
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 7, 1993                   TAG: 9309300287
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MATH TO GO

WE DON'T get it. Every year, we're told that American kids are flunking their physical fitness tests.

They can't do pull-ups. Can't do sit-ups. Like President Clinton, they can't even jog a mile without having Big Mac attacks.

And everybody knows why. While moms and dads are at their aerobics classes, their flabby children are curled up on the couch watching television and eating pizza.

Hour after hour. Watching television, eating pizza. Watching television, eating pizza.

So, why, with all this training, can't they do better solving a mind-teaser based on pizza-slicing? Here's an example of math problems recently presented to fourth-graders in 41 states, Virginia included:

Jose ate half of a pizza. Ella ate half of another pizza. Jose said that he ate more pizza than Ella, but Ella said they both ate the same amount. Use words and pictures to show that Jose could be right.

Nearly half the fourth-graders - whose TV curriculum surely includes numerous commercials a day for pizza in small, medium, large, jumbo or Mack-truck sizes - couldn't figure out that Jose would be right if he had ordered a bigger pizza than Ella did.

We're not sure how kids who flunk their physical tests can also flunk pizza tests. But if we were a major purveyor of pizzas, we might figure that the TV commercials are not delivering.

by CNB