Dear Robert,
Congratulations on your letter to Alice Fu.
You may recall that a year or so ago, before the last presidential
election, I wrote on a similar theme in the article called, 'A
metrication elephant'. In this article I wrote that many scientific
and engineering groups were simply not seeing the importance of the
metrication issue to all aspects of life in the USA.
Here is a reference to my original article: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/AMetricationElephant.pdf
that you might like to pass on to Alice Fu.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
to subscribe.
On 2009/12/29, at 04:26 , Robert H. Bushnell wrote:
2009 December 28
Dear Alice Fu,
In Science for 2009 December 18 page 1637, your discussion of
the NAEP report lists Strengths and Limitations. Both NAEP and you
failed to discuss a major limitation in US education, namely, the
teaching of inch-pound units of measure. Teaching two sets of units,
inch-pound and metric, leaves many, possibly most, students confused.
Many bright students know this is nonsense and simply give up on
science and move to social studies (humanities).
It is said the students in the US are one whole year behind
students in the rest of the world (37th ?) because of the teaching
related to two sets of units; teaching of fractions, teaching
conversion.
Inch-pound units need not be taught or tested for. Students can
and will learn these units in daily life. Schools need not teach
them.
It is important to note that the lowest grade that NAEP
evaluates is grade 4. NAEP must make sure that lower grades do not
use fractions or inch-pound units.
I find the NAEP text is deficient in not giving content for
students to study. I am disappointed that there are so few formulas.
It looks to me like the NAEP text is written by educators, not by
scientists.
Thank you for your work on this report.
Robert H. Bushnell PhD PE
