MATH RULES!

Congratulations to the Eastern Middle School Mathcounts team for placing first in the Connecticut Mathcounts competition.  And congratulations to Michael Kural for his individual first place finish in the state-wide competition.  Good Luck at the national competition. 

Polls Closed

A recap of the recent surveys conducted on this blog.  As always, the usual disclaimers: not scientific, small sample size, preaching to the choir.

Question 1: Would you support a math curriculum review starting this year (2012) instead of the scheduled 2014 start?

Yes – 10 votes – 83%
No – 2 votes – 17%

The results here are consistent with the PTA survey I mentioned in my previous post. 

Conclusion: It appears clear that a majority of concerned parents/citizens support an immediate review, even recognizing the previously mentioned impact any resulting implementation might have on teachers.  I will continue to work with the PTA Council to get them to get more input from each school PTA, so that we can push the Board and the administration to respond.

Question 2 - Would you sign a petition demanding that the Board of Education instruct the school administration to eliminate Everyday Math from our elementary schools?

Yes – 13 votes – 65%
No – 7 votes – 35%

The results here actually surprised me.  I purposely used the strong word “demanding” in order to gauge the depth of feelings on this issue, figuring most folks are not into demanding (although, this is Greenwich).  It did not surprise me that this came out in favor of eliminating EDM, or that the Yes vote percentage was lower than the less demanding Question 1.  What surprised me was the two-to-one ratio of the votes.  I figured closer to 50-50. 

Conclusion: Your faithful blogger (me) is not out of line continuing to push for a change.  I will continue to push the Board of Education and the administration to see the light, i.e., to recognize the concern parents have regarding this program and the impact it is having on what I am calling the “lost generation” of our students.  To be fair, most of the BoE members recognize the concern.  We just need to turn that recognition into action.

 

QUESTION 3 - IF YOU RECOGNIZE THE ISSUES WITH EVERYDAY MATH, HOW DO YOU FIX THEM?

1. I help with homework
2. I tutor at home using other math programs
3. I hire a tutor for my child (Kumon, Mathnasium, private tutor)
4. Right now, I am not doing anything

This question was reopened from a previous survey, and the incremental results were slightly different.  More parents were getting tutors, with the results going from two out of 16 (12.5%) to four out of 14 (28.6%), while the percentage tutoring at home dropped from 68.8% to 35.7%.  The percentage doing nothing stayed about the same (around 13%), and the number helping with homework dropped from 62.5% to 50%. 

Conclusions: same as last time: a high percentage of concerned parents.

Good News and Comments

In case anyone missed it, our campaign for a mathematics curriculum review received some excellent support from one of the Greenwich Time’s newspaper columnists.  Thanks to Bob Horton for his article and his push to open up the conversation about Everyday Math and the math curriculum review to a wider audience, especially teachers.  To read the article, click on this link:

http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Bob-Horton-The-numbers-game-3410837.php

As a result of the article I have received comments from several current and former elementary school teachers.  One teacher wrote (echoing some of the concerns expressed here):

“Everyday Math was used in private schools in town and adopted town wide after a trial period at [several elementary schools in the district]. As a teacher at xxx [elementary school name removed], I felt the program didn't allow for mastery of necessary mathematical skills. The daily lessons covered too many objectives and quick "reviews" of previously introduced concepts.  Teachers spent countless hours creating supplemental material as per the Everyday Math teacher guide.”

The same teacher followed up with an interesting comment that could inform future curricula selection procedures:

“I have never seen an administrator from Havemeyer [administration headquarters] teach a lesson.  If they were put into classrooms to implement the proposed curriculum, they could effectively judge the value of the materials, lessons and student learning…..  I think every administrator should be required to spend time teaching in a classroom.”

Another teacher writes:

"I did like the program for second and first grade.  The students were expose to a lot more and learned a lot more.  I also tried to connect it to the real world which is the basis of this program.  I think using all of the components is key to making it work. "

The “components” noted in the last sentence refer to the tools (manipulatives, fact triangles) and the games used to teach and reinforce concepts and skills.  Several teachers have commented over the last few months about the lack of time to use all of these aids.

One elementary school PTA ran a survey (unscientific, informal) with parents which found that about 90% of parents wanted to move up the review, and about 80% of parents either didn't like EDM or have mixed feelings about it.  This survey is being used to guide this school’s input into the PTA Council’s discussion on the curriculum review and Everyday Math. 

I welcome all comments, especially from teachers and parents.  Keep those cards and letters coming!

Is Everyday Math a Threat to Our Students?

Is it an over-reaction to call Everyday Math a threat to our children?  Obviously I don’t think so.  I offer a best case and worst case scenario:

Best case scenario: My daughter gets out of elementary school (two more years) with a solid foundation in arithmetic and a little bit of measurements (forget about data, probability and statistics, ignore most of geometry, don’t worry about algebra until you take a real algebra course).  This will require parents who work with her at home every night and will require good math teachers who recognize the gaps in Everyday Math and continue to supplement that program.  In addition, it will require that the additional supplementation she gets via the teachers and at home does not confuse her as to the “right” way of doing math, and it will require that whatever transition curriculum is invented to mash Everyday Math into the Common Core State Standards has some coherence and focus (I gave up on rigor a long time ago).  NOTE: my editor, aka my mother-in-law, asked if I meant "mash" or "mesh" in the previous sentence.  Mesh would imply that Everyday Math fit well into the CCSS.  Mash is more appropriate, given the hammer likely required to pound the square peg (EDM) into the round whole (CCSS).

Many things need to go right for this to happen, some of which are outside of my control.

Worst case scenario: She loses her interest in math because of the bizarre program offered over the next two years.  With this loss of interest, she drops into the track which takes Algebra in ninth grade (right now about 40% of students), and then needs only two more credits in math to graduate.  This leads to remedial math in college, which means no science or engineering degree. 

Is there a more-likely middle ground?  This, actually, is my greatest fear. 

Middle-of-the-road scenario: She gets by with good grades (or what passes for grades on the new standards-based report card) in a subject she now accepts as a necessary evil.  She does algebra in eighth grade, and calculus as a senior, and is judged Proficient or even Goal level on the CAPT.  She then gets accepted to a reasonable school with the intention of studying engineering or science.  Then, surprise, her math skills are not sufficient to do the work demanded of a real college education.  Of course, by then I am sure that the college level courses will be dumbed down to allow most of the entering freshmen to succeed.  If you doubt that, read some of the posts I have made regarding Dr. W. Stephen Wilson at Johns Hopkins. 

Why is this my greatest fear?  Because this scenario is likely happening to a significant number of students.  See my post on the number of students needing remedial math: http://greenwichmath.blogspot.com/2012/01/ready-or-not-here-they-come.html

The end result is either shattered dreams (for those who realize they can’t make it when their high school told them they were ready) and/or a waste of time and money. 

But wait, our high schools would not lead our students down such a path.  Well, obviously, I am hoping GHS does not do that, but read the following e-mail from a college mathematics professor to the principal of a high school in California.  The name of the high school is College Ready Academy High School #5.  I’ve edited out a few lines.

______________________________________________________

“Please share with everyone relevant - Principal Marolla, counselors, and the Department of Mathematics at the very least.

On March 14, I interviewed/advised a recent graduate of your school before approving his request to become a major in mathematics with career goal of teaching mathematics at the pre-collegiate level. Regrettable as it is, I was compelled to give him an accurate prognosis of his success toward that goal; extremely negative.

Assuming what he told me was true, he had taken Pre-calculus and AP Calculus simultaneously (an appropriate schedule for only the most gifted and hard-working of students, not the situation here by a wide margin).  He claimed to have received grades of A in both courses followed by a 1 in the College Boards national exam for real AP Calculus [that is, he got a one (1) on his AP Calculus test]. 

Not only was he misplaced by allowing those two courses to be taken simultaneously, his grades were an absolute disconnect from his general math competence.  He came closer in English, although some remediation was required, but mathematics was ridiculous.  He not only failed to perform well enough on the CSU-mandated ELM [Entry Level Mathematics Test], he could not test out of the lowest remedial (noncredit) mathematics class that we offer.  Far more likely than graduating with a degree in mathematics is that he will drop out of college entirely; at best, only after five or six years.

Assuming everything he said is accurate, we have grade inflation run amok and the title of the school, College Ready Academy High School #5, deliberately misleading to well-intentioned students and their parents.

These kids are not close to being college ready.  I would be happy to offer my advice as to what to do to change things but, I assure you, moving students along with good grades and horrible performance is not a recipe for success.

Wayne Bishop, PhD
Professor of Mathematics
California State University LA”

____________________________________________________

The school’s website indicates that 124 students in the class of 2012 took the SATs.  The average math score was 363, with a maximum of 580.  The school’s website also highlights: ACRAHS

Now granted, this is an inner-city high school with a significant number of students who are economically disadvantaged.  But is it fair to misguide students about what they have accomplished, and what they can do?

Take the Survey

Please vote on the two questions listed on the right.

 
Keep reading for more information on this important topic.

Where We Stand

Back in December, I was asked what my objectives were for this campaign.  Four months in, I thought a recap would be in order.

OBJECTIVE 1. Commence the K-12 curriculum review this year, so that we are not behind in 2014 when the new state standards impact the Connecticut Mastery Test, and Greenwich's results dive, along with our housing prices (longer term).

UPDATE: Our current curriculum is built around the old CT standard, which was given a grade of “D” in one study.  Given the major changes as a result of the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, an immediate review is required to ensure our students are prepared for the future (and not just the new standardized tests).The administration has verbally committed to determining whether a review can be accelerated from 2014-15, in view of other competing priorities.  I am still waiting to see that commitment in writing. 

The Board of Education accepted the 2011 Math Monitoring Report, which purports to depict the state of math education in our schools.  As detailed extensively here, the original report was full of errors and omissions (some of which were corrected after my input).  The data in some areas is still incomplete, and is therefore misleading.  The analysis and conclusions are uninformative on numerous points.  The report thus fails to provide an accurate picture for the Board, which needs to have good information in establishing priorities and programs.

The Math Monitoring Report, when viewed critically, paints a distressing picture of the math situation in the Greenwich Public Schools, especially in the elementary and high schools.   Growth in performance on the CMT’s and CAPT’s at meaningful achievement levels (i.e., Goal and Advanced, as Proficient means nothing) is stagnant at best.  Greenwich’s performance contrasted with comparable districts is poor, and the gap to these districts is getting wider. 

OBJECTIVE 2. Get Everyday Math changed (i.e., get it out of our schools). It is great that some parents (me included) are in a position to instruct our children each night to make up for Everyday Math’s deficiencies, but what about kids where both parents work, and/or don't speak English well, and/or can’t afford a tutor.

UPDATE: The administration is putting together a transition curriculum (to get us to 2014-15 and beyond) based on Everyday Math.  Given the vast amount of change in philosophy, structure and content required to make Everyday Math compatible with the Common Core Standards, this will only lead to a program less coherent than the current version of Everyday Math (which already lacks coherency).  The publishing director charged with developing a Common Core version of Everyday Math said, “The number of changes we have made in EM to better align it with CCSS is quite large.  Our planning documents for these revisions ran to hundreds of pages.”   But the administration expects to do this in-house.   Welcome to Fantasy Island!

The main selling points of Everyday Math have been disavowed by the National Math Advisory Panel and, to a large extent, rejected by CCSS (spiraling, lack of coherence, lack of focus, lack of practice of basic facts and standard algorithms, calculator use as early as Kindergarten).  Is this the foundation we should be using?

The Board of Education and the school administration is aware of this campaign, but the administration is dragging its feet.  Time to turn up the heat.

Practice Makes Perfect

One of my biggest complaints with Everyday Math is the lack of practice.  The publisher claims that the games and fact triangles provide enough practice to get students to automaticity, but reality differs.  If you haven’t seen this with your child, ask any parent with a third or fourth grader.  The games and triangles only matter if the teacher (or a parent) conscientiously uses them. The games don’t get done because of lack of time.  One teacher told me that to do a good job with EDM, which she likes, you need 90 minutes a day.  In case you didn’t know, math class is sixty minutes long, less a few minutes at the start and end for settling in and changing. 

AN ASIDE: Speaking of games, must everything be fun for students in order for them to want to or actually absorb something?  As we tell our daughter, “one of your jobs is to go to school.”  School isn’t all fun and games; some of it has to be work. 

The common philosophy among American parents seems to be that you are either good at math or not, and no amount of work is going to change that.  If you believe that, look at the relative results of the white students versus the Asian students in Greenwich.  The Asian philosophy (which I experienced first-hand while living in Tokyo and travelling to Hong Kong and Singapore) is that hard work (practice, practice, practice) will overcome almost any shortcomings.   Are we as parents and teachers afraid to make our children work?  My mom sure wasn’t!

So which philosophy is right?  I refer you to an article by Daniel Willingham, which I referred to in a previous post:

http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter2009/willingham.pdf

For a more in-depth discussion, read his book, Why Don’t Students Like School? (published by Jossey-Bass, 2009).  He elaborates on three cognitive principles that have a direct bearing on this question:

1.    “Factual knowledge precedes skill.

2.    Proficiency requires practice.

3.    Intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work.”

Dr. Willingham comes down firmly on the side of the Asian philosophy.

BACK TO OUR MAIN POST: A previous post has shown the scarcity of practice of multiplication facts.  Everyday Math is renowned (infamous) for spiraling back to a topic over and over again, but the real number of practice problems is actually small because there are only a few on each page. 

Fortunately, some teachers recognize the issue and assign fact practice (every night in my daughter’s case) or provide additional in-class or take-home assignments.  Some teachers may not realize the need, or some parents may not have their children do the practice. 

So how much is enough to get the student to mastery or automaticity? (Ever notice how the jargon words keep getting longer?)  Probably more than you think.  My daughter can go through the flash cards at about one every two-three seconds (when she focuses and when I can turn them that fast enough), and she has no problem making change in Monopoly®.  Is it automatic yet?  No.  Will we continue to practice?  Absolutely.  Dr. Willingham argues that you need to practice beyond mastery, in order to retain the knowledge required to progress to higher learning effectively.  Concert pianists still practice scales, right?  Derek Jeter still practices fielding?  Automaticity at work.

I will leave you with a quote from Dr. Willingham’s article: “Don’t let it pass when a student says ‘I’m just no good at math.’  We hear it a lot, but it’s very seldom true.  It may be true that the student finds math more difficult than other subjects, but with some persistence and hard work, the student can learn math – and as he learns more, it will get easier.  By attributing the difficulty to an unchanging quality within himself, the student is saying that he’s powerless to succeed.”

Arithmetic 101 part 2

So you have had a few days to take the test.  We had quite a few page hits on this post.

How did you do?  Did you let your students try it, to gauge how good/bad their knowledge is?  Were you shocked about your student’s results?  Were you amazed at the results for the college class?  Leave a comment.

Thinking about this test prompted a trip down memory lane, back to my grade school days (many potholes on that road).  I can remember taking a placement test at the end of sixth grade, to see what section we were going to be placed into when we went to junior high school.  The only problem I missed on the test was a percentage problem.  Based on that, I would say we did not do percentages prior to seventh grade.  I can distinctly remember fractions in sixth grade, and decimals in fourth grade (as well as long division).   I don’t remember statistics and data/probability, or all of the art work in Everyday Math (also known as geometry).

I also recall that we did not have homework of any major size until seventh grade.  I remember everyone being so excited about getting our first homework assignments on the first day of seventh grade!  Boy, did that excitement die quickly.

So I guess we focused on a relatively narrow set of topics (called Arithmetic), and really learned them well.  Sounds a lot like what the Common Core State Standards are striving for (but miss the boat in several places).

Based on my recollection of my math education, I would have aced this test in the seventh grade.  I would suspect that the administration would say that our students should be able to do this test in sixth grade, given the general acceleration of the curriculum.  However, acceleration is not always good, when it comes at the expense of really learning the basic topics (such as this test covers).  Everyday Math covers so many topics, there is not sufficient focus to allow mastery of any particular area. 

Now think about what it will take to change a program (EDM) of that description to something closer to the “arithmetic” program similar to what was taught in the 1960’s (prior to the first wave of “New Math”).  As I say to my daughter when she asks for something, “Ain’t gonna happen.”  (And yes, my wife corrects my grammar.)  So do you really want to risk another lost generation of elementary school children getting a poor math education?   Time to get rid of Everyday Math!

Arithmetic 101

A math teacher, wanting to gauge the knowledge of his students, gives them a math test on the first day of class.  Not really a mathematics test; more of an arithmetic test, since there were no geometry or algebra or calculus or probability or data questions. 

Ten questions.  Take it (without a calculator) and see how you do.  Then click on “read more” at the bottom to get the answers and the results in his class.

1.    Multiply 5.78 by 0.390

2.    Subtract 5.897 from 68.25

3.    Divide 3  1/6 by 7/18

4.    70 is what percent of 250?

5.    Find 25% of 340

6.    Find the sum of 5/6 +4/5

7.    Subtract 3  1/9 from 5  2/3

8.    Find the sum of 3.29 + 78.985 + 18

9.    Divide 51.072 by 0.56

10. Add 2/3 and 1/2, and divide the result by 5/12

Good luck.

How Bad is Everyday Math? – part 2

I was speaking with a friend last night at the Riverside School Science Fair about what is wrong with Everyday Math.  One of the items I focused on was the lack of practice that the students get in EDM, as noted in part 1 of this topic. 

“Insufficient drill for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division facts.  The schools are relying on parents to conduct the drills, in most cases only if they (the parents) realize there is an issue (i.e., only one of my daughter’s three teachers has indicated that she should drill at home, and that was her ALP teacher).  The point is that if the teacher does not indicate that the student should drill, there is a large probability that the student and parent will not recognize the need, and will not drill at home.”

And

“Insufficient attention to standard algorithms.”

I thought it might be useful to see if I could quantify the number of practice problems.  In my daughter’s second grade home links book, I had counted 407 practice problems across addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  Some of these problems involved estimation, and I know they used the fact triangles in school for some practice, and there are games which are meant to reinforce basic facts. 

Since I had nothing to compare against, that still didn’t answer my question.  So I went looking and found an interesting comparison of third grade math texts (student  and teacher editions) submitted to the Texas State Board of Education for approval in 2007.  For Everyday Math, and for some of the other texts, the submitted texts were specifically designed to meet the Texas standards (which are generally held to be better than the old CT standards).   However, the basic content should be similar to what we are currently using to provide a reasonable answer. 

DISCLAIMER: The analysis was done by a private company, not the State of Texas. 

The analysis focused on the number of times the standard algorithm was tested and practiced in the third grade suite of books.  Eight different programs were examined, three ultimately rated “Better”, three “Fair”, one “Poor” and one “Worst” (wait for it!).

For ease, I will compare Everyday Math to Saxon Math, of which many folks have at least heard. 

Attribute	Saxon	EDM	NOTES
How many times was the standard	289	0	partial sums method used
algorithm for addition practiced or reviewed?
How many times was the standard	44	0	partial sums method used
algorithm for addition tested (after
the initial test)?
How many times was the standard	353	90
algorithm for subtraction practiced or reviewed?
How many times was the standard	57	3
algorithm for subtraction tested (after
the initial test)?
How many times was the standard	39	0	partial products, lattice, other
algorithm for multiplication practiced or reviewed?			methods used
How many times was the standard	11	0	partial products, lattice, other
algorithm for multiplication tested (after			methods used
the initial test)?
How many times were basic multiplication	1928	393	plus 13 games and 11 Fact
facts practiced?			Triangle drills
How many times was the standard	20	0	dividing 2 digits by 1 digit
algorithm for division practiced or reviewed?
How many times were basic division	918	133	plus 2 games and 11 Fact
facts practiced?			Triangle drills

Third grade means learning multiplication, so you would expect the largest effort (practice) to be focused on that operation.  The difference between the two curricula (1928 vs 393), even when some credit is given to the games and Fact Triangles, is stark.  I would think a similar analysis in grades one and two would find similar differences for addition and subtraction.  I would discount slightly the differences for division, as this may be reflective more of the higher level of the standards in Texas, pushing division into the third grade. 

So you be the judge.  Are you children getting enough practice?  Are you practicing at home?  Have you told your child's teacher how much you are doing at home?

And yes, Everyday Math was rated "Worst."

http://www.textbookreviews