Parent Pundit

Everyday Math Exposed: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Reverses Course

My daughter, as most of you know reading this blog, had HUGE problems with Everyday Math, which is an "investigative" math curriculum that doesn't teach traditional algorithms.

Well, she is now in 8th grade, and guess what her math homework is for the first week of school? How to do:

• Long Division
• Short Division
• Traditional Multiplication
• Traditional Multiplication with fractions

Why? Because most students only know the lattice method (an unwieldy method that takes up lots of paper and leaves room for numerous mathematical errors) and can only do division with calculators.

Because I used the online program Aleks to help her catch up in the 6th grade, she was far ahead of most others in her class and tested into high math for 7th grade. (She is actually in "high middle" math this year due to a death in the family, my not having her do Aleks outside of class last year(she needs the traditional methods in order to excel, and her school system doesn't use them still), and more that I don't want to go into. Only one other student in her "high middle" math class also knew the traditional manner to complete equations, and, guess what, he also got bumped from high math. (My guess is that he learns like my daughter and his parents didn't make him do his Aleks either.)

There is a teacher in her school who was a civil engineer in a former life, and she alerted the 8th grade teacher that these skills needed to be taught. (It was the people who actually worked with math who were the most vocal about "fuzzy math" curricula in the first place. The  folks in the "teacher colleges" were the ones who advocated the fuzzy math, not the mathematicians.)

Kids in high math and who excel in math, if I had to place a bet, are being tutored outside of school at a rate that is unprecedented. Of course, no school district would have the guts to do a survey to find this out.

We have a lost generation of math students and tests are now showing that and the establishment is reacting.

According to the September 12 edition of the Wall Street Journal:

The nation's math teachers, on the front lines of a 17-year curriculum war, are getting some new marching orders: Make sure students learn the basics.

In a report to be released today, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which represents 100,000 educators from prekindergarten through college, will give ammunition to traditionalists who believe schools should focus heavily and early on teaching such fundamentals as multiplication tables and long division....

The report wants kids to learn long division in 5th grade and multiplication with decimals and fractions in 6th grade. Our school children are getting those things in 8th grade. Better late than never. Folks, PLEASE remember, we would have never found out about these fundamental problems without TESTS!

Infuriated parents dubbed it "fuzzy math" and launched a countermovement. The council says its earlier views had been widely misunderstood and were never intended to excuse students from learning multiplication tables and other fundamentals.

My kids never learned their multiplication tables from school. They learned them at home, once I realized, because of the state test, that there was a problem.

Furthermore, this revelation that has happened in the 7th and 8th grade may not have trickled down into the earlier grades yet. My son is told that he MUST use the lattice method for multiplication. The lattice method is USELESS except as a mental exercise. As a parent, this situation forces me to say that the school isn't always correct in what and how they teach. I really don't like to do that so early in their educational careers, but I must.

While the article talks about a Terc math program based out of MA called Investigations in Number, Data and Space, Everyday Math is also a "fuzzy math" program used in lots of other MA communities, especially the affluent communities. These affluent communities can pay for tutoring. However, a lot of the "at risk" kids have been saddled with this fuzzy math with little or no at home help from parents. The article points to one town in MA with a lot of at risk kids that does use the traditional math curriculum, Singapore Math, and the results are spectacular. Revere didn't focus on what ed schools said was best; they focused on what worked for their population. I applaud them for going against the education "groupthink" and putting the needs of the kids first.

Additional posts here:

• If your school has Everyday Math (first post on math)
• More on How to Help Kids with Math: Math Tutoring (second post)
• More on Math... Math Sense: Stage 3 Help (third post)
• More Parents Find Out About EveryDay Math (fourth post)

Now, I want to make a few things clear. First, tests should be used to improve things and not bash things -- but to improve things you need to go back to the kids who don't have the basic skills needed and do some remediation. Second, of course curriculum should have open ended questions, but these should be after they learn the basics. You shouldn't expect kids to come up with "how to multiply" on their own.

Oh, and the same thing is happening with grammar in the schools. They don't teach it. Furthermore, they teach spelling in the most helter skelter manner when there are programs like this around, Word Web Vocabulary, that is based on learning the roots of words, the "rules" that can then be extended, kind of like phonics versus sight reading, or traditional math versus "fuzzy math."

Middle School Grammar Help Needed!

I have concluded that the schools don't even attempt to teach grammar anymore so that it will be mastered for the long term. They describe grammar, they give out worksheets ABOUT grammar, but they don't give ANY worksheets so the students can actually practice grammar. In other words, let's figure out how to do grammar in a conceptual manner and, voila, every kid will be able to create sentences in the "correct" manner.

HELP!

I found www.aleks.com to fix the problems with math, but I'm looking for a program like this to help with grammar. I could get out my old Katharine Gibbs Handbook of Business English, but it doesn't come with any worksheets. Furthermore, the hierarchical model of aleks combined with the ability to have instant feedback just works! And if you get the concept by getting it correct five times, Aleks moves you onto the next concept so no one is doing mindless rote because it moves as quickly as the individual moves.

Anyone have any ideas?

More Parents Find Out About Everyday Math

Great article about Everyday Math.

Stanford math Professor R. James Milgram although less critical, said the district is "taking a huge risk" with EM. Among whole math programs, EM is the best, he said, but teaching the program correctly would demand someone who’s majored in math at a top university.

"It just doesn’t work for typical teachers," he said.

According to Milgram, the root of the problem is that universities, which produce the nations’ teachers, generally are disconnected from professional mathematicians and scientists.

"They don’t listen to us because we’re not the ones they’re educated by," he said.

But the U.S. government is listening, because the stakes in this math war are high. The nation’s economic future hangs in the balance: the U.S. is producing less of the world’s technology and innovative products when compared to other developed countries, Milgram said. He’s part of a newly formed national board that advises Congress on such matters and supervises the Institute of Education Sciences, which provides information to the Department of Education on the effectiveness of programs and practices that improve academic achievement.

"There’s concern in Washington that we’re just not matching up," said Milgram.

As for the department calling EM "promising," Milgram said that label was withdrawn a couple of years ago.

"District after district, the outcome is abysmal," he said of math programs such as EM.

Recently, Cobasko sent Milgram a video of EM being taught in a CVUSD classroom. "From looking at the video," Milgram said, "the teachers in your district are not qualified to teach EM."

Please read the whole thing!

Here are a series of posts on math:

If your school has Everyday Math (first post on math)

More on How to Help Kids with Math: Math Tutoring (second post)

More on Math... Math Sense: Stage 3 Help (third post)

this is the fourth post

Everyday Math Exposed: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Reverses Course (fifth post)

Carnival of Education is Now Up!

This week's Carnival of Education is now up... and I'm only halfway through it so far.

One article that really made me go "oh" was written by a veteran teacher and is entitled Who are They? He asks who are the people who grade the state writing tests? The example from his class of inadequate grading certainly floored me, and it is just another example of the poor writing evaluations that we hear about in the New SAT.

Over at The Super's Blog, I actually found a very interesting post that wasn't highlighted on the Carnival: Are Video Games Making American Smarter. I know my son would like to think so!

Take a look....

Kids are Doomed....

I'm just speechless... This is unbelievable. Someone has to demand accountablility at the schools, including ed schools. I hope this starts a blogstorm as big as Rathergate. (hat tip, Instapundit)

Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the wrong dispositions.

And the article gives ample evidence that this is actually what is happening.

More on Everyday Math and How to Get Help

Wow, I just came across a great resource for math help. It is called Kitchen Table Math and was started by two moms concerned about their childrens' math achievement because of the town's adoption of the Everyday Math curriculum. They have taken to using the Saxon Math curriculum at home -- a far greater personal commitment than what I am currently making with my daughter by using Aleks. Please check it out.

BTW, I'll be writing more about this, but my daughter made it into the "accelerated" math class for next year based on three things: her test score, her grades, and her teacher's recommendation. What a difference working with a traditional curriculum makes! Of course, her success will be attributed to the Everyday Math curriculum. But helping my daughter is much more important than "proving" a curriculum is broken for a lot of kids.

For background, read this If Your School Has Everyday Math -- especially if you don't have the time to devote to the problem or the knowledge of math that the Kitchen Table moms do.

However, I plan to read Kitchen Table Math every day -- and also get my hands on those drill work sheets, including the fraction worksheets and the fraction square manipulatives that they talk about.

Choosing a Foreign Language for our Child

Last month I received a letter home asking me to fill out a form to "choose" my child's language for the 7th grade. The options were French, Spanish, and Latin. The form also said that my child might not get his or her first choice.

I was appalled.

Why is the school even teaching French at this point? Shouldn't schools be leaders in education? Shouldn't they help point the way towards the skills that the child will need when they finally graduate? Unless you have close relatives that are French, plan to emigrate to Quebec, or have the money to bask on the Riviera every year, there is no reason to learn French in the US. With government spending at 54% of GDP and a growth rate of 1.4% (the US rate is 3.5%, beating estimates of 3.3%) France isn't going to be creating lots of jobs in the foreseeable future -- especially for Americans. English is the universal diplomatic and business language now and not French.

For a true long-term earnings bump, Chinese is the language to learn (projected 9.1% growth in GDP). Or how about Russian? Russia (7.1% 2004 GDP growth) has a better chance for long-term development than France, and we happen to have more native Russian speakers in my town (hundreds) than French speakers (one that I know of).

Spanish, of course, has plenty of relevance in the US. And unless you want to be a scientist and take Latin, it is the only legitimate option for kids out of the three languages offered.

The Charter School in my town only offers French, with no signs of changing, so I didn't even consider them for my oldest child. Any school system that still teaches French is doing it for the short-term benefit of the currently employed teachers and the ease of administration. It is not for the long-term benefit of the children.

Most children have one shot at a language -- let's give them one that they can use.

Here is the letter that I wrote in extreme haste (slightly edited) to the school. I'll let you know whether or not my child gets Spanish next year.

To Whom It May Concern:

If my daughter does not get Spanish, please give her a study hall so she can do her homework in school and I can homeschool her in Spanish. I specifically chose this public school for my daughter because of the strong music program and the fact that it offered Spanish and the Charter school only offers French. French is not an option for my daughter for numerous reasons.

I took the French program through this town's schools. I even took a year in college. I could read Moliere in French. It does me absolutely no good in my working environment or my personal environment.

1.        I do work for a CANADIAN company, and it is more important for me to know Spanish because South America and Mexico are developing at a much faster clip than their own province of Quebec. I deal with people from Mexico and it would enhance my position if I knew the language.

2.        I have many young adults in my church whose parents only speak Spanish. I feel like an idiot not knowing the language so I can communicate with them about their children.

3.        France’s economy is on a steep decline. The international business language is English. Large French conglomerates speak English and the smaller companies won’t be hiring Americans anytime soon.

4.        The support for Spanish is overwhelming. I remember having to go into Boston to a special language store and buying outrageously priced books to supplement my French. With Spanish, you can turn the television set to multiple channels to hear native speakers, go to Target to buy Spanish rock CDs, or talk to friends at church. There are few, if any, French resources available in the home that could counter the sheer multitude of resources.

I feel that kids in the US have one shot at learning a language. I want my daughter to learn Spanish and not waste time on French. And the argument that any language is better than no language doesn’t fly with me. I gave the High School graduation speech on the advantages of a liberal arts education. Spending hours and hours on a language that you will never use at the expense of learning a language that you probably will use and will most likely enhance your earning power and social experiences is a travesty. I also have done occupational analysis. Spanish is useful. French is not.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. 

Update: Love the comments on this post! Please read them for some wide-ranging views, including some insults, but I guess that comes with the territory. There are a couple of points that people seem to be missing; outside support for learning Spanish is overwhelming, including compute games, TV shows, music. Furthermore, if you are going to learn a language that doesn't have much outside support such as French, why not learn Russian or Chinese and get two for one; the advantage of learning another language and potential resume building over the long term?

Another Update: According to Mark Steyn, we should be learning Hindi. Read his column on China for more.

The "New" SAT

My kids aren't there yet, but I agree with these comments about the new SAT: You cannot score the writing component fairly.

Furthermore, I'm sure the observations in this passage will turn out to be true:

First, if a disappointed student has a plaintiffs' lawyer for the parent, the College Board has serious problems.  Not only are there breach of contract issues and Section 1983 claims arising from the close connection between state governments and the College Board (the "new SAT" is believed by many to be the result of political pressure from the University of California's push to find ways to get around the state's ban on the use of race and gender in admissions), but the idea of a "guinea pig" cohort of students is very off-putting.

Second, look for the testing equivalent of a "flight to quality" --increased enrollment for the ACT, which hasn't overhauled its test and which will provide a useful comparison for students, beleaguered admissions officers, and of course, tort lawyers looking at the College Board's deep pockets.

In my town, kids have always taken the SAT. With the new testing, I'm sure many more will be switching to the ACT.

I feel for those kids and parents who are going through this now. Does anyone else have any first-hand observations or insights?

Do Your Kids Use the Internet? Parents be Warned.

If you have teenage children who regularly use the computer to connect to the Internet, you should read this post. If you know of other parents who don't know much about computers, please send them the link.

I have been online before the Internet was popular. There is very little that my kids can get past me in regards to the computer, but even I was caught unawares.

I, like a lot of other parents, regularly look over the kid's shoulder when they are online to see what is going on. I check their "buddy lists" in AOL instant messenger (AIM) to make sure that I know all of the kids on it.  I read some of the messages that they get and they send. I tell you, "IMspeak" or chat abbreviations, the practice of using abbreviations rather than full words has really matured since I was a regular user. This has developed because most kids are not great typists, but more on that in another post.

Some examples of chat abbreviations:

• POS = parent over shoulder
• LOL = laughing out loud (this is old)
• BBL = be back later (old)
• SUP = what's up
• :) = smile (turn the image on its side -- old)
• ;) = wink (again, turn the image on its side -- old)

Well, the stuff that my daughter says in her messages that I have seen is benign, but I found a couple of instances of "vulgar" words in my daughter's Instant Messenger profile, and I immediately took action. (A profile is a description that users can click on to learn more about that person. If you click on someone in their "buddy list" and then click on the "info" button below, you should be able to see the profile.)

First, I asked her about how this got there. I then told her that what was in her profile was not private, it is very public. She told me that kids say "way worse" in school, and that she doesn't do that in school. I tried to explain the difference between a spoken conversation (gone immediately and only able to be heard by the people present) and a profile, a mechanism that declares who you are even when you aren't present.  I told her that,

"this profile gives a picture of you for all the world to see, including other parents, including the parents of the boy that you have a crush on. Everything you write should be able to be spoken out loud in your classroom in front of your teachers and your peers without embarrassment."

I then proceeded to look at all of her friends' profiles to demonstrate this fact.

Next step was to have her go over her profile and tell me what was inappropriate. She could very easily do that and she quickly edited the content. We have two computers in the house, so she had to edit the content on both computers because the profile actually resides on each computer. So if you happen to look at your child's profile and he or she changes it, it must be changed on all the computers that your child uses.

Through other programs, kids can easily make links in their profile to additional content on websites that they might be using like xanga or livejournal. One of her friends had two personal blog sites with jaw dropping content, including a picture and the name of her school. THIS IS DANGEROUS! These kids feel so safe typing away in  their home that they aren't practicing elementary online safety rules, and the parents don't know enough to check it out.

One of her close friends, a girl who frequently comes over and whose parents are not technically savvy, also had a few vulgar words. I called the girl up and told her what I had seen as well. She changed it.

Now, how do you find out what is in your child's profile? Next time they are on the computer, ask them to see it. If they say it is private, tell them that it isn't, anyone can see it. This is their first mistake -- thinking that it is private. Ask them if they use xanga, livejournal or another personal journal or blog site. Ask to see it. Again, if they say it is private, explain that this isn't a private diary locked in a room, this is available for the world to see, including other parents.

If you want to double check, simply use the "history" function in your browser. If you use Internet Explorer, then it is the little sundial icon. The sites that have been visited on the computer should then be visible. Click a couple of the links. Or, you could go to Google and type in site:www.xanga.com  and then a list of search words:

site:www.xanga.com  (your town)

site:www.livejournal.com (your town)

Then, depending on how unique your town's name is, you can add other things like first name, interests, etc. to narrow the list.

Now, in xanga, it may be difficult to see the actual sites. Livejournal is easier. When you get a result in Livejournal based on the town input, you should go to a url that has a lot of random information about that user, but it doesn't have the actual postings of that user. To see the postings, you have to change the url in the address box.

The url convention is http://www.livejournal.com/users/PersonsUserName (don't click this.) This just means if you do a search on your hometown and the first name and something comes up in livejournal and you want to see the posts and not just the user information, then you just change the url in the address bar from

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=PersonsUserName&mode=full to the following url: http://www.livejournal.com/users/PersonsUserName

(you take out userinfo.bml?, change user to users, take out the = sign, make users plural, put in a slash, and take out &mode=full) and you will get the page with the posts. The PersonsUserName is whatever comes up in the address that you click. This will change depending on whose livejournal you are seeing on the screen.

If something is deleted, then you can go back to the Google search page and click the "cached" link next to the entry. This cached link shows that the content is still on Google's computers so you can access it, even though it might technically be deleted at the original location.

Anyhow, even if you just take a look at some of the personal journals, I think it will open up your eyes. It did mine.

If you find out something new because of this post, please let me know. If you found something disturbing, I'd love to know how you handled it.

My daughter asked me why I was always prying into her life now... I told her that she would make mistakes, but my job as a parent was to teach her to weigh the short and long term; teenagers often only focus on the short term.

Testing...

I want to do a longer post on this, but there is a great piece on this testing and assessment from a school administrator.

Bottom line, testing is extremely useful if used effectively. And here is a reminder that testing can be used to spot problems in implementing curriculum at the school level and problems in learning for an individual student so it can be rectified.