The D11 Fact Sheet

There is much disinformation and misinformation circulating around the School District 11 community. Much of this misinformation is being spread by those who are intent on maintaining the status quo. This blog will set the record straight and it will educate the public on the identities of these defenders of the status quo.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Still unwilling to teach Math

“…there was a consensus among the State Board appointed evaluators textbooks that EM 4-6 was so bad that statewide adoption for those grades was out of the question. However, some people argued that the K-3 program might be barely good enough for California schools. The California Curriculum Commission and the California State Board of Education eventually decided against adoption of Everyday Math at any grade level in this latest adoption. Everyday Math K-6 has now been twice rejected by the State of California, once in 1999, and again in 2001.”

"Professor Hung-His-Wu, Professor Mathematics at UC-Berkeley stated that while he was not an expert on Everyday Math, he happened to have dealt with it as a consequence of California's book adoption. While he feels there is merit to the "mathematical reasoning" aspect of the EM program, "Starting with Grade 3, and increasingly more towards grade 6, the outright contempt of EM for standard algorithms of addition, multiplication, etc. will handicap the learning of mathematics in later grades.”

"The elementary school teachers of San Antonio voted overwhelmingly to drop EM because it didn't work for them nearly as well as what it had replaced." "San Antonio ISD dropped EM after several years and in spite of rising test scores. Why were the scores rising? Because most schools and individual teachers were learning to leave EM on the shelf and do their own thing with whatever materials they could scrounge while EM took the credit."

"EM has been implemented district-wide since the 1993-1994 school year. Results from the 5th and 8th-grade level PSSAs show that only 37% of district 5th-grade students and a meager 28% of its 8th-grade students could demonstrate math proficiency at these grade levels last year. It's clear that the math programs in the Pittsburgh Public Schools have woefully failed to prepare many of its children in mathematics for years. Although the board majority has raised this issue, the district's administrators refuse to address it.”

From the left coast, through the nation’s mid-section, and on to the East, Everyday Math curriculum (EDM) is widely recognized as damaging to the development of math skills in school children. As anyone familiar with D11 administrators and board members knows, however, if there is a really bad idea floating around, you can be sure that your D11 students will be the victims of that bad idea.

Julie Shaw is D11’s Elementary School math coordinator, and she is a big fan of this garbage called EDM. She is such a fan, in fact, that she is forcing elementary schools across the district to adopt the EDM text books despite its damaging history. The school board assisted Shaw in this expansion of EDM by using mill levy override dollars to purchase EDM text books for the schools. Like other apologists for mediocrity in D11, Shaw claims that the curriculum and text books do not matter since they are all similar. It's all about teacher development, she says. If this is the case, why does Shaw insist on EDM as the only math text that can be used in the schools? Why not allow Saxon or Singapore Math? Shaw is so adamant about EDM that she has instructed teachers NOT to supplement this curriculum with other resources. Her explanation for this order is that she wants to adhere to “program fidelity.”

Why is EDM so bad? Although I have already written about the dangers of this text, we can review some of its low-lights once again, with the help of Carla Albers, who has worked relentlessly to educate D11 administrators on the basics of math education.

The Everyday Math text chooses not to teach traditional long division. According to the Teacher's Edition: "It is simply counter-productive to invest many hours of precious class time on such algorithms. The mathematical payoff is not worth the cost, particularly because quotients can be found quickly and accurately with a calculator." (I suppose that it is safe to assume that he who invented the calculator was not raised on Everyday Math).

States like Connecticut are heavily invested in reform programs like Everyday Math. The Hartford Courant newspaper recently reported that 40 percent of incoming college freshmen require non-credit "remedial" mathematics. (That's right: non-credit remedial math. You, as a parent, will get to fork over more money for a non-credit class because D11 failed to teach your child basic math).

Everyday Math uses "spiraling": Topics are repeated yearly and parents are often told not to worry if a concept isn't mastered because it will repeat. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel warns, "Repetition of topics year after year without the expectation of closure should be avoided."

According to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, "Students should be expected to develop automatic and accurate execution of the standard algorithms." Everyday Math spends much class time introducing16-plus unique algorithms (i.e. lattice method), many of which are not recognized by traditional programs. Covering so many methods leaves little time for mastery of any one. Very few tests to assess mastery are administered. The National Mathematics Advisory Panel strongly recommends more "ongoing assessments" be given in the classroom at the elementary level. Traditional long division is not taught. Math professors point out that excluding long division leads to students who are unable to do polynomial factoring and polynomial long division.

So why do “educators,” (and I use that term very loosely), like Shaw insist on using failed curriculum? The answer is simple: the use of EDM provides Shaw and her ilk with a ready excuse for the yearly educational failures that are common in this vanishing school district. EDM uses the spiraling technique mentioned above, whereby teachers can tell parents not to worry when their children do not master their math skills because they will get to see those skills again the next year. By the time middle school arrives, your child will be totally frustrated with math and will likely never catch up to the skills needed to perform well in Algebra. EDM has a second benefit for teachers: it allows them to “facilitate learning” instead of teaching to mastery. Since most elementary level teachers are not proficient in math skills themselves, the role of “facilitator” is easier than the role of teacher.

The push for ineffective math instruction does not end at the elementary school level in D11. David Sawtelle is Shaw’s counterpart at the high school level. He has been threatening Coronado math teachers in an attempt to force them to adopt some vague “reproducible” math worksheets that are supposedly rife with errors. Teachers who use this material have no text books and receive no instruction on the material. They are forced to run hundreds of copies of these worksheets, which led to Doherty running out of money during the 3rd quarter of last school year. Additionally, at the middle school level, D11 Central Administrators are forcing all middle schools to work at the exact same pace throughout the school year in their math instruction. In other words, if your child is advancing fairly quickly in math, Central Admin will make no allowances for that. Instead, your child or your child’s school is being asked to hold its students back to follow the pace of the less advanced schools. This highlights, yet again, the importance of site based management.

For those who believe that the push for quality math instruction comes only from crazy right-wingers, visit http://piton.org/Documents/Race%20to%20the%20Top.pdf. This August 2009 publication was created by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a teacher’s advocacy group. As you review this publication, you will notice that the research conducted by this organization shows that curriculum DOES matter. The NCTQ recommends Singapore Math as the preferred curriculum for elementary math instruction. This text is ridiculed by people such as Shaw, even though it is designed to work well for non-English speakers. As D11’s non-English speaking population supposedly increases, you would imagine that Shaw would welcome the introduction of effective curriculum.

If you are confused about the math instruction that your child is receiving in D11, you are not alone. There is a high probability that your child is also confused and that your child will need remedial math if he/she attends college. Keep in mind that you, as a tax payer, are forking over ½ billion dollars annually to this district that refuses to teach your child math skills. Cross your fingers and hope that the new board members are a little more interested in students than the two board members who were recently replaced.

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