Math pop quiz stumps Randi

I'm inclined to cut Randi a break on this, but c'mon!

The radio audience was live and the question for teachers union president Randi Weingarten involved sixth-grade math: "What's 1/3rd plus 1/4th?"

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Math pop quiz stumps Randi

BY ERIN EINHORN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Talk about a high-stakes test. The radio audience was live and the question for teachers union president Randi Weingarten involved sixth-grade math: "What's 1/3rd plus 1/4th?" Weingarten, however, is a not a sixth-grader or a math teacher. She's a lawyer and a union boss who once taught high school social studies - and no one told her there was going to be a quiz. "I would actually have to do it on paper," she said when asked yesterday to complete the math problem on WNYC's "Brian Lehrer Show" where she was a guest. Mike Pesca, who was filling in for Lehrer, introduced the show's education topic by saying American college grads can't do basic math while high school grads in Canada and middle-schoolers in India have no trouble. After Weingarten stumbled, another guest quickly produced the correct answer: 7/12ths, leaving Weingarten to explain herself. "I do it the old-fashioned way," she said. "You take your paper, your pen, you add it up and get the fractional whatever." "And you show your work," Pesca offered. "And you show your work," Weingarten agreed. "A good teacher will look at it and talk to you about what went right and what went wrong, like they do in Singapore." Math expert Alfred Posamentier, dean of the City College school of education, said most Americans can't add fractions in their heads, leaving Weingarten in good company. "I hate to say it, but I would cut her slack on that one," he said.

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