Top all-time · #25753
GFBrandenburg's Blog
Personal blog · gfbrandenburg.wordpress.commathwriting
GFBrandenburg's Blog is a personal blog at gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com about math and writing. Since 2014, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 3 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-19, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link this blog's posts on US education, including Bill Gates' school spending and standardized testing. Commenters cite the posts in discussions of American math performance and testing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Just a blog by a guy who's a retired math teacher
What Hacker News says?
You're probably right. those rankings have a lot to do with the research papers published by those schools from non Americans. Relative to the US population, the primary and secondary education do not produce a high level of capability. Looking at the fields medals per capita[1] you can see that the US doesn't have as much as the UK, Russia, or France. You can also see that the university with Fields medals recipien…
Comment linking /2011/06/19/a-look-at-one-version-of-this-years-french-math-baccalaureat-exam/
on “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?”https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/interview-wit... > It’s interesting how Gates seems to give every excuse in the book for why he “failed” to drastically improve academic achievement despite the time and money spent on his mission. > His first excuse is that compared to the cumulative 600 billion dollars in government spending on public schools, he only had 5 billion to spend. Of course, he is talking a…
Comment linking /2011/07/25/interview-with-bill-gates-almost-admitting-that-hes-fallible/
on “Bill Gates, Washington State, and the Nuisance of Democracy”I.E. the tests are not at fault, but it sounds like your education system is teaching things in a wrong and inefficient manner. First of all, let's clarify: I'm not American, and it's not my education system (which doesn't mean that I don't have first-hand experiences with the consequences). To provide some anecdotal comparison, here in Denmark, we also regularly test students. Nobody has any problems with this, the…
Comment linking /2011/06/19/a-look-at-one-version-of-this-years-french-math-baccalaureat-exam/
on “I Opted My Kids Out of Standardized Tests”