It seems like Hillary needs a math tutor

[hootinholler]

Can someone please explain to her how averages work?

[NCTraveler]

1. Let me guess.

She used numbers other than one or ninety-nine and it's causing confusion.

[daleanime]

5. No, she talked about closing down....

1/2 of the public schools. Honestly I don't think she meant it to come out the way, but this is the kind of stuff that happens when you have to talk around thing instead of answering questions.

[jberryhill]

2. Apparently, each year she would like to close half the schools

[dsc]

3. No you do

the average (mean) isn't the median (the point at which 50 percent are even or worse and 50 percent are even or better). To illustrate say you have this data set 0,80,80,80,80 mean 64 median 80 four of five of the members are above average. So again, it is you who needs a math tutor, I was glad to help out.

[hootinholler]

6. So you're saying that school performance is that skewed?

There's one or two outliers that's dragging the average down? Ok I'll accept that, but what happens when that outlier is closed and the curve shifts back towards a bell distribution?

[dsc]

7. I think in states with large amounts of economic inequality

that is a quite likely distribution. It is also easier to skew left than right since there is likely an upper bound on the scale above which no school can score no matter who wealthy it is. As to your other point, the schools would be replaced and those replacements likely wouldn't be that much better unless you altered the inputs significantly (both students and money). Thus they would be closed again in a few years but still likely skew the data.

[hootinholler]

11. So that solves the education problem

How?

[Perogie]

12. She didn't say mean, she said average

Don't put words in HRC mouth and say someone else is wrong for pointing out her error.

[dsc]

15. she is a laywoman

and yes to lay people average and mean are equivalent. If she were a stats teacher in a stats class, then yes, but she isn't.

[reformist2]

4. What a weird attitude.... she wouldn't help the below average schools, she would shut them down!?

[Scuba]

8. Word salad. Sarah would be proud.

[bowens43]

9. Typical right wing conservative view on education......

she is center right at best but hard right isn't out of the question for her is she feels a move that direction will help her get a strangle hold on power. She wants a governemt of hillary by hillary and for hillary....

fuck the poor and the middle class

[RedCappedBandit]

10. How exactly does closing schools improve education? nt

[ismnotwasm]

13. Yawn

[IDemo]

14. Lake Wobegon should be safe, then. n/t

[ljm2002]

16. So her proposal, in essence, is...

...close struggling schools and make sure the successful ones are not denied resources.

No discussion of the fact that struggling schools are often in poor districts, meaning (a) lots of their students will have issues related to poverty (like say, not eating breakfast before arriving at school in the morning -- not conducive to good classroom performance); and (b) the districts themselves have a poorer tax base meaning fewer resources to begin with.

So preserve resources for the "good" (read: more affluent) schools, and pull the rug out from the struggling ones.

Got it.