Math people, I have a statistics/averages type question that's too much for my addled brain. Say you have a contest with five finalists and the method of scoring the finalists is assigning a simple 1-5 ranking.

Nine judges give a contestant a #1 ranking, the other three give a #5. How do I go about figuring out the average for that contestant? I'm probably making this more complicated than it needs to be in my head.

because the best solution to fixing the problems with our public school system is for all the parents with other options to pull their kids out of it

In other arenas, that would be leverage. Shame that with stakes so damned high it's not.

Sure, because the best solution to fixing the problems with our public school system is for all the parents with other options to pull their kids out of it.

Fighting a public school system can be emotionally draining, not just for the parents, but more importantly, for the student who's being directly affected by it.

Sometimes, pulling them out is the best solution.

Signed, former public school teacher and homeschooler.

Nine judges give a contestant a #1 ranking, the other three give a #5. How do I go about figuring out the average for that contestant?

((9 x 1) + (3 x 5))/9.

Okay. I was making it more complicated. Thanks, ita.

I have the same kneejerk reaction when I hear this from people, and, also, "teaching is hard - what makes you think you'll be good at it?" It's because I come from a family with a lot of professional teachers, I think, that it gets my back up when people assume anyone can do it.

Andi, you should be outraged at the questions at oral argument, yesterday. Just how the opinion will be written, and where they'll draw the lines remains to be seen. But RBG's dissent should be a thing of beauty.

"teaching is hard - what makes you think you'll be good at it?" It's because I come from a family with a lot of professional teachers, I think, that it gets my back up when people assume anyone can do it.

Oh, yeah, that is maddening! My sister-in-law, who is a 2nd grade teacher, home schooled my older niece for a year when niece was 6ish and she had a rough time of it. Just being together alone day in and day out took a toll.

The thing that totally baffles me about the strip search case is why in the hell they didn't call the child's mother in the first place. If they needed to give her ibuprofen they would HAVE to call her. But to strip search the child for her, they don't bother to call?

The Slate article on it notes that schools finding naked pictures on cell phones or email immediately call the police on the basis that the teenagers are child pornographers.

I'm pissed about the whole thing and worry about what my kids are going to face in public schools but I also know that you have to fight the good fight sometimes, from the inside to make a difference.

Somewhere I saw a video of some guys who set a Tickle Me Elmo on fire while it was laughing. Funny and cathartic.

I'm the only one who's disturbed about it?

It seems a little disturbing to me too. Of course, in an hour I might find it hysterical. I'm moody like that.

Then again, in my boarding school, my roommate who had teddy bears got used to get back to our room once in a while and find one of them hanged from the lamp (as if it committed suicide), with a note on it says "I didn't tell a thing" (literally, "I didn't betrayed [the country]"). Funny.

Hee.

Something about my Sister makes people want to give her laughing, talking, and otherwise noise-making and shaking toys. Once at a party we all had a few too many and started putting them in sexual positions. Hysteria.

We should do it again and put the videos on YouTube.

I'd certainly pull my kid out of THAT public school... but a different state entirely? Several years later?