School Board response to suggestion to dump Everyday Math

School board trustee response to suggestion that the district should investigate alternatives to Everyday Mathematics. It has been used in the district for seven years without showing any benefit relative to state averages, while the state test has been weakened. It was up for a vote to buy the 3rd edition while skipping the normal process of 'exploring' the market.

Notice the quote at the beginning:
"It's important in terms of supporting the administration."

Where do the children fit in?

My citizen comments closed with:

"Continue supplementing as today. Use the MEAP results to enhance the current curriculum while going into the 'Explore' phase. Expand the selection criteria to include programs that do not waste the valuable time of our children. Our children deserve a program that ensures success rather than 'getting by'."

I had held up a Singapore Math book as an example of an alternate curriculum after this same trustee had mentioned it in a previous meeting.

How does this response encourage citizen participation?

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• math
• mathematics
• everyday
• inconvenient
• education
• school
• board

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.