2006-11-06

Education of Shoshana Berman

I'm starting to understand why former Education Minister Gerard Kennedy is so adamant we need national education standards: After dealing with Ontario teachers, he must be completely freaked out.

Confirmed Ontario (Waterloo County Board of Education) teacher Shoshana Berman recently posted what follows:

Remember the sample size is one quarter of all delegates, which is
massive. Normal political polls are 1000 out of 20 million voting Canadians
this poll was over 1100 out of approximately 5000. I really think the margin
of error of 2.5% is exagerated. It's a standard margin of error for a
poll of 1000 people; but not for a total population of 5000. Anyways,
the poll is going to be bang on. This is like polling the electoral College in the US,
not the electorate.

In the comment section she adds:

Remember curiosity this is not your average poll. An average poll asks 1000
people out of 20 million what their opinion is on voting preferences. This
poll is like polling 5 million Canadians aboout their voing prefences. A full one
quarter of delegates were polled. This is absolutely massive. you can't compare
it to other political polls at all. This is more like polling the electoral
college in the US, if they had more than one vote. These numbers are solid to
say the least.

If you agree with her, please don't teach my kids anything to do with numbers.

3 comments:

susansmith said...

that's so mean. LOL

Altavistagoogle said...

I know its frustrating when math gets into the way of fantasy, but that is life. Don't shoot the messenger. Seriously, Shoshana, don't shoot me!

Altavistagoogle said...

Unfortunately Charlie Barnard, Shoshana proves that she is incompetent, even in biology.

From her blog:
"SB said:
Peter margin of error for 1000 is not margin of error for sampling 25% of a given population. It's barely even a poll with that kind of percentage, its a head count. If it were biology and you plotted coat colour or disease or age for 25% of any given population there would be virtually no question that the sample was accurate. The only factor here is that people lie orchange their minds, not the accuracy of the poll or head count more appropriately. It just cannot be compared to a poll of 1000 people out of 20 million or 4 people in a community of 100,000 instead of 25,000 from a community of 100,000, and anyone who does is a moron."

Labels

Canada (204) Internet (124) TV (104) iPhone (103) World (99) Liberal Party (65) New Brunswick (44) OUI (43) Ipod touch (33) Media (33) haha (29) Bus (26) Environment (16) StreetView (16) La politique (15) Twitter (15) Travel (12) wmtc (12) Books (11) iPad (11) Gadgets (10) Cancer (7) Monde (6) tetesaclaques (6) HOC (5) Shoshana (4) Games (2) Index (1) tac (1)

Twitter Updates