RadicalMath

1000 Shots from the NYPD

2008-05-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

The NY Civil Liberties Union analyzed NYPD data that raise serious questions about police shooting practices and about the lack of racial diversity in the NYPD’s leadership.

Some "highlights" include:
• Over the past two years, 90% of the people shot at by the NYPD were Black or Latino.
• 85% of leadership positions in the NYPD are held by white males
• In 77% of the incidents where officers shot at civilians, the police were the only ones shooting (see Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, etc).

Read the NYCLU report and download the NYPD reports here:
http://www.nyclu.org/node/1756

Junk-Food Jungle

2008-04-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

A new report by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy demonstrates that people who live near an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores compared to grocery stores and produce vendors, have a significantly higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes regardless of individual or community income.

Using a measure called the Retail Food Environment Index (# Fast-Food Restaurants + # Convenience Stores / # Grocery Stores + # Produce Vendors) they compared different urban areas and counties across California.

Read the report and see their methodology here: http://www.publichealthadvocacy.org/designedfordisease.html

The Great Depression, Part II

2008-04-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

A recent survey of over 6,000 public school students in South LA, conducted by students from South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action, found that many young people in the area exhibit symptoms of clinical depression.

Some causes: violence in school, deep dissatisfaction with their choices of college preparatory classes, racial tension, gang violence, and the feeling like their schools are failing them.

For example, when asked "Do you feel safe in your school?", 36% either disagreed or strongly disagreed, with less than 3 in 10 expressing they feel safe.

Read the article in the LA Times here. Full report hopefully coming soon.

The Relevance of Police Brutality

2008-04-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

The NY Times today cited a study from Ohio State which argues that using word problems in math classes is detrimental to student learning. "An experiment by the researchers suggests that it might be better to let the apples, oranges and locomotives stay in the real world and, in the classroom, to focus on abstract equations such as (40 (t + 1) = 400 - 50t)." (View article here).

The issue, as I see it, is not the use of word problems, but the relevance of the word problems chosen.

Sadly, this morning's news also brought word of the acquittal of the NYPD cops who killed Sean Bell. In New York City, the percentage of people killed by police who were Black was at least double that of their share of the city’s total population, according to a study done by ColorLines Magazine and The Chicago Reporter. (View article here).

We can use mathematics to understood, quantify, and address (in some ways) disparities like these that are all too relevant to our students. Or, maybe we should just heed the advice of our friends in Ohio, solve for t, and go on our merry way.

Survey on Homeless Youth in NYC

2008-04-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

The most comprehensive study of youth homelessness in New York City in decades was released recently, providing what some say is the first realistic account of one of the city’s most vulnerable and misunderstood populations. According to a report by the Empire State Coalition of Youth and Family Services, on any given day there are more than 3,800 young people under the age of 24 living without a home – and up to 13,400 or more over the course of a year.

Read the article from City Limits Magazine

Download the official report

Two from the Times

2008-02-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

From the front of the NYT website this morning:

• US Economy Unexpectedly Sheds 17,000 Jobs (nice use of the word "sheds" by the way).

• Exxon Mobile reports $40.6 billion in NET profit for 2007.

(That's $2.3 million per shedded job).

Surprise: Race Matters in New York!

2008-01-31T12:09:00.001-08:00

Thought racism was yesterday's news?

A recent report from the Urban Justice Center's Human Rights Project provides a detailed (131 pages), data-rich report looking at race in employment, health, criminal justice, immigration, education, voting rights, domestic violence, housing, and child welfare.

The report looks a lot at schools and education, discussing military recruitment in schools, violence by police/school safety officers, and the school to prison pipeline - (ex: students of color are disproportionately suspended for the same infractions: 8.3 percent of all black students, 4.8 percent of Latinos and 2.5 percent of whites in the 2001 school year.)

Classroom applications: graphing, statistical analysis, rates and percents

Download the report here

New Data on U.S. Prisons

2008-01-31T11:56:00.000-08:00

Trivia Question: Which type of detention facilities do you think showed the greatest growth in 2007? If you guessed Youth Prisons... you... are... wrong. Sorry. The correct answer is Detention Centers, up 43%.

Here's another amazing fact. In Iowa, the first primary won by Barack Obama, Blacks are imprisoned at 13.6 times the rate of Whites.

Classroom applications: rates and percents, growth, slope, statistics

NY Times, "Justice Department Numbers Show Prison Trends" article Click Here.

BJS reports Click Here

Interactive Homicide Maps - (Police Killings Too)

2008-01-31T11:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is a slightly morbid posting and link. But interactive homicide maps like the one kept by the L.A. times provides up-to-date information on victims of violent crime, sortable by many features including: age, race, gender, and killing by police.

Classroom ideas: Using maps to analyze trends/patterns; correlation; visual representation of data; regression lines to show rise/fall over time.

LA Times Interactive Homicide Map - Click Here.

Do Polls Miss the Views of Obama's People?

2007-10-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

NPR ran an interesting story tonight about Barack Obama's explanation for why he's trailing in the polls - because polls don't capture his young fans, many of whom rely exclusively on their cell phones.

This would be a great story to play for a class when discussing misleading statistics, polling and surveying, voting, etc.

If you need help converting this story into an MP3 file, please let me know.

Link

Microsoft Excel Fails Math Tests

2007-09-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

This is why our students should understand all of the math that they're using computers to calculate - because even computers make mistakes!

Microsoft Excel revealed a bug in their 2007 software. For example, if you try multiplying 77.1 by 850, instead of revealing 65,535, the program spits out 100,000. Of course this isn't as big a calculation error as, say, the Bush administration's projections for the most recent NAEP Math scores, but it's still significant.

Read the article here.

An end to 350% interest rates? Say it ain't so!

2007-09-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

The D.C. Council voted 12 to 1 yesterday to approve legislation that would require payday loan stores to charge the same annual percentage rate as banks and credit unions, a limit that the payday lending industry says will put them out of business in the city.

Here is an interesting side question: if in fact this law actually put payday lenders out of business, what effect would this have on poor communities that have a paucity of banks?

Read the article here

News You Can Use: Petraeus, Fast Food, and Poverty

2007-09-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

"General Petraeus's Data is Misleading the American Public"
The National Security Network analyzes the truth behind the General's fuzzy math.
Link

"Limits Proposed on Fastfood Restaurants"
A Los Angeles Times analysis of the city's roughly 8,200 restaurants found that South Los Angeles (where I work) has the highest concentration of fast-food eateries. Thirty percent of adults in South L.A. are obese, compared with 20.9% in the county overall, according to a county Department of Public Health study. South L.A. also has the highest diabetes levels in the county, at 11.7%, compared with 8.1% in the county. Where is Wild Oats when we need them?! (wink wink)
Link

"A Sobering Census Report"
From the NY Times editorial page, and the US Census Bureau, comes this sobering report: Over all, the new data on incomes and poverty mesh consistently with the pattern of the last five years, in which the spoils of the nation’s economic growth have flowed almost exclusively to the wealthy and the extremely wealthy, leaving little for everybody else.
Link

Blog Launched

2007-09-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

The RadicalMath Blog is born.