The Anchorage School District’s ‘Everyday Math’ Problem

David Boyle (Alaska Policy Forum) states that the best charter schools in Anchorage use Saxon math, but parents face a lottery and waiting list to get into them. He states that only 50% of the students get into these charter schools.

"Haven't I just paid teachers to do this?"

By LISA HUDSON STUMP | 1 comment

The elementary school just sent a letter home saying I need to teach my child math. I have to teach her the multiplication tables for 10-plus minutes every night until she learns them. There hasn’t been enough time for this in class. Not in first, second, third or fourth grade.

I was balancing my checkbook when I read it. My school tax bill was a budget buster so I thought, “Haven’t I just paid teachers to do this?”

I am committed to helping my kids excel at school. I do sight words and math flash cards. I read to the little ones every night. I have logged 10,000 kitchen table homework help hours by now. Their dad has, too. Our kids are good students and we like to think we do our part.

A parent-child relationship is different from a teacher-student one. My first kindergartner came home, ate a snack, disappeared and then scurried back to the kitchen with a ditto sheet, pencil and red crayon ALL ON HIS OWN, so he could trace dot-to-dot A’s and color an apple because the teacher said so. And he actually wanted to please her and did a great job!

He did it the very same day we spent a half hour arguing about breakfast. Go figure. I almost picked up the phone and invited that teacher over for breakfast the next morning.

My children are taught by wonderful, dedicated teachers. I give these professionals all the credit in the world. I can’t teach so I pay school taxes so educators can teach. Why aren’t they given enough time to teach basic math?

Who designed the math curriculum? I want to speak to this math Einstein about the choices he made for my kids. Why isn’t intensive focus on addition, subtraction and multiplication early in elementary school Arithmetic Priority One? Who decided that parents could just pick up the slack a few years later so teachers could roll right into lessons about fractions now?

I worry about our high school students in the fast food drive-thru window who cannot make change for a dollar without an electronic cash register. If those teens haven’t mastered addition and subtraction by the time they are in high school, we shouldn’t have ever started teaching fractions or multiplication to them. Multiplication is harder, and those kids needed more basic math instruction back in elementary school. It’s too late for them now.

Don’t tell me these kids’ parents dropped the ball and didn’t help teach them to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Parents don’t have the training and talent for this. My children cried because I don’t know how to explain the new math the same way teachers do in class. I learned the crappy old-fashioned math and I don’t have the New Math Teacher’s Manual. Does anybody know where to get one so I can learn how to teach my child multiplication facts the modern way?

Parents work full time at other jobs to pay a professional educator to teach arithmetic.

Having parents handle crucial math instruction is a recipe for disaster and it’s ludicrous to ask parents to do it. I’m sure the math curriculum designer was paid well to figure out how to get it done in school. I really don’t care when and how it’s done. Just do it before our children apply for jobs requiring basic math skills. Please.

Why hasn’t enough math instruction time been built into the elementary school day? Why are we using a curriculum that might allow our kids to graduate without being able to make change for a dollar when the cash register isn’t working? How can we send our high school graduates to college if they need to think for five seconds before figuring out that 7 times 8 equals 56?

I learned that multiplication math fact at age 8 because a professionally certified teacher taught it to me in public school. When I have age-related dementia I will still know that 7 times 8 equals 56, even when I have forgotten darned-near everything else.

My parents treated me to ice cream when I learned my multiplication tables, but that was the extent of it. They were taxpayers, not educators.

Guess I will just buckle down now with the other parents and research how to teach multiplication to children. We don’t want our kids to look like fools when they are old enough to enter the working world and don’t have basic math skills.

Lisa Hudson Stump, Lower Makefield, has three children in the Pennsbury School District.

Everyday Math Just Doesn’t Add Up

The Anchorage School District commissioned The Council of the Great City Schools to evaluate why the Every Day Math (EDM) program is not increasing student achievement. In a voluminous report, the CGCS concluded that the school district has made some strides in Standards Based Assessment scores following the same students for several grades. There are many problems cited by the study and actions with which to improve the math curriculum. Recommended corrective action was to provide more professional development for teachers and assistance to parents, a Parent University. It seems as if teachers cannot adequately teach to the curriculum and parents find it very difficult to help their kids with homework. This would appear to be a formula for failure for our kids. The study places overall responsibility for lack of progress in math on the ASD staff, principals and teachers.

So, how does EDM compare to the more traditional Saxon math program in the ASD? Teachers, as a group, were surveyed and more than 600 of them responded. Of those who used the EDM curriculum only 34% rated the textbook as “good/excellent”. However, 88% of those teachers who used the Saxon curriculum rated their textbooks ”good/excellent”. If the teaching staff is not satisfied with the textbooks, then maybe the students are having even more difficulty with them. Perhaps, the texts are written to too high a level for most teachers and students. Those who teach at the K-6 grades usually are not math majors/minors and should not be expected to have a strong conceptual grasp of the subject.

In the teachers’ survey there are many comments stating the EDM is too conceptual, taught to a high level, does not provide a good foundation of basic math concepts, and is just not a good fit for the majority of students. It is especially not a good fit for transient students which comprise about 27% of the student population. For example, a nine year old military dependent who has been schooled in a more traditional math curriculum in the Lower 48 would have an extremely difficult time phasing into EDM. Some of these students may eventually get very frustrated and not reach their maximum potential in mathematics. Because of the highly mobile student population, EDM is not a satisfactory curriculum.

Many of the teachers stated that because the EDM program teaches on the conceptual level it would be a good fit for advanced and above average students. But what about the average and less than average students who comprise about 80% of the population on a standard bell-shaped curve? The EDM requires high level thinking which is not for everyone. Teachers further stated that basic skills are not mastered before moving on to another skill. If students are not able to master a math skill through practice and drill, then they probably won’t be able to master the subsequent skill(s). As one teacher said,”drill, baby, drill” regarding mastering of basic skills.

The study also noted that neither principal performance nor teacher performance are connected to student achievement. If there is no one accountable for achievement losses or gains, then how can one distinguish between the good and the bad? If teachers and principals were held accountable for student achievement, then the problem with the EDM program would probably have been identified and corrected years ago instead of continuing for nearly 15 years. It appears as if the only ones accountable are the students.

Finally, if one looks at the “concluding question” in the teacher survey (p.135), one would note that about 50% of the teachers are definitely for discontinuing the program. Some of the comments are very to-the-point: “(we need a)new math progam, Everyday Math is awful and skims areas!”. Many of the comments can be summed up by saying that EDM is not for Title I school students because it is too conceptual and the language is too complex, especially for ELL students.

If the EDM is too difficult for the majority of students, many teachers and parents, then it is probably time to adopt a better fit for our student population. A more traditional math program would enable more parents to help their kids with homework and get them involved in their kids’ education. So, let’s give the customers (parents/students) a break and ask them what fits them the best. It’s the right thing to do.

After math: Arguments over programs divide parents, professionals, leave schools with a problem to solve (Portland, Maine)

PORTLAND — Middle school math programs are generally not considered controversial.

But as Portland begins to implement the new University of Chicago Mathematics program in all three of its middle schools, parents, teachers and math experts around the region are questioning whether the program's goals add up.

Some districts, like Scarborough, have moved away from a similar math program. Others, like Falmouth, claim great success with what critics call "constructivist math," a method that has grown in popularity over the past two decades.

Call it reform math, or call it constructivist math, but what everyone agrees on is that the math taught in today's classrooms is very different than the math many of us remember.

Math wars
"The traditional method worked really well for me. It was easy to teach and easy to get a good result," said Audrey Buffington, a resident of South Thomaston who taught public school math for more than 12 years before becoming the state supervisor for math in Maryland. She now volunteers, tutoring Thomaston students who are struggling with the school's constructivist math program.

Buffington said she is frustrated because Maine schools are adopting programs that buck traditional textbooks and memorization models of learning, and replace them with programs that ask students to "discover" the answer through non-traditional routes that build connections between math and other subjects.

While the new math programs are promoted by several companies and are called different things, including Connected Mathematics, Everyday Mathematics and Chicago Mathematics, they are similar to "Investigations in Number, Data and Space," a program developed by the the Center for School Reform and the Center for Science Teaching and Learning, referred to as TERC, in the early 1990s.

Investigations came out of a grant by the National Science Foundation, awarded to TERC to develop a new way to teach math to American students.

Critics of the program often blame it for U.S. students' consistent decline in math scores, and even a recent decline to 32nd in the world in a international math proficiency test.

"We teach a mile wide and an inch deep," Buffington said of the constructivist programs. "There isn't sufficient practice on any one concept."

She criticized the programs for not teaching long division, a concept she said is vital to more complicated mathematics at the college level and beyond.

Eva Szillery, who has a doctorate in mathematics and runs the state's Maine Math and Science Talent Program, said the programs being used in Maine schools aren't working.

"Many constructivist principals don't work well," she said. "They make it complicated."

Szillery teaches her students math the same way she learned as a student in Hungary, using models math teachers have used for years. She said the country with the highest student math rating in the world, Singapore, bases its education model around traditional structures.

But others say the constructivist programs work well for many students, and that each district is different.

Differentiating
"I wouldn't necessarily say one (math program) is better than the other, it's what's best for the district," Scarborough School Department Curriculum Director Monique Culbertson said.

Scarborough recently replaced its elementary school math curriculum, moving from a constructivist model to a more traditional model based on Singapore's math program, called Math in Focus. The district is still using a constructivist model at the middle school level.

Culbertson said a curriculum committee of about 20 teachers selected the new elementary math program, and that they reviewed a variety of different types of programs before deciding on Math in Focus.

"I think a thoughtful decision was made," she said.

Process analysis
One parent in Portland has openly questioned that district's decision to move its middle schools to the controversial constructivist programs.

"Parents have flip-flopped on the issue over the years. I understand this is a very volatile issue," said Anna Collins, whose daughter just started kindergarten in Portland. "The School Board has a responsibility to create a fair, objective process where people's voices are heard."

Collins, who spoke out at a recent School Board meeting, asking the board members to review the process for curriculum and program implementation, said she believes the board had too little involvement in the decision to use Chicago Math, a constructivist program, in the middle schools.

"I want them to create a process that's transparent and objective so the public feels there's transparency in the system," Collins said.

She said implementing the same math curriculum in all of the city's schools eliminates parents' ability to send their children to schools that use programs they like.

"There are a lot of people out there for whom this is strengthening the argument for school choice. What happens in Portland is going to matter," she said.

A science and math charter school has been proposed for the Portland area next year. It will compete directly with the Portland Public Schools for students and state funds.

"If the School Board does not take responsibility now, I suspect they'll regret it," Collins said.

Beth Schultz's three children went through the Chicago Math program in Regional School Unit 1 in Bath. She lobbied her School Board to ditch the constructivist program and was extremely frustrated by the process.

"Not every curriculum works for every child," she said. "It will probably work for some children, but it wasn't a good fit for mine."

Schultz pulled all three of her kids from RSU 1 last year and now pays to send them to St. John's Catholic School in Brunswick.

"I feel schools should be open about what their curriculum is and that parents should really have a voice," Schultz said. "When they select a school, they should be picking a curriculum that best fits their child."

The Portland School Board has only had a curriculum committee for a year and half, and the committee is reviewing its role in choosing programs, committee member Sarah Thompson said.

"I think it's a gray area," Thompson said. "This is my sixth year on the School Board, and this past year is the first year we've been able to dive into any curriculum issues."

She said she would like to see the community more involved in curriculum decisions, and hopes the committee will be able to bring some parents on board in the future.

Finding an algorithm
Portland's science, technology, engineering and math curriculum coordinator, Dan Chuhta, said the process the city schools used to choose the Chicago Math program was solid.

"We convened a representative group of teachers from all levels," he said.

The new program cost $140,000 in professional development and materials.

Chuhta said the group ranked four programs based on a variety of criteria before selecting Chicago Math.

Critics have said the four programs the team reviewed were all constructivist-style programs.

Chuhta said getting students through algebra by the time they finish eighth grade was the ultimate goal. Until now, each school, and sometimes each teacher, was using whatever program they wanted.

"Each program has its own style. In some cases, the language of it can be different. If we're operating off the same curriculum – the Common Core – then everyone's clear what the standards are," Chuhta said.

The Common Core standards are a national initiative that aims to put all schools on the same curriculum, while still giving districts the ability to choose the programs that work best for them.

While Chuhta has never worked as a math teacher – he was a science teacher before taking on his role as curriculum coordinator – he emphasized the importance of finding a math program that works best for the district.

"I think what we need to do is make a decision that's best for our students and one that makes the most sense for us as math educators. There's not much in education that doesn't come with at least two sides of an argument," Chuhta said.

It's likely the argument will continue as Portland begins the process of choosing a district-wide elementary math program this fall.

Feeling positive
In Falmouth, constructivist math has been around for years. The district started with Connected Math in 1997, piloting the program before adopting it for the middle school.

Math teacher Shawn Towle, who has since become a trainer for Connected Math, said the program was the answer to the district's growth issues in the late 1990s.

"The thing we liked the best, was that ... we could bring new staff members on board more easily. It doesn't matter who teaches it. We're all using the same program," Towle said.

Towle, who won the Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching last year, said he thinks the argument over constructivist versus traditional mathematics is overblown.

"They're talking about mathematics teaching and learning from extreme points of view. People on one side do everything from problems, on the other side, they do everything from algorithms," he said. "Good mathematics teaching requires both."