Closing the achievement gap... suck it TFA

Teach for America (TFA), an organization which trains US college graduates to teach at low income schools, prides itself on closing the achievement gap between students of different income levels.  Well I say suck it TFA (1) for rejecting me and (2) for not realizing my true potential to close the REAL achievement gap.

As quoted from: http://blog.openstudy.com/2010/04/06/why-american-students-are-lagging-in-math-and-science/
"American students are lagging in math and science and trailing countries like Canada, Czech Republic and China, the National Center for Education Statistics concluded in a 2009 report. The study compared the ability of 15-year-old students with other students from countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in solving real-life mathematical problems. It found that students in the US are below average in math and placed in the bottom quarter of countries that participated and trail nations such as Estonia, China and Finland. More than half of the participating countries outscored U.S. kids."

While TFA will not put the future of America in my hands, I have chosen to close the achievement gap by exposing the flaws in the Chinese education system.  Yes, I am teaching at an international school, but call me crazy to think 11th graders can graph a linear equation... a STRAIGHT LINE.  I remember doing this isn SEVENTH GRADE. 

After TWO WEEKS of teaching this single section of the book to my students,  I gave the students a quiz.  I was disappointed to see students sleeping during the quiz (they were scolded and told to TRY) and to have to rescore the quizes 3 times to get anyone to pass. The average score was 23% and there was ONE student who passed out of 18.

I swear I AM A GOOD TEACHER.  These students are amongst the richest and most spoiled kids in China which also makes them amongst tthe LAZIEST.

After teahing the topic for two whole week and going over the homework I actually said to my roommates the night before that I think the quiz is too easy! Because I am nice, I gave them the quiz anways.

Decide for youself with THE ACTUAL QUIZ!

Quiz directions: Graph the equation or system of equations for each question.  Calculate the slope, x-intercept, and y-intercept, and label the intercepts on the graph.  You are advised to check your answers algebraically.

1.       2x + 1/5y = 20

              y = 4x - 40

2.            Find an equation in slope-intercept form passing through the points (2,5) and (7,-3).  

3. Annie wants to go on vacation.  The flight to Japan is $500 and the hotel costs $140 a day which she would split with her 4 roommates.  Annie could also fly to Bali and stay with a family member and it would cost her $675 for a flight.

4.    A consumer electronics company sells 6.7 million MP3 players per month at a price of $100 apiece; when the price is lowered to $80, the company sells 10.2 million players per month.  How many MP3 players can the company expect to sell per month at a price of $75?
 

Because  I am an awesome teacher, I have the students the chance to improve their grade if they did test corrections.  Guess how many took me up on my offer? THREE.

In summary,

problem = achievement gap
solution =  international schools breeding rich, spoiled and LAZY students.