Seeing the Light

Luis Cortez is an ex-D11 school teacher. He is a former member of the Colorado Springs Education Association. He heads the League of United Latin American Citizens of Colorado Springs (LULAC). He is also a former city councilman. Luis was a strong supporter of the recall movement against Eric Christen and Sandy Shakes. He believed the rhetoric of the anti-reform crowd when they claimed that the reform movement was all about the destruction of our public schools. He believed them when they said that only anti-reformers had the best interests of "the children" in mind. Luis believed them when they said that the administration was truly working hard to improve the state of education in D11.

The following Oped was written by Luis Cortez. It appeared in the December 19th Gazette, just over a year after the recall election.

This past spring, the School District 11 Board of Education voted to close East Middle School. This came only months after a successful recall campaign against reform board members who, we were told, were plotting to “close schools and destroy neighborhoods.” It turns out that these accusations were shock tactics designed to inflame passions and halt much needed change in D11. I worked hard on the recall, passed out petitions, gathered signatures, donated money, and walked my neighborhood, hoping D11 would stabilize, wisely use the half billion dollar budget it controls and educate our children. Will it ever happen? I hope so. It’s not happening now and probably never will given the status of D11.

After the closure of East, a Configuration and Use Study Committee was formed to offer recommendations to the board through the superintendent regarding the reopening of East by 2008. The SCAUSE, made up of 31 original members, voted 14-2, and recommended to the superintendent he pursue opening East as a math/science Magnet School with the $5 million integration grant approved by the Federal Department of Education. As a volunteer on this committee, my suspicions as to the integrity of the committee process were aroused when the administration screened out applicants with established opposing views, hand-picked leaders for the committee rather than allowing the committee membership to choose its own leadership, and stacked the Committee with D11 agents.

It began to sink in that the interpretation of our charge and the purpose of our committee were to make recommendations for the closure of schools. I did not read it that way. Our charge, as I saw it, was to recommend school improvements and techniques to increase student achievement. I saw our role as to collect data to determine what best practices and methodologies would work at East and other struggling middle schools to increase graduation rates, to reduce the dropout rate and close the learning gap for Latino, black and other poor Anglo students.

I thought long and hard about what has transpired and what I had learned from this exercise. Have we elected to the board individuals who value the administration's business-as-usual, the "to get along, go along" and “harmony over truth” way of creating an unhealthy learning environment at the expense of D11 children?

Having attended numerous board meetings, met with the Latino community, and spoken with numerous parents and students, I am led to believe that the "old" board may have been right. I, for decades, was a committed and strong supporter of D11. I was against charter schools and vouchers, I voted for and worked for bond issues because I believed the district was doing its best by students, parents and the community. How wrong I was! Although I was not entirely in concert with the "reformers," my gut feeling is that they had the best interests of students and student achievement as top priority.

Latinos placed their trust in D11, thinking the district would educate their children, provide every element of expertise and professionalism to ensure a quality education for their kids. Instead, they were rewarded with betrayal, and scapegoating, They endured disrespect and were referred to as “those” kids, and saw their neighborhood schools closed.

Yet I see a reluctant, unaccountable educational bureaucracy, controlled by the “good ole boy/girl” interests within D11 that resists discussing with candor, transparency, honesty and professionalism, Latino education issues. The top three "bonus babies" and their minions are in complete denial that a problem exists, as witnessed by their smug attitudes and pronouncements that D11 is doing a great job. They failed miserably to meet the challenges brought in by the new wave of Latino, black and poor Anglo students with unique learning capacities.

They lack creativity, leadership, moral courage, and a desire to alleviate the crisis faced by the Latino children they profess to serve. I don't use the term “crisis” lightly; there is no more accurate way to describe the situation that exists in D11.

As a former City Councilman, I understand the role of elected officials. Their role is to stand watch for the community. They serve to ensure public employees are focused on providing quality service to the taxpayers. The role of the board of education is to advocate for the parents and students of the district. It's time the D11 community - business people, Latino, black, poor Anglo students and parents - informs the board that protecting the status quo is over. It is time for students to take priority over the administration.

After the recall, Luis had his eyes opened to what we reformers had been saying all along. There is a rampant disregard by D11 administrators and anti-reform board members for making the type of effort needed to improve this school district.

Yes, it is a good ole boy network designed to appease adults. Yes, there is no accountability for poor performing teachers or administrators. Yes, D11 is in a crisis that will not resolve itself and that will not be resolved by weak willed leadership. Yes, the current board covers for the administration rather than representing the public.

Luis has discovered that the board members and administrators who promised to do so much good, if only the reformers would stop picking on them, are not honest people. They are not honest about the state of the district, and they certainly are not honest about making efforts to fix what is wrong.

The anti-reformers will have to come up with a new name for Luis Cortez. They can't call him a right-wing zealot, because he certainly isn't right-wing. Rest assured, they will think of some way to attack and belittle him for betraying the trust of the status quo crowd. Nobody is allowed to criticize the elitists on the current board or in the administration. Just feed them 1/2 billion in tax dollars each year and keep your mouths shut.

Thank you, Mr. Cortez, for having the courage to tell it like it is. There are thousands more people in this district who can relate very well to what you have written. The more eyes that are opened, the more chance there is for thousands of D11 students who are being grossly under served.

Let's Shoot for the Stars...oh, never mind.

When I posted my last article on the continuing math crisis in D11, a proponent of "fuzzy math" informed me that this discussion is old news because the district is moving forward and 'studying" ways to improve math. Sadly, as long as Dora Gonzales is heading the math effort in the district, there is not much hope for positive change. Each year since she has chaired the math department, Everyday Math has been pushed on more and more elementary schools in D11. Math instruction from this book encourages early calculator use and it discourages teaching hard and fast math facts.

The current school board members have shown no interest in improving math in D11, despite the obviously dismal statistics that appear year after year in the district. There is no arguing the fact that D11 is failing to teach solid math in its schools, yet the board and administration march forward proudly carrying the banner for the status quo.

Carla Albers has been a relentless proponent for improved math instruction in D11. She has researched and studied math programs from around the country and around the world. She has contacted college professors and reviewed data that shows that this "fuzzy" constructivist math that is being forced into our classrooms is hurting students' ability to perform higher level math.

Steven Wilson is a professor of math at John's Hopkins University. He conducted the survey of math professors that I had earlier cited on this blog. James Milgram is a professor of math at Stanford University. Both have conducted research on different math programs and both have concluded that constructivist math is harming the ability of U.S. students to compete with their peers on the world stage. The following email was written to Carla by Steve Wilson:

Dear Carla,
The decision to choose Everyday Math for the elementary schools in your district is a community wide decision that public schools will not prepare students for college.
Although the decision might seem to be made by just a few, they represent the community and its desires and make such decisions on their behalf.

There are a couple of consequences of this decision. The first is that, yes, everyone will now be qualified to be a cashier at Wal-Mart. The second is that the only kids who will be prepared for college are those with parents who have the education and the resources to recognize that there is a problem with math education and to see to it that their children are taken care of outside of school.

This will result in a big increase in tutors in the area such as Kumon.
One of the major benefits of this program is that more of the next generation will stay close to home after high school. This is because they either will not go to college or will not succeed. I've always suspected that programs like Everyday Math were designed for communities who did not want their children to leave them.

Sincerely,

Steve
W. Stephen Wilson (410) 338-1833
Professor of Mathematics
Department of Mathematics FAX (410) 889-8988
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD 21218 wsw@math.jhu.edu
Former Senior Advisor for Mathematics
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
United States Department of Education


The following letter was submitted by Professor Milgram to the D11 board of education through Carla Albers. Only Tom Strand even acknowledged receipt of the letter, demonstrating the lack of seriousness that this board places on academics.
To whom it may concern.
Carla Albers has asked me to try to explain the issues involved with math programs like Everyday Math, and why people should care. It is ironic that just a few weeks back I learned that IBM had privately announced that they intend to move their software development to India – and they added that it was not because it would be less expensive. Currently 55% of the engineers and scientists in Silicon Valley were born and educated in foreign countries – mostly in East Asia.

In the elite schools like Stanford where I am a professor of mathematics, about 2/3 of our graduate students in the hard sciences and engineering seem to be foreign born. Last year's winner of the Intel Science Talent Search, Dmitry Vaintrob, is the son of a Russian mathematician who currently lives in Oregon and has worked closely with me to try to explain why programs like Everyday Mathematics do not work. In fact they actually give our citizens a huge hill to climb if they have any hope of working in technical areas.

Our economy and all of our futures are threatened by these poor choices. But people in the school systems with a weak understanding of even the rudiments of mathematics – the subject that underlies all of science and engineering – continue to insist that “fun” math like that in Everyday Math is the way to go. They ignore the almost universal objections of professional mathematicians, and the plaintive complaints of the scientists and engineers that U.S. students are more and more poorly prepared every year, since they believe “fun” trumps all.

Ms. Albers sent me a document from her local school district that tries to explain why a popular video complaining about the dangers to your children of Everyday Mathematics is “wrong.” There is incorrect mathematics and some incorrect quoting of research in that document. In a real sense, the document itself is testimony to the problems that almost 20 years of programs like Everyday Mathematics have caused. However, here is a more graphic illustration of the problems. Below is a table showing the age distribution of scientists and engineers at NASA, the world's premier aeronautics and space agency and the crown jewel of the United State's research and development agencies. As the data show, for the last 10 years NASA has been unable to hire the qualified young people it must have to continue to do its basic research work. A key part of the problem is that, unlike Silicon Valley, NASA cannot replace its aging technical workforce with scientists and engineers from other countries since, as a government agency, it must hire U.S. Citizens.




If this is the future you want for our country, then keep doing the kinds of things you are doing.

After all, almost 20% of the children in our country are currently using Everyday Mathematics. So the
failures in your community will hardly even be noticed.

Yours,
R. James Milgram
Professor of Mathematics, Stanford University

It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of national security. The math fad pushed by administrators such as Dora Gonzales is not only hurting D11 students, it is hurting our country. Colorado Springs is a high tech town with the heart of the military space community stationed at our doorstep. Graduates who cannot perform basic math and science calculations will have no chance working in an important industry right in their hometown.

While other nations are shooting for the stars, D11 administrators and board members are shooting for more excuses for why math proficiencies in the district just can't break 30% at the high school level.

Reform like we said- Just Not in D11

In May 2006, the D11 school board voted to adopt a site based management system by a vote of 6-1. The purpose of this move to a site based approach was, simply put, to improve the district’s schools. Money would be prioritized to the school sites instead of to central administration. Principals and their staffs would have greater autonomy to do what was necessary to educate their students. Money would follow students to their schools using a student weighted formula.

For strong, competent principals, a site based approach is a welcome management model. Principals would have the opportunity to be leaders in their buildings rather than message takers for central administration bureaucrats. For obvious reasons, administrators would not welcome a site based approach. Terry Bishop and his staff worked hard to prevent a site based system from taking hold, and they were relieved when weak willed anti-reformers were once again firmly in charge on the board. Due to the failed leadership team of John Gudvangen and Tami Hasling, the D11 administration was able to kill the site based system before it got off the ground. Bishop is now free to direct funds away from the schools to continue his expansion of central administration.

In a Gazette article several months ago, Bishop declared that he had instituted more reforms than had the Denver school district. Bishop made this claim with the confident understanding that most people would have no idea what has been occurring in Denver. In short, Denver hired a non-educrat as its superintendent two years ago. This businessman superintendent has shown strong leadership and he has treated his district’s situation accurately like a crisis. He has been bold, forward thinking, student focused, and out of the box. Bishop and his anti-reform board partners have been nothing but “business as usual.”

Anyone who reads the Denver Post knows that it is not a conservative publication. Nevertheless, it and other large newspapers are beginning to understand the nature of the education crisis. The following article appeared in the Denver Post on December 6th:

School wants to set own course

As poor-performing Bruce Randolph Middle School improves under a reform plan by principal Kristin Waters, even further-reaching ideas are proposed.
By Jeremy P. Meyer The Denver Post

Teachers and administrators at a Denver school are seeking autonomy from union and district rules, asking for control over the school's budget, staff, time and incentives. Bruce Randolph Middle School in northeast Denver would be the first Denver public school to separate itself from key parts of the union contract.

"We don't see this as radical," said Greg Ahrnsbrak, physical education teacher and union representative at the school. "We see this as common sense. We want to be released from this bureaucratic entanglement that will allow us to do better."

The matter was presented Tuesday to the Denver Classroom Teachers Association board and will be discussed this month with the Denver school board. Bruce Randolph has been under threat of takeover by the state, which labeled it as one of the worst-performing schools in the state. For three straight years, the school had been rated unsatisfactory, but its 2006-07 scores improved and, for the first time, the school on Wednesday was rated "low." Principal Kristin Waters put in place a reform plan called Challenge 2010 and yearly is growing the school to a sixth-grade through 12th-grade program. The school day was increased 10 minutes; struggling students must attend after-school tutoring or classes on Saturday; and summer school is also a part of the plan.

Waters said the new proposal is being developed through collaboration with teachers. Ahrnsbrak said 75 percent of the school's 46 teachers have pledged their support for the proposal. It would allow the principal to hire teachers months earlier than is currently permitted. Teachers could add more classes for more money. Many of the decisions would be made by a leadership team that would be comprised of the principal, assistant principal and key faculty members. School board President Theresa Peña supports the idea. "They are not saying, 'Let it be a charter school,' " she said. "They are saying, 'Let us be a DPS school without the obstacles. It's courageous leadership saying here are policies that don't work for us. If you can relieve us of those, this is what we can do.' "

Union president Kim Ursetta said her board and the school board must approve the change. "There are a lot of questions about what they exactly want and how it would be implemented," Ursetta said. One teacher who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution said there is concern about the proposal. Some teachers feel they cannot voice their disapproval and have not been part of the plan's development. Concern also surrounds one provision that gives the principal freedom to fire an employee without union protection, the teacher said. "They will take the calendar away, the workweek away and leave it up to this group of teachers," the teacher said.

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com

The following Denver Post editorial appeared on December 10th:

Principal is a rebel with a cause
By David Harsanyi The Denver Post

Two interesting developments occurred in Colorado education last week. One was business as usual, while the other offered us a glimmer of hope.

First, here's what we've learned about Gov. Bill Ritter's education plan: It will be big on spending and short on new ideas. Let's call it the teachers union plan. More counselors? Good idea. More all-day kindergarten classes? Great. The elimination of the waiting list for preschools? Wonderful. After all, it's imperative to get children into the failing school system as quickly as we possibly can. Injecting more money — in this case, many new jobs —into public education can be helpful. But over the past 30 years, we've learned that increased funding alone rarely correlates to better results.

So where is the fundamental change in culture? Where is the independence that schools need to succeed? Where is the flexibility for teachers? Where are the enhanced choices for parents? Ritter will ask the legislature for around $115million for the plan. Quite conveniently, it will be available after his property-tax "freeze" raises taxes on thousands of Colorado homeowners. (Just in time for the mortgage crisis!) "It's a conversation that transcends dollars and cents," Ritter told folks at a dropout conference in Westminster last week. "We must get down to the business of educating kids."

Every year that we conduct this imaginary"conversation," more kids are conscripted to failing schools. Of the many factors contributing to bad schools is a bad agreement made by the district and a union more concerned with saving incompetent teachers than educating children. So now the good news: Last week, in Bruce Randolph School, administrators and a majority of teachers requested autonomy from this smothering policy. They want control of the school's budget and staff. Imagine that.

"We're looking at things like flexibility with our budgeting process and how we spend our money supporting teachers," says Kristin Waters, principal of Bruce Randolph School. "We are asking for some freedom in how we can spend the money we're allocated."

In a rational world, hiring your own employees is a no-brainer. Yet in Denver and elsewhere, schools deal with so many regulations that they are often left with a staff that either doesn't fit or is incompetent. Before hiring the right person, administrators are forced to sit around and allow the district to place teachers. Often these teachers haven't gotten the job done elsewhere. I'm told this dispersal of sub-par educators is called the "lemon dance."

Then there is the question of incentive. Hard-working teachers should be paid more. According to Waters, administrators cannot decide how to pay their staff. Denver teachers who tutor kids, for instance, are paid $20 an hour, while those who busy themselves writing curriculum are paid $30. "In my eyes, working with a student and helping a student master content is much more important but in the end, I don't have a choice in how they are paid,"she explains. "Neither does the school, the personnel staff, have a choice. We want a chance to look at all candidates when positions come available. It makes sense."

Bruce Randolph has been one of the worst-performing schools in the state until it recently began to turn things around under Waters' Challenge 2010 plan. Waters says her reform plan is working. Maybe. And if we hold schools accountable for failing, the very least we can do is provide them a fair shot at success.

"Every school is different, and I only speak for mine. I know (that) here, every decision is made in the best interest of students," Waters says. "And we see this as the next step in raising our student achievement. And in the end, that is ultimately good for teachers." Most insiders believe that the district will allow Bruce Randolph the freedom it deserves. What about the teachers union? If they vote yes, and the school flourishes, rest assured that parents across the city will demand similar independence. And school independence is the last thing the Colorado Education Association wants.

Fortunately, education reform is coming. Principal Waters gets it. She rebels.

Ritter? He's got other special interests to placate.

Principal Kristin Waters is a leader of the type that is desperately needed in D11. She knows where she wants to take her school, and she knows that she needs the education and labor union bureaucracies out of her way to get there. Waters wants the resources to come to her and she wants to make decisions with her staff that will improve the education for her students. As Harsanyi says in his editorial, the last thing that the labor union wants is independent schools. Successful independent schools will illustrate that the labor union is not needed, that it is, in fact, one of the main obstacles to educating kids. Independent schools will lead to fewer teacher dollars for labor union political causes.

The fact that the board in Denver supports Waters’ independence movement shows that these board members are focused on students, unlike the D11 board members, who serve only to run cover for the administration and labor union.

Randolph Middle School in Denver is improving because of site based management. It will continue to improve as the principal receives even more autonomy. We reformers put a site based system in place in our own district. We gave D11 schools a chance to break free from the smothering bureaucracy. We gave principals and teachers a chance to show leadership. They didn’t want this chance. It was too hard.

Note the reason that the anonymous teacher gave for opposing a site based approach in Denver. She was concerned that principals might be allowed to fire incompetent teachers and she was afraid that she might have to work longer than her labor union contract allows. In a crisis situation, principals SHOULD fire incompetent employees and staff SHOULD work longer and harder. Teachers in D11 who opposed the site based approach here made the same argument as the Denver teacher.

Governor Ritter wants more money for education. He wants to hire more labor union members and bureaucrats. D11 has a $500 million budget already. It doesn't need more money. It needs leadership.

Labor Union & Other Anti-Reformers say battle is won!

About the same time that I began this blog just over a year ago, Lois Fornander and a few of her anti-reform friends started a blog of their own. Their blog was created to foment hatred towards anyone who was a proponent of improving public schools. Fornander and her friends used her blog to support the recall effort and to support anti-reform and anti-parent school board members.

Since the anti-reform side has had control of the D11 school board, Fornander's blog has literally been at a loss to find anything about their hand picked school board to write about. While some people think that I am being flippant when I say that this board is a do-nothing board, the anti-reformers very obviously agree with me.

I have pointed out that the anti-reform board members have very little interest in improving D11. I have said that they define success by nothing more than sitting in seats of power.

A visit to Fornander's D11watch blog has once again proven my point. These statements were posted on the web site on November 20th:

"In short, the local problem has been solved--at least temporarily...The local battle has been won, but the war isn't over."

So there you have it. D11 has a graduation rate under 70%, it has a declining enrollment problem that has been sucking dollars from the district for more than a decade, it has proficiency levels in the teens in math, and it has flat reading and writing scores. But none of that matters. The board is once again made up of no one other than anti-reform, pro-labor union, pro-status quo board members. To these people, that constitutes success. Note that their definition does not include the education of kids. They only worry about maintaining complete control and maintaining their status quo.

But maybe I am misinterpreting their blog. When they say that the war isn't over, maybe they are talking about academics.

Well, no they aren't. They mean this: "The November 2007 school board election replaced the last privatizer with a more reasonable person."

The anti-reformers never define "privatizers," but they like to use that word. Why was it so important for them to remove Willie Breazell? Because he was a threat to the over-worked administrators. He asked questions and learned information that made these 6-figure earners uncomfortable. That just didn't cut it. On top of that, the labor union didn't choose Willie. Orders from the labor union bosses were to get him off of the board. Only labor union endorsed school board members are allowed to serve on boards in districts with labor unions running the show, such as in D11.

Not surprisingly, Doherty teacher and anti-reform labor union mouthpiece Tom Watson tells us what many of us already knew in his reply to this Fornander post. He confirms that he and his fellow labor union colleagues focused more on politics than they did on education during the time period that reformers were on the board. His post says this:

"I'm still reading, but I'm nuthin' but a disgraced former union thug.... thank goodness we have at least two more years of ceasefire and an opportunity to actually get back to the mission of educating kids and supporting schools and teachers..." Posted by: Tom November 22, 2007 11:06 PM

Yes, "disgraced" is accurate when describing someone who places a higher priority on fighting reform than on educating students. Sad and disgraceful.

So we can all go to bed and sleep better tonight knowing that the battle is over. As Fornander's blog warns us, though, there might be more people out there lurking in the weeds who want to improve our schools. These creatures just might want to enact and even enforce accountability measures on the district. Only a strong sense of duty towards the status quo will protect the level of mediocrity of which our status quo administrators and board members from years past have so jealously guarded.

Misleading their public

On February 9th, 2007, I posted a blog entitled "More on Math." Within that blog is the following link to a Youtube video dealing with constructivist math issues. The link, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymvSFunUjx0, deals with math in Washington state, but applies here as well. On January 20th, I also posted a link to a site that shows the confusion that results from constructivist math programs, such as Everyday Math. That link is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI. Everyday Math is used across D11 and math chair Dora Gonzales continues to push this harmful program.


In the fall of 2006, the D11 administration published an analysis of math programs used in D11. Specifically, staff performed an analysis of Saxon Math compared to Everyday Math. Copies of this study were provided to those of us who were on the board at the time. The conclusions of this comparison are shown in the following page from that report:




Under "Conclusion," the report states, "After reviewing the limited data that is available, it appears that of the two math programs examined, one is no more effective than the other."



The report also states that, "Note that the school that has the higher percent of trained teachers is also the school with the higher percent of growth from 04 to 05 in each matched set of schools."



The table below shows the gains made by each school and the percent of teachers trained in the math program used by the school.





First of all, the data used by D11, as stated in the performance review, was taken from 5th grade test results for each school. While the Saxon Math schools show a 11% gain in math scores compared to a 14% gain for the Everyday Math schools, the administration concludes that there is no significant difference between the programs.


Based on data available at the Colorado Department of Education web site, the data on the above table for each school is incorrect. The gains on the Saxon table, according to D11's own figures, should be: Ivywild, 31%, Bates, 1%, and Rogers, 8%. The gains for EDM should be: Adams, 16%, Jackson, 7%, and Monroe, 18%. The correct averages should be 14% gains for each set of schools.


Based on the administration's conclusion that teacher training matters, note that the Everyday Math schools have significantly more staff training than the Saxon schools, yet the performance of schools using both programs, according to D11, is the same.


The conclusion of this study are almost irrelevant, because the damage caused by constructivist programs such as Everyday Math are manifest at the middle and high school levels where it becomes apparent that students do not know their basic math facts. That argument is made well by college level math instructors world wide, as I have shown in previous posts.

Having written all of that, D11 posted a written response to the Youtube videos on its web site. This response can be found at http://www.d11.org/doi/math/Facts%20Behind%20the%20Drama.doc. In the D11 response, this pronouncement can be found:


"Our own data reveals that of the math textbooks that are currently in use, Scotts Foresman, Macmillan McGraw-Hill, Saxon, Everyday Math, Houghton Mifflin, Addison Wesley, and Harcourt Brace, Everyday Math has demonstrated, on average, a higher percentage of student growth in all the elementary math standards assessed."


This statement is completely false based on D11's own data. The report clearly indicates that D11 could not find a difference using the limited data available.


The D11 response also says this:


"The research on brain compatible learning has led to some of the most popular math publishers including alternate methods of instruction that may be more appropriate for individual learners."


D11 leaders will not explain how this new brain knowledge has led to poorer and poorer math performance since the introduction of constructivist programs.


It is sad, but not at all surprising, that rather than do what is right, which is to remove damaging math programs from the district, D11 administration has chosen to place false information on its web site to present the illusion that its failed math programs are actually working.


Another disturbing finding on the D11 math page is this comment by Dora Gonzales. This was a featured speaker at a conference attended by Gonzales:


"Doug Clements, a leading educator in early childhood education, mathematics pedagogy, and the use of computers in education, http://www.gse.buffalo.edu/faculty/viewfaculty.asp?id=7 ."


Doug Clements is a leading proponent for calculators in the classroom. While Gonzales and other D11 administrators try to tell parents that calculators are required for 2d graders, but not really used, Clements pushes calculator use as low as Kindergarten. He published a paper in which he pushes calculator and computer use for kids at all ages. This paper can be found at http://www.gse.buffalo.edu/RP/PDFs/ECE_Comp_Math.pdf.


While D11 administrators spend time and energy misleading the public, math proficiency in the district continues to deteriorate. It is apparently much easier for the administrators to "pretend" that all is well rather than make the decision to move to math instruction that actually works.


Fact: Constructivist math programs in D11 are harming kids as they move through middle school, high school, and college.
Fact: D11 administration is doing everything possible to hang onto and increase the use of constructivist math programs.