School Board response to suggestion to dump Everyday Math

[minghan05]

Most maths questions are very predictable. Students in Singapore take the Cambridge Examinations from UK in collaboration with the S'pore Exam Board. Relentless drilling in such past year questions naturally lead to high scores in the exam for even an average student. What is interesting to note is would students still score just as well if the questions are new and require an interplay of concepts or maybe a model has to be developed by the student first before solving it. Most will flounder.

[minghan05]

In a highly competitive environment where everybody does not want to be a loser, scoring an A is not good enough. It has to be a high A, meaning at least 90 out of 100. And Singaporeans know it is possible with maths, even in Year12. Hence this afraid-to-lose mentality is driving even the above average students to get additional help to get that near-perfect score. As long as the qtns remain predictable, average students will do well. If it is very different, only the best will get the answer.

[Rametesaima]

I actually like this video. It has it's issues, that's may always be the case with controversies and such, however, multiple viewpoints were explained in detail.

[mathisimportant]

What happened to the idea that what we need to do in education is what is best for the children?

[DanaherDempsey]

PISA international test of 15 year olds in math:.2003 USA worst English Speaking nation tested in the World.2006 USA scores significantly lower than in 2003..Everyday Math is the most widely used elementary math program in the USA. We are thrashed in math by Canada. This administrator gives lots of worthless anecdotes and typically has no data.

With defective administrators, we may be seeing our PISA performance even plummet further. We are still ahead of one industrialized country - ITALY.

[DirectInstructionFan]

I happen to think drills are awesome : )

[alrivs]

Great. Let's go back to the traditional methods that were failing our students as well. Now we can put more tax dollars into developing and purchasing a new curriculum and training teachers just to dump it again in 3 years. You people are creating a stupid costly cycle that will never end. Any brilliant idea you come up with will be as hotly debated and replaced at the taxpayers expense - and our children will still fail. Nice.

[lotusno06]

This MI school district has used Everyday Mathematics for 6 years with NO increase in scores relative to the state average. In fact, the percentage of high performers has dropped. Everyday Math has not helped those scoring at the bottom and has hurt those scoring at the top.

Saxon and Singapore math work for 99% of students. Why sacrifice our students to EM that only "works" for the middle 40%.  And then, those 40% end up years behind their counterparts in other states and other countries.

[alrivs]

I have nothing against Saxon or some other programs. It's the musical chairs with curriculum mentality that school districts have around the country have. As a teacher I am part of the continuous retraining on new materials instead of strengthening our use of one good curriculum. Our district has seen progress with EM. No curriculum will work for 100% of the students.

[LovedOne1]

As a parent of a 5th grader, and as a sub. teacher in my school district, I would have to say that Everyday Math does not work. I know there is no perfect math curriculum, but EM confuses students and stresses the use of calculators (the teacher's resource manual enforces the use of calculators to save "valuable class time"). I for one DO NOT endorse, in any way, Everyday Math.

[audioambrosia]

My daughter is in 6th grade at a school that uses Everyday Math and can barely even multiply and divide, much less deal with fractions and decimals. We are pulling her out of our public school and homeschooling due to our concerns with this horrible curriculum.

[fc007]

And Another thing. He states that those in Singapore are good in math only because they go to drills. To me drills is the same thing as practice, which is very important in learning math. Explaining the concept is O.K. but with no practice, there is no educational value. To put it another sense; You can read about driving a car, ace every test that teaches you the concept on how to drive, but you still wont know how to operate a vehicle if you never practiced.

[ybomian]

Give someone fish and they eat tonight; teach them to fish and they eat for life. Unless they're stubborn, unmotivated, and lazy.

[fc007]

I can accept that there are no perfect math programs, but a solution. There must be major blunders in the teaching method o"Everyday Math," otherwise, there wouldn't be a conference. So far they've talked about what steps they shouldn't take(that is students aren't better off with Singapore's math teaching). But what about coming with a new solution to teaching math? because obviously "Everyday Math" is not working. They can't continue as "business as usual."

[tyrbolo]

He says the problem is that parents in Singapore care

about children, but school boards in america do not.

I love Korzybski.

[jamesblackburnlynch]

So, how did the vote turn out?

[yalg18]

everyday math is gramatically incorect. It should be every day math.

[fc007]

No, it's correct. "Everyday" and "every day" has slightly different meanings.

1.'Every day = 'every single day' Example: "It rains every day, every single day."

2. 'everyday = 'on regular bases' Example: "John wears his everyday clothes."

[mugshotesp]

wow, he is an idiot and blind

[kmj2000]

I think Singapore Math is a great program. It teaches children to think in Math and transfer a basic knowledge of Math to higher level concepts. This is what is SORELY lacking in American Math Education. People seem to be afraid of the Singapore Math curriculum simply because they've been raised on the mediocre math curriculum, and can't quite grasp what Singapore Math is trying to do.

[charliec81]

ANd I never thought our math system was so important.

To think I kept making careless mistakes in all those drills....

[uwjames]

I am a math teacher, and let me just say that I was very impressed by this video. This guy is not a typical administrator, he actually understands and cares about the issue! I almost wish I could move back to Seattle to teach there, if only Seattle teachers got paid what they are worth.

[grossgermany]

you sociliast unionist bastard.

all you care about is your salary and doing minimum work. you don't give a damn about what children learn as long as most of them can pass.

in this age of political correctness, lowering the bar for ebonic speaking idiots is highly desirable.

[uwjames]

I don't understand you.

[mmjjpp]

Clueless! Isn't it better to add a little drill to a good math program (Singapore) than to teach every math procedure and concept to children in a deficient math program (everyday math) who have learned nothing! In every state that has used the reform math programs, math remediation rates have gone up at the college level. This includes California, Texas ans Washington!

[uwjames]

Look at the education funding levels in those states! They are awful.

[kaykamen70]

Singapure math books have related workbooks, that have drills in it. Research it further before advancing your retarded comments.

[SamIAm1966]

Haha, Funny. He concedes that EM and SM both have drawbacks, yet does not encourage the district to look at other options by conducting a proper textbook/curriculum selection process. Sounds like the easy way out . . . the school board just rubber stamps whatever their administration recommends. It's the kid's that will suffer if boards choose not to do the job they were elected to do . . .

[jamesblackburnlynch]

It seems to me his point is that every text has its flaws. With Everday Math, the teachers are already familiar with its particular flaws and they are addressing them. I believe he is saying that if they were to get a new curriculum, there would be flaws, just unknown ones, and the teachers would be back at square one.

[ybomian]

Sounds like the fear of unknown glitches to me. Flaws implies that there's something fundamentally wrong with the system. There is no flaw if there's a drill book adde, only glitches. Also implying flaws across the board of programs levels them all off and makes them equal in the administration's minds. It's an easy to use speech and debate tactic. If that didn't work, they may say that all systems are written by humans...also making them all equal. Do you see where I'm going with this?