A is For Average: footnotes from Chapter 5

34) Here’s the link to the Sold a Story podcast. It’s great for car rides, except that certain moments will make you want to pound on your steering wheel…

35) As one teacher in Sold a Story admitted, “I wasn’t going to do any of that. And, you know, I wasn’t necessarily rejecting the curriculum as much as I was rejecting Bush.”

I appreciate the honesty of this quote. But millions of California’s kids are substandard readers precisely because of this attitude. It’s such a tragedy.

36) This in a state that has absolutely no problem mandating things for the school system. For instance, they mandated financial literacy, which I wholeheartedly support. They mandated ethnic studies, which we’ll talk about shortly. But when it comes to reading, the most foundational skill, the legislature still couldn’t muster the courage to mandate the approach we know works. It’s just sad.

37) Here’s the link to the Wikipedia page for Yang-Mills theory. You can go down quite a rabbit hole following some of the links to the abstract algebra and topology concepts the theory draws on.

38) If you’ve never read the Dune books or seen the Dune movies, here’s a link to the Wikipedia page for the Bene Gesserit. This is another place where you can go down quite a rabbit hole. And let me say, you absolutely should read Dune!

39) Here’s the link to the Wikipedia article on the word gap. It’s very interesting and very accessible to a lay audience. I highly recommend it.

40) Here’s the link to the “Smarter Balanced” test results for SF Unified. You can see a breakdown by race there. It’s… alarming.

41) Here’s the link to the Core Knowledge Foundation. They have a free curriculum you can download.