Title: Community%20Math%20Forum%20Bellevue%20High%20School%20Bellevue,%20Washington%20Tuesday,%20April%2025%202006
1Community Math ForumBellevue High
SchoolBellevue, WashingtonTuesday, April 25
2006
- Co-Sponsored by
- Wheres the Math?
- and
- Washington State PTA
2Presentation 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
-
3A 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.
41989 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
5GOALS 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
6National 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)
7National 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.
8National 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
9National 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.
10National 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
11National 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
12National 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.
13National 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 )
14National 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
15National 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
16National 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) -
-
17Mathematics 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.
18Investigations 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
19Connected 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
20Teacher 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 -
21Teacher 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.
22Parents 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
23Parents 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. -
24Parents 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.
25Parents 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
26Parents 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?!
27Parents 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.
28Parent 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
29Parent 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
30Research 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) -
31The 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.
32The 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
33A 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)
34Whats 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.