English, and I suspect most other languages, is notoriously slippery when being used in a word problem. The main issue in this problem is how to interpret “half”, which appears both without an article and without context. If the article “a” preceded it, the 1050 answers are correct imo as (500/(1/2))+50 is the most logical interpretation. BUT don’t forget we have not yet considered the half “of what?” interpretation. One could argue that the problem poser implied “of itself”, in which case the answer would be 52: 500/250 +50. There are undoubtedly other linguistic contortions which produce other “correct” answers.
@BillAckman@AlphaSchoolATX As promising as the concept of the Alpha Schools is, the guides assisting students in math really need to understand the subject deeply. Our current bar for who gets to teach math in K-5 is ridiculously low.
Taxpayer dollars were flowing to schools before the Department of Education existed, and they will continue to flow after it ceases to exist. The big change will be less influence for teacher unions, who have arguably been a huge obstacle to equitable student outcomes in the US.
@mpolikoff Decentralized yes. Run by states and local communities, maybe, to an extent. Run by unions that protect incompetence, definitely. Mess is baked in and permanent.
Just finished day 5 of 100 Days of Python. Learning some Python snippets in Deep Learning courses is one thing, learning the language from the ground up makes everything more comprehensible.