Community%20Math%20Forum%20Bellevue%20High%20School%20Bellevue,%20Washington%20Tuesday,%20April%2025%202006

1
Community Math ForumBellevue High
SchoolBellevue, WashingtonTuesday, April 25
2006

• Co-Sponsored by
• Wheres the Math?
• and
• Washington State PTA

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Presentation by Elizabeth CarsonCo-Founder
and Executive DirectorNYC HOLD Honest, Open,
Logical Decisions on Mathematics Education
Reformwww.nychold.com

• US K-12 Mathematics Education Reform
• 1989 present
• Origins, qualities, controversy, results, and
• the implications for our children and our nation
  

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A Nation At Risk

• A Nation at Risk 1983 The report by The National
  Commission on Education Excellence began
• Our nation is at risk. Our once
  unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry,
  science, and technological innovation is being
  overtaken by competitors throughout the world.
  We report To the American people that while we
  can take justifiable pride in what our schools
  and colleges have historically accomplished and
  contributed to the United States and the
  well-being of its people, the educational
  foundations of our society are presently being
  eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that
  threatens our very future as a Nation and a
  people. If an unfriendly foreign power had
  attempted to impose on America the mediocre
  educational performance that exists today, we
  might well have viewed it as an act of war As it
  stands, we have allowed this to happen to
  ourselves.

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1989 Governors SummitCharlottesville, VA

• In the area of setting national education
  goals, we unanimously agree that there is a need
  for the first time in this nations history to
  have specific results-oriented performance
  goals.
• President George Bush, Sr
• Remarks at the Education Summit Farewell
  Ceremony at the University of Virginia, September
  1989

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GOALS 2000Educate America Act(1994)

• A federal program that provided grants to states
  and districts to establish challenging academic
  content standards and accompanying assessments.
  It codified the six national education goals that
  emerged from the 1989 education summit of
  President Bush, Sr and the nations governors.
  Introduced by the Clinton administration.
• Goal 5 By the year 2000, US students will be
  first in the world in mathematics and science
  achievement

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM

• NCTM 100,000 member association of K-12 math
  teachers and mathematics educators in schools of
  education
• 1980 Agenda for Action
• 1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for
  School Mathematics
• 2000 Principles and Standards for School
  Mathematics (PSSM 2000)

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM
Standards

• Vision documents. Not mathematics content
  standards. Not grade specific articulation of
  goals for mastery.
• Based in progressive education ideology.
  Constructivist learning theory. Discovery,
  student directed learning. Teacher is to be a
  guide on the side, not a sage on the stage.
• Calls for radical departure from traditional
  mathematics content and sequence, and traditional
  classroom practices.

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM
1989 An Agenda for Action

• Called on educators to emphasize problem solving
  over drill and practice and to introduce
  calculators and computers into the classroom at
  the earliest grade practicable.
• Shirley Hill, former NCTM president remarked,
  Its very clear the time to begin a careful
  transition from the concentration on traditional
  computation to a curriculum which takes advantage
  of the calculating tools.
• Susan Walton, Add Understanding, Subtract
  Drill, Education Week, July 27, 2983. National
  Science Board Commission on Precollege Education
  in Mathematics, Science and Technology, Education
  Americans for the 21st Century, excerpts
  reprinted in Education Week, September 14, 1983

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
NCTM1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards

• Summary of Changes in Content and Emphasis in
  5-8
• source NCTM document distributed to
  Manhattan District 2 parent community to explain
  basis for TERC Investigations and CMP
• Highlights
• Increased Attention pursuing open ended
  problems, representing problems verbally,
  discussion and writing in math class, connecting
  mathematics to other subjects, creating personal
  algorithms and procedures, group work,
  calculators. teacher as facilitator, discovery
  learning.
• Decreased Attention practice, answering
  questions that require a yes or no or a number as
  a response, memorizing rules or procedures,
  practicing tedious paper and pencil calculations,
  finding exact forms of answers, Algebra
  manipulating symbols, memorizing procedures and
  drilling on equation solving, Statistics and
  Probability memorizing formulas, Student
  reliance on outside authority (teacher or answer
  key) Teacher teaching computations out of
  context, drilling algorithms, teaching topics in
  isolation, being the dispenser of knowledge,
  testing for the sole purpose of assigning grades.

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
NCTM1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards

• It offers as its principal vision that school
  mathematics need not be difficult or dull and the
  cure was to remove the mathematical content from
  it leaving behind the mathematical concepts as a
  sort of Cheshire Cat grin.
• Ralph Raimi, Professor of Mathematics
  Emeritus, University of Rochester, a
  distinguished expert on domestic and
  international mathematics standards
• Letters, Notices of the AMS, February, 2001

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
NCTM 1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards

• The Council is now led by theoreticians
  from our Schools of Education, imposing policies
  that distort teaching and heavily impair the
  learning of school mathematics.
• It 1989 NCTM Standards does not hold the
  properties of mathematics that make its study
  worthwhile. Mathematics is exact, abstract and
  logically structured These are the essential
  properties of mathematics.
• Frank Allen, Professor of Mathematics
  Emeritus, Elmhurst College and former president
  of the NCTM (1962-64) in The NCTM Council Loses
  Hard Earned Credibility

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM

• 2000 Principles and Standards (PSSM)
• The current, revised edition
• Revisions process solicited input from the
  mathematics community including committees of the
  American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the
  Mathematics Association of America (MAA) called
  Associated Resource Groups (ARG) Several detailed
  AMS and MAA ARG reports were submitted to the
  NCTM.
• Final PSSM document is absent important ARG
  recommendations
• Professor Ralph Raimi on the 2000 edition
• PSSM continues to abhor direct instruction
  in, among other things, standard algorithms,
  Euclidean geometry and uses of memory.
• Almost anything in the way of content to
  be remembered can be omitted from a school
  mathematics program without running afoul of
  PSSM, providing the pedagogy is right and the
  process suitably exploratory. Explore,
  develop and understand and their variants are
  much more prominent in the text than know,
  prove and remember.

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM
StandardsPhilosophical Underpinnings

• "Algorithms force children to give up their own
  thinking.
• "Once they have become successful at using
  algorithms, it is extremely and surprisingly
  difficult to get children to unlearn them
• "Algorithms 'unteach' place value and hinder
  children's development of number sense."
• "When the teacher decrees that an answer is
  correct, all thinking and all initiative stops."
• "Children will inevitably reach the truth if they
  debate long enough because, in logico-mathematical
  knowledge, relationships are never arbitrary.
• "Three principles we advocate following
  children's lead, not teaching algorithms, and not
  saying that an answer is correct or incorrect -
  the opposite of the traditional approach to
  teaching mathematics.
• In the traditional approach, each topic, such
  as the multiplication of fractions, is introduced
  by the teacher. The teacher then shows the
  students how to get answers and assigns similar
  exercises. The correctness of each answer is then
  judged by the teacher (or by a computer
  nowadays). This approach is rooted in the belief
  that mathematics is a set of rules, skills, and
  concepts to be learned by internalization from
  the environment. However, Piaget's constructivism
  has shown with more than 50 years of scientific
  research that children acquire logico-mathematical
  knowledge by constructing it from the inside, in
  interaction with the environment."
• Reform in mathematics education no longer means
  doing better what we have been doing for
  centuries. It is time to go beyond "helping"
  children in well-intentioned ways that are in
  reality harming them"
• ( excerpts from The article "52 x 8 The
  Importance of Children's Initiative ( The
  Constructivist, Fall, 1997) provided to
  Manhattan District 2 parents to explain the NCTM
  philosophy behind TERC Investigations and CMP )

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM
Standards

• Calculators in Elementary Math Class
• This 1989 NCTM Standards is not instructive
  mathematics. It cheats our children. It neglects
  the fundamental operations of arithmetic in the
  early grades, advocates the early use of
  calculators, and denies the foundation on which
  students understanding of algebra is based.
  Frank Allen, past President of the NCTM, in The
  NCTM Council Loses Hard Earned Credibility
• The Investigations curriculum incorporates the
  use of two forms of technology in the classroom
  calculators and computers. Calculators are
  assumed to be standard classroom materials,
  available for students in any unit. Computation
  and Estimation Strategies Building on Numbers You
  Know, Grade 5, Investigations in Number Data and
  Space
• According to the Third International Mathematics
  and Science Study (TIMSS) the use of calculators
  in US fourth grade mathematics classes is about
  twice the international average. Teachers of 39
  percent of US students report that students use
  calculators at least once or twice a week. In six
  of the seven top scoring nations, on the other
  hand, teachers of 85 percent or more of the
  students report that students never use
  calculators in class. David Klein, Math
  Problems, Why the US Department of Educations
  recommended math programs dont add up, American
  School Board Journal, April 2000
• A study of calculator usage among calculus
  student at Johns Hopkins University found a
  strong correlation between calculator usage in
  earlier grades and poorer performance in calculus
• W. Stephen Wilson and Daniel Q Naiman,
  K-12 Calculator Usage and College Grades,
  Educational Studies in Mathematics, 56119-122,
  2004

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National Science Foundation Education and Human
Resource Directorate (NSF EHR)And the NCTM

• Influential Federal Funding Source for NCTM Based
  K-12 Reforms, since 1991
• Annual budgets eg 994 million (FY 2004 est)
  771 million (FY 2005 req)
• Awards for research development and
  implementation, to partnerships between
  University Schools of Education, District and
  State Departments of Education, K-12 Schools as
  laboratories and private businesses and
  institutions
• Research and Development of new math programs.
  eg Investigations (TERC) , Connected Math
  Project (CMP), Core-Plus
• Teacher Enhancement Grants Teacher Training
  aligned with new NCTM math programs
• State and Local Mathematics Standards
  Development aligned with the new NCTM math
  programs
• State, Urban, Rural Systemic Initiatives (SSI)
  (USI) (RSI)
• renamed Local Systemic Change Initiatives
  (LSC) (to implement the new NCTM math programs)
• Implementation and Support Centers for NCTM math
  program implementations
• Eg COMAP ARC UCSMP Everyday Math
  Center TERC MSPnet

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National Science Foundation Education and Human
Resource Directorate (NSF EHR)And the NCTM

• NSF EHR Awards provide powerful funding
  incentives to colleges and universities and
  states and local school districts for research
  and development projects and K-12 reforms.
• The support for these programs Everyday Math,
  Investigations, Mathland, CMP, Core-Plus and IMP)
  in the Department of Education is ultimately the
  responsibility of the Education and Human
  Resources Department, EHR, at the National
  Science Foundation At least equally important
  are the Systemic Initiatives funded by the EHR,
  which have the objective of pushing the districts
  where these initiative are awarded to adopt
  curricula in mathematics which align with the
  1989 NCTM Mathematics Standards.
• Testimony of James Milgram, US House
  Committee on Education and the Workforce,
  February 2, 2000
• Not only do the Systemic Initiatives undermine
  local control of education, but, as our analysis
  in this chapter suggests, they also seem to lower
  academic standards for mathematics education and
  weaken the educational base for American
  science.
• Michael McKeown, David Klein, Chris
  Patterson, The NSF Systemic Initiatives, How A
  Small Amount of Federal Money Promotes
  Ill-Designed Mathematics and Science Programs in
  K-12 and Undermines Local Control of Education,
  Chapter 13 in Whats At Stake in the K-12
  Standards Wars, Sandra Stotsky, Ed (2000)
• No single institution in the United States has
  caused more damage to the mathematical education
  of children than the National Science Foundation
  (David Klein talk delivered at a Math Seminar,
  American Enterprise Institute, March 4, 2002)

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Mathematics and Scientific Communities Respond to
Federal Government Endorsement of 10 NCTM Based
Math Programs

• October 1999 a US Department of Education Expert
  Panel recommended 10 NCTM math programs
  describing them as Exemplary or Promising
• November 18, 1999 Open Letter to US Education
  Secretary Richard Riley is published in the
  Washington Post, asking for a withdrawal of the
  NCTM program recommendations. The letter
  references critical analysis of several of the
  NCTM programs, by mathematicians and scientists
  at leading universities. The letter expressed
  concern with the Expert Panel itself, the absence
  of sufficient mathematics expertise and balance
  on the panel
• Letter Authors
• David Klein, Professor of Mathematics,
  California State University at Northridge
• Richard Askey, John Bascom Professor of
  Mathematics, University of Wisconsin at Madison
• R James Milgram, Prof of Mathematics
  Stanford University
• Hung-His Wu, Professor of Mathematics
  University of California Berkeley
• Martin Scharlemann, Professor of
  Mathematics, University of California, Santa
  Barbara
• Betty Tsang, National Superconducting
  Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University
• Letter Co-signers
• Over 200 mathematicians and scientists,
  among them, our nations most distinguished,
  including seven Nobel laureates and winners of
  the Fields Medal, the highest award in
  mathematics, department heads at more than a
  dozen universities including Caltech, Stanford
  and Yale and two former presidents of the
  Mathematical Association of America.

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Investigations in Number Data and Space (TERC)

• Wilfried Schmid, Dwight Parker Robinson
  Professor of Mathematics, Harvard University on
  TERC
• A TERC teacher doesn't explain, and a TERC
  teacher doesn't teach! I don't want to be
  misunderstood group learning and discovery
  learning are parts of the tool chest of every
  accomplished teacher, but it is folly to turn
  these techniques into an ideology. If we
  mathematicians had to re-discover mathematics on
  our own, we would not get very far! And indeed,
  TERC does not get very far. By the end of fifth
  grade, TERC students have fallen roughly two
  years behind where they should be.
• The TERC authors are opposed to the
  teaching of the traditional algorithms of
  arithmetic, such as long addition, subtraction
  with borrowing, and the usual pencil-and-paper
  methods of multiplication and division. Not only
  do they refuse to teach the algorithms, they make
  clear their preference not to have the students
  learn them outside of the classroom, either.
• Opening Remarks, Are Our Schools Math
  Programs Adequate? Experimental Math Programs and
  Their Consequences, Math Forum sponsored by NYC
  HOLD, NYU Law School, 2001

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Connected Mathematics Project (CMP)

• Jim Milgram, Professor of Mathematics,
  Stanford on CMP
• Overall the program seems to be very
  incomplete, and I would judge that it is aimed at
  underachieving students rather than normal or
  higher achieving students. In itself this is not
  a problem unless, as is the case, the program is
  advertised as being designed for al students.
• Standard algorithms are never introduced
  not even for adding, subtracting, multiplying or
  dividing fractions
• Precise definitions are never given.
• Repetitive practice for developing skills,
  such as basic manipulative skills is never given.
  Consequently, in the seventh and eighth grade
  booklets on algebra, there is no development of
  the standard skills needed to solve linear
  equations, no practice with simplifying
  polynomials or quotients of polynomials no
  discussion of things as basic as the standard
  exponent rules.
• An Evaluation of CMP, R James Milgram

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Teacher Concerns With NCTM Math

• Constructivist curricula, such as TERC
  and CMP, forsake algorithms, postulates, and
  theorems (the foundation of mathematics) as well
  as teacher centered learning. Instead, they have
  students working among themselves in groups,
  loosely guided by the teacher in a drawn out
  attempt to "discover" mathematical truths A
  constructivist would argue that kids who memorize
  standard algorithms have no feel for numbers.
  This is a misconception. When taught properly, a
  student is first introduced to place value, then
  the distributive property. With these principles
  established, a teacher would introduce the
  standard algorithm and drill in a constructive
  fashion. Students gain mastery of an algorithm
  that solves all problems of its type. With that
  in place, students dont have to struggle with
  simple calculations.
• We who either teach or are parents of
  District 2 students know of the failures of these
  curricula. We send our kids to math tutors in
  record numbers. Intelligent, hard working kids
  have trouble doing simple math. We who have grown
  up with an understanding of elementary
  mathematics find that we can't help our kids
  that many of the games they play and homework
  they do are so convoluted we either can't figure
  them out or don't see their significance. We're
  forced to sit by and watch our kids' frustration,
  both kids who are having great difficulty and
  kids who are so talented that they're terribly
  bored with their school mathematics. When we
  speak to school officials about our frustration
  we're condescendingly told that we just need to
  understand what they're doing. The truth is that
  many of us do understand what they're doing.
• They're doing irreparable harm to
  thousands of kids.
• Bruce Winokur, District 2 parent and
  Stuyvesant High School Mathematics Instructor,
  NYC

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Teacher Concerns With NCTM Math

• Over and over I've seen that the kids who
  can't calculate are the ones who don't get the
  concepts either. They don't know which operations
  to use they don't know what numbers to punch
  into the calculator. The ones who know enough
  math to calculate the right answer are the ones
  who understand the concepts.
• Some teachers don't like TERC CMP but
  teach them because they have to. Others say they
  like the programs, but after a few enthusiastic
  sentences start mentioning how they need to be
  supplemented. The only people I know who
  completely support these programs are staff
  developers whose professional pride is at stake.
  
• The students I test in middle and high
  school have not acquired the necessary math
  skills for higher level math using programs such
  as TERC. The proof is the number of referrals
  high schools receives for "math disabilities,"
  when the only problem students have is prior
  content poor curricula . Every school
  administrator tells concerned parents "it will
  work out" or it will "all make sense". What Ms.
  McAdoo writes is true, TERC is different from
  how most teachers learned math . . . But that is
  not what makes teachers and parents turn from
  this program rather, it is the lack of content
  and rigor.

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Parents Talk About NCTM Math

• Red flags rise everywhere. Elementary
  students cry because they cant comprehend
  homework problems. New math workbooks omit
  instructional reference materials. Children are
  dependent on parents for instruction. Theres
  too much group work. Kids cant grasp concepts
  through discovery and walk away without the
  intended fundamentals. Math concepts arent
  retained because they arent practiced
  sufficiently to be ingrained. Students receive
  inflated math grades that dont equate to their
  actual knowledge in the areas of study. Its
  common practice in middle school to resubmit
  failing tests for revision credit to bolster
  grades thus creating a dilemma for parents who
  see grades that reflect high achievement, yet the
  skills are absent. Many families supplement with
  tutoring services to assure coverage. Students
  who once thrived in traditional math programs are
  disheartened to forfeit leisure time for
  remediation. Some well-known universities
  acknowledge that high school graduates from
  reform math curriculum are unprepared as compared
  with pupils from traditional programs.
• Our children deserve a choice in their math
  curriculum.
• Claudia Loy, excerpt of letter to the
  editor, Penfield (NY) Post, 3/17/05

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Parents Talk About NCTM Math

• While I totally understand the need to
  apply math facts and how critical that is to the
  advanced math, I do not feel that totally
  abandoning traditional teaching methods is the
  wisest plan. I also do not understand why
  someone seems to think that our countrys
  children will learn better and be able to be
  compared to foreign children and compete at
  higher levels in a program that is nothing like
  how they are being taught. While change can be
  great, thorough and multifaceted research with a
  randomized cross-cultural cohort is the only way
  to know if that method of teaching even has
  promise. I do not see that in the studies that
  have been proudly given to me to read. I have
  read and evaluated their quality and found them
  to be less than adequate. Put simply, as a nurse
  practitioner, which I now am, if I applied a
  treatment to my patients based on these studies,
  I would be risking my license if not someones
  well-being or life.
• Whole Language was a failure. .Why are we
  trying Whole Math? This is lunacy and I am
  ashamed to have my children participating in it.

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Parents Talk About NCTM Math

• I am a physician who was initially a
  mathematics major in college. I just found your
  website today, and wish I have known about it 6
  years ago when my oldest daughter began
  kindergarten in District 2. It was not till late
  in third grade that I realized just how little
  math she was learning, and how behind she was in
  basic skills. According to her teachers
  everything was fine, but then, no testing or
  assessment was done other than the state wide
  tests.
• We recently moved here from Miami and
  enrolled our daughter in the second grade at a
  District 2 school. We're very happy with the
  teacher and the school, except, of course, for
  the level of math instruction. Our daughter
  already is capable of carrying over in both
  addition and subtraction, and she can also do
  simple multiplication and division. Her class is
  nowhere near this level they are still doing
  TERC to compute 2-digit addition. When my
  daughter attempts to do it the normal way, the
  teacher tells her that she cannot. This is not
  only slowing her down, it is actually causing her
  to regress. She is developing an aversion to the
  normal methods.
• The inadequacies of the math program in my
  daughter's middle school came into clear focus
  when I sent her to Kaplan to prepare for the
  Science High School tests. Her instructor was
  sufficiently perplexed to call me up and ask why
  she was unaware of so many of the math concepts
  that were supposed to have been covered in her
  school. It turned out that only the private
  school students were adequately prepared to take
  the entrance examination for a public high
  school. this was shocking.

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Parents Talk About NCTM Math

• My younger son is currently in 4th grade
  at PS --, and last year the school implemented
  the TERC curriculum-- and that alone. What I
  have seen (and I have my older son's old homework
  books to prove it) is that he is WAY behind where
  my older son was at this point in 4th grade. He
  and many of his classmates are bored and
  frustrated by the curriculum.
• My husband and I both work with computers
  (coming from arts backgrounds) and know that the
  fewer steps involved, the fewer chances for
  error. TERC takes just the opposite approach. It
  is not clean, it is not simple or elegant, TERC
  is just plain fuzzyWhile it may be true that 76
  of District 2 students meet state standards, the
  dirty little secret is that our scores are skewed
  because parents are resorting to private
  tutors... I would suggest that you take a close
  look at the teaching methods of new math, best
  illustrated by the diagram in the Post this week.
  Take a really close look, go to some classrooms,
  ask some fifth graders to multiply 36 x 75, or to
  do a math problem involving decimals or
  fractions, but do so as a prospective parent.
  Would you put your children into this math
  program? District 2 children are a year behind in
  instruction compared to most private schools and
  now, in addition, they are saddled with a lack of
  basic math skills. Mr. Levy, many of us are
  stuck. The private schools are full and
  expensive, we made a commitment to public school
  in good faith and now those of us who want out
  cannot get out.
• Susan Erlanger, Excerpt of letter to NYC
  Schools Chancellor Harold Levy

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Parents Talk About NCTM Math

• We feel that our daughter has lost a sense
  for basic math facts and we have seen her
  confidence, as well as basic skills deteriorate
  especially within the last year, as a 5th grade
  student. We spend hours helping her learn but
  find this program cumbersome and difficult for us
  as parents to follow. Though we are college
  educated parents, with a reasonable understanding
  of mathematics we are very concerned with the
  momentum that this system of teaching has gained.
  I have yet to read anyone in academia who
  endorses this program. I have spoken to a number
  of parents who either don't understand what is
  happening to their children or are absolutely
  livid with this system of teaching.
• This concerns two math problems my
  third-grade son brought home yesterday. The two
  problems he couldn't complete baffled me and my
  husband. Not to boast, but he husband holds two
  math degrees (Master's in statistical analysis)
  plus an EE. As an experienced software
  developer, complex problem solving is his forte.
  While a teenager in the Soviet Union, he was
  required to study -- like every other high school
  student there -- science and math subjects I
  didn't see until my junior year at CSUN. I
  myself have a Bachelor's in math, and before
  motherhood worked under contract to the US Navy
  as an analyst (mathematician, really), designing
  complex math models for dynamic simulation. If
  the two of us cannot solve a third-grade math
  problem, just what the heck is going on with this
  "wonderful" math program our school district's
  adopted?!

27
Parents Talk About NCTM Math

• The curriculum approaches the absurd,
  teaching multiple (five!) ways of doing simple
  multi-digit subtraction. It has left my son with
  exposure to five ways, and mastery of none. ..Why
  is the school teaching them to use calculators
  while I am left to teach them long division? As
  someone with a deep appreciation and a strong
  background in mathematics, it pains me to see the
  material taught this way. In the short term I
  will be providing tutoring for my own kids to
  make up for what I feel to be a hole in their
  educations. In the longer term, my wife and I
  are also looking into private schools for this
  reason alone.
• My daughter is in 4th grade and cannot
  multiply, cannot divide, cannot do fractions or
  decimals, barely adds well, and struggles with
  subtraction yet her math grade is 4 out of 5. I
  do not understand nor do I want to understand
  that. Now how was she supposed to understand and
  do this investigative math with out the basic
  skills? I guess that is my job now. I feel sad
  that I pay my taxes and put immense trust in the
  quality teachers that this school district has,
  only to see their hands tied and the tongues tied
  on this issue.

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Parent Math Education Advocacy Groups Respond to
K-12 NCTM Math Programs

• CA 1995 Mathematically Correct
  www.mathematicallycorrect.com
• CA 1995 HOLD Honest Open Logical Debate on Math
  Education Reform www.dehnbase.org/hold
• NY 2005 Penfield Parents Concerned With Penfield
  Math http//teachusmath.com
• CA 1995 Parents for Math Choice
• CA 1996 Parents Who Count
• NY 2000 NYC HOLD Honest Open Logical Decisions on
  Mathematics Education Reform www.nychold.com
• IL Illinois Loop www.illinoisloop.org
• TX Plano Parental Rights Council www.planoprc.org
  
• CA 2000 SMWEEPS
• UT Teach Utah Kids www.teachutahkids.com
• VA Parents for Better Schools www.pbsfx.org/index.
  html
• MA 1997 Concerned Parents of Reading
  http//members.aol.com/rlmandell/CPR/start.html
• MI Parents and Choice www.pace-chippewavalleyschoo
  ls.org
• WI Parents Raising Educational Standards in
  Schools http//my.execpc.com/presswis/
• CA Mountain View Achievement http//rsvh.addr.com/
  mva
• AZ Arizona Parents for Traditional Education
  www.theriver.com/Public/tucson_parents_edu_forum
• RI Rhode Island Parents Advocating Education
  Excellence www.geocities.com/ripaee
• IO Parents for Evidence Based Education
  www.educationallycorrect.com/Issues/math.htm
• MN 2003 Parents for Better Math

29
Parent Groups Respond to K-12 NCTM Math Programs

• MD Gifted and Talented Association
  http//groups.yahoo.com/group/GTAletters
• PA Commonwealth Education Association
  www.ceopa.org
• PA PACurriculum Counts
• CA 2004 Parents for Scotts Valley Schools
  www.scottsvalleyparents.org
• PA Concerned Parents of Central Bucks
• CA 1996 Advocates for Better Education
• TX Connected Math Disconnected Parents
  http//cmpinpisd.freeservers.com
• NH SAU 16 www.sau16.info/Mathscape_page.html
• ME Alliance for Real Math in Maine Schools
  www.thearmms.org
• CA 2005 Save Our Children From Mediocre Math
• NY NYC CSD 9 Parents Opposed to Everyday Math
• MN EdWatch www.EdWatch.org
• FL Broward County Gifted Advisory Committee
  http//gifted.browardeducation.com
• MA Informed Parents of Reading www.iror.org
• UT Kids Do Count http//snow.prohosting.com/mathiq
  /index.html
• KY Education Research From a Parents Point of
  View www.eddatafrominnes.com
• CA Citizen School Watch
• TX Texas Education Consumers Association
• CO Untitled Group Parent Leader Carla Albers

30
Research Base for NCTM Math

• 14 years of NSF EHR funded K-12 mathematics
  research and development
• No conclusive scientific research to support
  any of the NCTM based NSF EHR funded programs
• On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness
  Judging the Quality of K-12 Mathematics
  Evaluations, National Academies' Mathematical
  Sciences Education Board, National Research
  Council (2004)
• Findings Evaluations of mathematics
  curricula provide important information for
  educators, parents, students and curriculum
  developers, but those conducted to date on 19
  curricula (which included all 13 NSF funded K-12
  math programs) fall short of the scientific
  standards necessary to gauge overall
  effectiveness. ( press release National Academy
  Press)

31
The State of State Math Standards

• Key findings of The State of State Math
  Standards, by David Klein, with Bastiaan Brahms,
  William Quirk,Wilfried Schmid and W Stephen
  Wilson, Fordham Foundation, 2005
• Only 3 states are awarded an A California,
  Indiana and Massachusetts
• 29 states are awarded a D or an F
• Washington State receives an F
• Most state math standards are content poor, and
  closely aligned with the NCTM vision.
• Many states do not require memorization of basic
  number facts, sums and products of single digit
  number sand the equivalent subtraction and
  division facts.
• Very few states explicitly require knowledge of
  the standard algorithms of arithmetic for
  addition, subtraction, multiplication and
  division
• Too little attention is paid to the coherent
  development of fractions in the late elementary
  and middle grades.

32
The State of State Assessments

• 2005 State National Assessment of Education
  Progress (NAEP)
• vs State Exams reveals low standards in the
  majority of state assessments.
• Idaho reports 90 of 4th graders proficient on
  state test NAEP 41 proficient
• North Carolina reports 92 of 4th graders are
  proficient
• NAEP 40 proficient
• New York reported 85 of 4th graders are
  proficient
• NAEP 36 4th proficient
• see state-by-state comparisons in 4th and
  8th grade for math and reading in Achieve Quick
  Facts NAEP vs State Proficiency 2005

33
A Nation Still At Risk

• Since 1989 a national mathematics education
  reform movement led by the NCTM and education
  theorists in our Schools of Education has swept
  our nations schools. The results
• National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)
• 2005 US 4th grade 36 at or above
  proficient 8th grade 30 at or above proficient
• Washington State 4th grade 42 at or
  above proficient 8th grade 36 at or above
  proficient
• Third International Math and Science Survey
  (TIMSS)
• 2003 No change in the average math and
  science scores of U.S. fourth graders between
  1995 and 2003, while U.S. eighth-graders improved
  their averages in math and science in 2003
  compared to 1995
• US 4th and 8th grade ranks still far from
  the top. 12th and 15th in 4th and 8th grades
  respectively
• Top performing nations Singapore Korea
  Hong Kong Chinese Taipei Japan
• Program for International Student Assessment
  (PISA)
• 2003 24 out of 29 participating nations
  With 10 nonmember participating nations added
  (including a number of developing nations) US
  tied Latvia for 27th place
• Top performing nations Finland and Japan
• American Institutes for Research AIR report
• 2005 New Study Finds US Math Students
  Consistently Behind Their Peers Around the World
  
• Reassessing US International Mathematics
  Performance New Findings from the 2003 TIMSS and
  PISA (AIR)
• 12 nations participated in TIMSS 4th and
  8th grade, and PISA (15 year olds)

34
Whats At Stake

• The National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
  observed in a recent report. "Although many
  people assume that the United States will always
  be a world leader in science and technology, this
  may not continue to be the case inasmuch as great
  minds and ideas exist throughout the world. We
  fear the abruptness with which a lead in science
  and technology can be lost - and the difficulty
  of recovering a lead once lost, if indeed it can
  be regained at all.
• The report "Rising Above the Gathering
  Storm Energizing and Employing America for a
  Brighter Economic Future." Committee on Science,
  Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) a joint
  unit of the National Academy of Sciences,
  National Academy of Engineering, and the
  Institute of Medicine. 2006 A committee of
  leading scientists, corporate executives and
  educators oversaw the drafting of the report.
• To spur American innovation, its
  recommendations include enhanced math and science
  education in grade school and high school.
• The report cites China and India among a
  number of economically promising countries that
  may be poised to usurp America's leadership in
  innovation and job growth.
• "For the first time in generations, the
  nation's children could face poorer prospects
  than their parents and grandparents did," the
  report said. "We owe our current prosperity,
  security and good health to the investments of
  past generations, and we are obliged to renew
  those commitments.