Merry Christmas to All

Can We Just Recycle?

Well, the poll is closed and it appears that there are no recounts needed or hanging chads to reconsider.  Despite the fact that the blog tool truncates the percentages, the results are as follows:

What do you think of Everyday Math:

13% - Fine with me - it gives my child all the tools to succeed
8%   - I like it, but I have some minor concerns
20% - I don't like it, but there are some good parts
59% - Terrible - Anyone interested in a book burning

Some givens:

1.    The survey was unscientific
2.    Preaching to the choir was definitely involved
3.    Turnout was about as high as an off year primary day (39 votes)

Still, four out of five participants did not like it, and three quarters of those thought it was terrible (give the data to your sixth grader and see if they can convert the percentages to round figures to fractions and then fractions of fractions).  

Think the Board of Education should conduct such a survey across the district?  It has been done in other districts, and I saw one which asked about how many parents tutored at home or paid for tutoring.

One "great" thing about EDM is that most of it gets recycled every year, since the workbooks are consumable.  I can't think of any particular use for the pages after they have been used - you can't use them to teach someone else math, especially since the books didn't teach them a whole lot to begin with.

Report from the Board of Education Meeting

I attended the Board of Education meeting last evening.  I presented the summary below, referencing the Connecticut State Department of Education document previously discussed.

The board was listening, and the chairwoman referred to me by name (almost pronounced it correctly) when discussing the upcoming Board Work Session (5 Jan 2012) to review the 2011-2012 Math Monitoring Report covering the 2010-2011 school year.   Another board member (Peter Sherr) indicated that he had been “hearing from the community” and was looking for a “full-throated discussion about math, the math curriculum.”  It should be an interesting discussion.

If you are not familiar with the Monitoring Reports, they are the main way that the administration communicates about the successes and issues in the area of Mathematics.  The reports can be found on the BoE Policy page:

http://gsdpublicdash.com/

although the 2010-2011 Math report does not appear to have been posted. 

Interestingly, I cannot find a policy on how to conduct a curriculum review.  Hmmm.

_______________________

Board of Education Meeting Presentation

22 December 2011

“Why are we not accelerating the Math Program Review (in light of the new Common Core standards)?”  At least one Board member raised this question at your last meeting.

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You….Everyday Math

The Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (“CEMSE”), at The University of Chicago, proudly claims to be the “home of the authors of Everyday Mathematics.”  The CEMSE has a bone to pick with the SMARTER Balanced Achievement Consortium (“SBAC”), the group that is developing the standardized test that Connecticut will use starting in 2015.  In reviewing the draft specifications for the “Summative Assessment” (I guess standardized test is too easy to say), they state that

“If SBAC’s test for Grades 3-6 reflect the (proposed priorities), there is a danger that the implemented curriculum will fail to prepare students for college and careers in a world in which routine arithmetic calculations are routinely carried out by machines.”

Now I’ve read that about ten times, and the my translation is that “because we developed a curriculum that teaches kids to use calculators instead of learning the basic facts, they are now going to fail because they can’t use calculators.”  I am open to other translations.  Any other thoughts out there about what this means?

By the way, on their website, Everyday Math is “used in over 220,000 classrooms by about 4.3 million students.”  These guys just aren’t very consistent.

http://cemse.uchicago.edu/

Brian BTN

It Gets Better - A Look Behind the Numbers

I don’t call my blog By the Numbers for nothin’.  If the administration can justify a recommendation to not do a math curriculum review because, in part, only 8% of the standards are new and only “some” of the standards need to be adjusted for grade level, then those numbers need to be examined. 

I found the source document for the administration’s reply.  And they quoted it correctly, and in some cases verbatim.  But let’s look at what they failed to include in their reply. 

There's a Meetin' Here Tonight - Board of Education Meeting

The Greenwich Public Schools Board of Education will meet on Thursday 22 December at 7:00 PM at the High School to continue consideration of the budget.  I will be there to push for the desperately needed math curriculum review.  Come one, come all to support the push for better mathematics education in our schools.

Brian BTN

GPS Administration Recommendation: No Math Review Until 2014

At the 8 December Board of Education budget review session, the administration provided written responses to questions regarding the budget, posed by Board members prior to the meeting.  According to the agenda document (see page 18, question 31),

http://www.greenwichschools.org/uploaded/district/departments/business_services/budget_12-13/2012-13_Budget_Q&A_II_120811.pdf

at least one of the Board members asked,” Why are we not accelerating the Math Program Review (in light of the new CCSS)?” 

Our thanks go out to the Board member(s) who raised this question.