot compare them in the same manner as a student, state, or district. You can’t make those comparisons; they are deceiving and incorrect and irresponsible.
Also, the whole purpose of statistics is not to “analyze data,” it is to infer things about the population. A computer analyzes data, but it doesn’t make competent inferences about a population. Numbers don’t make inferences, especially when you use them incorrectly!
The last column contains so many errors and completely absurd ideas that I cannot address them all with my allotted 500 words, so I will sum up everything I have said:
• Learn the basics of statistics.
• Quit talking about things you cannot back up.
• Don’t talk about what happens in our class, because you’re not there, so how do you know what happens?
• So what if you’re a taxpayer? So is everyone else! That doesn’t entitle you to an opinion, being human entitles you to one (as long as you’re in the U.S.).
• Guess what, you’re paying Wayne Scott to teach more than “conic sections and the chain rule.” Don’ t you know that the really good teachers are the ones who help improve the students understanding and knowledge of the world?
The really good AP teachers aren’t necessarily the ones with good scores. At GHS in general, grades don’t mean anything to me, it’s just a measure of effort, not competency. You want higher scores; then quit “exacerbating the problems.”
Michael Haney, GHS senior
Submitted Thursday, May 27 to ed****@************ch.com
