Where’s The Math?

The group calling itself “Where’s the Math?” is pushing to return to more traditional methods of math. It is leading to ‘math wars’.

Group members rallied on the state Capitol steps Monday because large numbers of students are failing the math portion of the WASL test.

Those at the rally don’t want to “dumb down” the test, they just want to make the kids smarter.

The grass roots effort points to the math overhaul started 18 years ago when the traditional methods were replaced with methods that have the students do more creative thinking to solve math problems.
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“It is time for this cruel and unethical experiment to end,” says Dr. Dan Wu of the University of Washington.

Watch at KOMO TV

Hi. My name is Marta Gray and I teach pre-algebra. I am here today to talk about the future of math education in Washington State. As you are all aware, we have a problem. We’ve spent billions of dollars over the past decade on reform math and yet half our students are failing the WASL, a very basic math test. After years of teacher training sessions, coaching, and supports to make reform math a success, we are still seeing dismal results. There’s an old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different outcome. In my mind it is insane to spend another decade and billions more on reform math and expect that things will work out differently this time.

It’s time for change. We must look at what is being done right in top performing countries and follow suit. Why reinvent the wheel? If you want to succeed at something it’s wise to learn from those who have already made it. If you want to learn how to golf you read Tiger Woods, and if you want to learn to invest you read Warren Buffett. I don’t know about you, but when I want advice, I go to a specialist. It’s insane to seek medical advice about brain surgery from your general physician. Wouldn’t any rational person see a top neurosurgeon, the one with the best track record in performing such surgery?

The problems that we are facing in math and science can’t be solved by general educators. We need specialists such as mathematicians from industry and scientists from universities who use these disciplines on a daily basis. They know what students will need to succeed in their world. Washington should seek these experts for oversight on any course of action taken to improve math and science education. These specialists are capable of evaluating what top performing countries are doing right and aligning our curriculum, assessments, and training accordingly. This seems a lot less expensive and much more reasonable than spending billions more on reform math and hoping things will work out better this time around.

I’ve spent 17 years on the front lines working with kids, and the past several years researching math programs from all over the world. I can tell you this. I will NOT use reform math with my own two children. I want the best for them and will NOT settle for the substandard programs being used currently in Washington State. Every day I walk into a classroom and see bright, capable students who have been cheated by the reforms of the past decade. The vast majority of them come to me computationally illiterate. Every day I deal with 8th graders who do not know the difference between even and odd, add on their fingers, are shocked to find out that 8/2 means you should divide. Well over half of the kids I work with do not know how to multiply without a calculator, even when it comes to simple problems like 8 x 9. From my vantage point things are getting worse each year, not better.

I am just a middle school teacher and honestly, I’d much rather be in a classroom working with kids. I don’t want to be speaking in Olympia. I don’t want to be involved in politics. I am just a teacher who took a lot of college math, because I like math. The reason I am here is because I feel a tremendous responsibility to advocate on my students’ behalf. You see, I have spent my entire career working with kids in poverty. Their parents can’t afford tutors or provide the support that I can for my own children. I feel compelled to tell you how the future looks for them.

I have personally taken the college calculus courses that will weed many of them out of high paying fields, because they simply don’t have the skills to succeed in these courses. I just can’t face my kids another day without speaking up and telling the truth. Just because my students are poor, doesn’t mean that they aren’t smart; that they can’t learn real math.

I hear a lot of excuses. We don’t have an education culture in the US…………. Girls and minorities need a different style of math…………… Our kids have math phobias and can’t do real math……………. You know what? I don’t believe that for one minute! We have great kids! They are full of heart and want a better life just like the rest of us. They are just as smart and capable as the kids in top performing countries. They can’t wait another decade. They need real math now.

In closing today, I am feeling very hopeful that we will change course and do what is right for our children. I am hopeful because I know kids who face poverty, homelessness, abuse, and every societal ill imaginable, yet they show up at school each day and keep trying. I see their character up close. They are tough, passionate, creative……….. and many of them are just what this country needs. They are the real survivors and the real problem solvers.

My kids can’t afford ski trips and soccer tournaments, so they spend their time hanging out in some run down, old garage - building things. They are the kids you see flying down a hill, on some ridiculous contraption without brakes, just to see what will happen………………

With a real math background, I believe they will surprise us all.

In medicine when you give patients unproven therapy and collect study information without consent, you are conducting unauthorized and unethical human experimentation. After more than 10 years of reformed mathematics education in this state without a single shred of evidence to suggest that it works and virtually no public support, investing more money and more time would be worse than human experimentation. It would risk the future of another generation of Washington students and place the economic future of this state at risk. It is time for this cruel and unethical experiment to end.

As a parent, I see my own children placed in classrooms to discover math principles rather being taught. After highly inefficient and ineffective exercises, they are often left confused about what they just learned. My children are lucky. They are supplemented outside of school with Kumon and Singapore math. But many of their peers from families who do not know the issues or can’t afford to supplement are at risk. By all measurements, the statewide gap between the at risk groups (such as children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or are English language learners) and non-at-risk groups remain a mile wide. Every single nationally and internally standardized test (SAT, IBTS, NAEP, TIMSS) tells a different story about the state of math in Washington than what our educators would like for us to believe.

As a university educator, my colleague and I see firsthand the declining fundamental math ability of our undergraduate students. Undergraduate students of today have difficulties with complex numbers, algebraic and geometric concepts. The increasingly globalized economy demands rigorous math backgrounds. Unfortunately many of our university students won’t be competitive in computer science, engineering, biotechnology, or even in business. The COMPASS scores tell us that more than ½ of our high school graduates needs math remediation at a city college or a vocational school. The APTP scores tell us that more than 30% of our brightest entering university will need remedial algebra.

It is time for this experiment of our children to end and bring back solid mathematics content into our curricula. Reformed curricula need to go along with the WASL math testing that has enabled this experiment to exist for far too long. We have already spent hundreds of millions on a failed testing system. Re-establishing a nationally-normed assessment would both save money and allow us to compare ours with the progress of other states.

My name is Polle Zellweger, and I have two children in public school in Bellevue.

My husband Jock Mackinlay and I have undergraduate degrees in math and advanced degrees in computer science, and we work in the computer science field. We have been shocked and dismayed by the math education that our children have experienced since our arrival in Washington two years ago. The contrast from our previous school district in California is compelling us to tutor our 7th and 10th graders each night at home, in addition to their school math classes. You can imagine how popular this makes us.

Although the Seattle area is widely known to have one of the most academically and technologically advanced populations in the country, statewide educational policies in place for the past ten years are crippling the math abilities of children in this state and robbing them of the opportunity to be scientists, engineers, and more.

Here’s a personal example. Last year my daughter was in 9th grade at Bellevue High School. She got an A+ in Honors Integrated Algebra 2 and Geometry. Over the summer, I administered the California 8th grade math practice test to her (California posts practice tests on the web that are aligned with their state standards). Even though this test was a year behind her and she was at the top of her math classes in 8th and 9th grades, she was only able to complete about half of the test. The rest was unfamiliar to her: she didn’t know the terminology and she couldn’t do the computations, because her classes here had not taught her. But her friends from two years ago in Palo Alto were all able to pass this test easily. She was pretty angry about it. She said it wasn’t fair that her school was compromising her chances for college and a good career in this way!

Therefore, like other parents and teachers in the Where’s The Math group, I am calling for significant change in math instruction in Washington state. We want ALL students to learn strong basics (starting with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to mastery) AND develop conceptual mathematical understanding.

Many of us are mathematicians, engineers, or others who use math in their careers, and we believe that mastery of the basics promotes and enhances conceptual understanding — and that the reformers’ belief that they can teach high-level math concepts without the content and practice inherent in mastery is misguided. As American Teacher of the Year Rafe Esquith says, “There are no shortcuts.” Let’s get rid of smoke and mirrors and teach real math!

(Introduction)
I’ve been asked to come here today to outline the math education problem in this state. I’m enthusiastic about the opportunity to do this because as a math teacher, my job is outlining problems and helping people solve them.

(Outlining the Problem)
Many of you here already know the problem and in fact that is why you are here today. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people around this state who don’t understand the problem……. so I’m going lay it out as clearly as I can.

The Problem is this: Real mathematics is missing from school classrooms all over this state and our children are falling behind the rest of the world because of it.

This is an intolerable situation because we now live in a global economy that runs on information and high technology……The knowledge of mathematics and science is absolutely essential if our kids are going to compete in this global economy……and they are not getting that knowledge!

(Questions)
How do we know they are not getting it?

We know because last April when the 10th graders all across this state took the WASL math test, almost 50% of them failed. They failed this test, even though, the mathematics on this test is at such a low level that it is embarrassing. The computational skills on this test don’t exceed the 6th grade level…… and there is barely any high school Algebra and Geometry on the test.

How do we know they are not getting it?
We know because students are showing up at college unprepared to do college level mathematics…….College math remediation rates have never been higher……. Colleges and Universities all over this state (and the nation) are complaining that the math skills of their entering students have never been lower.

How do we know they are not getting it?
We know it because when you look at the math homework that students bring home all over this state, you come away with one inescapable question … … … Where’s the Math?

Why is the math missing and who is to Blame?
The math is missing because reform math has swept across this state and turned math education on its head….Real math has been replaced with Reform math.

Why has this happened?
This has happened because reform math has become a national phenomenon ……. but in this state it has happened because reform math has been promoted and supported by OSPI.

(State Standards)
The problem starts with the state math standards, or the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR’s) developed under the leadership of OSPI……As many experts have stated, these math standards are some of the worst in the nation…..they have been given an “F” by the Fordham Foundation 3 Times…….but….You don’t need an expert to tell you that….All you have to do is try to read them……You will find them vague, confusing, incoherent…..and the question you will come away with is……. Where’s the math?

(The Problem))
The reason the WASL is such a bad math test is because the purpose of the WASL is to assess how well students are learning these vague and incoherent state standards …….. poorly written standards lead to a poorly written state test……we have some of the worst state standards in the nation and that is why the WASL is one of the worst state tests in the nation.

What makes things even worse…… is that in order to prepare students to take this poorly written test, school districts around the state have adopted experimental NSF math curriculum……….Since this test only requires low level skills……it has enabled the adoption of reform math curriculum that only contains low level skills. These reform curricula have names like, TERC, Trailblazers, Mathland, Everyday Math, Connected Math, Core Plus and IMP ….and they are not giving our kids the skills they need to compete in the 21st Century.

(The Solution)
The solution to this problem is to rewrite the state standards so they require our kids to become computationally fluent at the proper age…….. and prior to the 8th grade….they need to master the basic skills they need to be successful in Algebra. When this is done we will be able to write a state test that actually measures high school mathematics.

The best part of this is……. we don’t need to reinvent the wheel because the work is already done for us…..We have a perfect example to use as a guide….The California state math standards!……these standards are a compilation of the math standards of Singapore, Japan and Poland ……. countries that all finished far ahead of us on the international TIMSS study……so why are the fuzzy math proponents so against the standards of these top performing nations?……. Could it be that they have a different agenda besides making our kids competitive in the international arena?……If you listened to a recent Bellevue propaganda video….You might come to that conclusion….Reformers don’t want to empower our best and brightest students so they can compete on an international level…..They want all students to achieve at the same mediocre level…..That is what Reform math is all about…..and that is why we need to stamp it out….

We are here to do something about this problem
We are here to represent teachers, parents and students from around the state by presenting a petition to our Legislators…..

This petition demands the following

1. Protect the right of students to become computationally fluent in mathematics.
2. Adopt the internationally Competitive California Math Standards
3. Form an Independent Oversight Committee to oversee the adoption of acceptable standards and offer a menu of acceptable curricula that align to those standards.
4. Re-establish a nationally-normed assessment such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills….ITBS
5. Guarantee the academic freedom of math teachers to use the teaching pedagogy for which they are best suited in order to best serve their students…..

Conclusion
It is time that we recognize that the central reason for our states k-12 math failures is ….Reform type Discovery learning…..We don’t need our students to Discover mathematics……It has already been discovered!…..We need our students to learn mathematics……. and we need to teach it to them…..

The Reformers have had more than 10 years to get math education right in this state and they still don’t get it……In the meantime, the rest of us have DISCOVERED something…….we’ve discovered that reform math doesn’t work.

It is time for the legislature and the Governor to step in and put a stop to this boondoggle….

It is time to stop spending millions and millions of dollars on something that was Dead on Arrival….

It is time to pull the plug on this reform experiment and do what is right for our kids…

I’m glad to be here today…..
Thank you very much for being here today too….

Good morning.  Thank you for coming and covering an issue that is vital to our students and to our economy…improving math education.

I especially want thank Sen. Pflug and Rep. Anderson for their commendable efforts to provide legislation for a world-class math program.

I’m Julie Wright, co-founder of “Where’s The Math?” which is a state-wide grassroots organization dedicated to improving WA’s math programs so our children can succeed in the global economy.  I’m also a former elementary teacher and math was my favorite subject, so I’m passionate about making sure it’s taught so students can enjoy and excel in it.

We know the dismal statistics that show our math programs are failing our students.

• Almost 50 % of 10th graders couldn’t pass the math WASL, which was evaluated as a 7/8th grade level exam.
• For minorities, English Language Learners and low-income students the passage rate was much worse, widening the achievement gap.
• 30 – 50% of college freshmen need remedial math.

This is not only closing the doors of future career opportunities for our students, it also jeopardizes our state economy when employers can’t find enough employees with the math skills needed in our technology-dependent society.

Let me show you an example of why our students are failing in math.
(Show letter sent home to parents)
This is a copy of a letter sent home to parents. It shows how children are being taught to compute in many of the schools throughout the state.  More examples are in your folder.  
Adding double-digit numbers with tally marks or counting backwards to find the right answer does not develop the computational fluency needed to succeed in higher-level math. 
These ineffective and inefficient methods our children are being encouraged to use are so cumbersome and error-prone that children get frustrated and discouraged.  It’s handicapping them and hindering their success.
Why not give our students the benefit of what mathematicians have learned over the past 2000 years?

To successfully compete in the flattening world, our students must have a math education that is on par with top performing nations.  But WA’s is a far cry from that. 

(show standards comparison chart)
This chart compares math topics taught in WA, CA and top performing nations.
You can see that WA’s grade-level expectations are all over the place.  That’s why they’re called ‘a mile-wide and an inch deep’—there’s so much to cover each year, that students don’t get the depth of instruction needed to master the objectives.
The top performing nations have very focused and common grade level expectations that allow them to teach objectives in depth and provide the time necessary for students to master the concepts.

Seeing the critical need to improve their math programs, exemplary mathematicians in CA developed new standards based on the top performing nations and optimized them for US students.  These standards are now considered the best in our nation and other states have adopted or are in the process of adopting similar standards.  The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics even developed new Focal Points to align with CA’s green-dot standards, which are the more focused green squares of the top 6 nations. 

(Show CA Frameworks book) Here’s a copy of CA’s Math Framework.
It’s very easy for anyone to read and understand the objectives for each grade level. (show standards page)
It also emphasizes the need for a balanced approach.  It states that mathematics education must provide students with a balanced instructional program.  In such a program students become proficient in basic computational and procedural skills (computational fluency), develop conceptual understanding (understand why and how math works), and become adept at problem solving (use this understanding and proficiency to solve real-world problems).

CA also has a menu of curricula that align with their standards.  School districts receive partial funding as incentive to select textbooks from this menu, but not all districts have adopted these textbooks.  In a published, peer-reviewed study, some districts that used the approved textbooks experienced 30 – 40 % improvements for low-income and English Language Learners, as well as significant improvements for more advantaged students. (A chart and the reference are included in your folders.) CA’s framework also prepares students for Algebra 1 in eighth grade.  This pace is more in line with top performing nations, so our student’s won’t lag behind.

One of the crucial components to developing CA’s top-rated Math Framework was an on-going advisory committee comprised of exemplary mathematicians and classroom teachers.  It is crucial that WA also provides an independent committee to oversee the adoption of world-class standards, recommend a menu of aligning curricula, and ensure the alignment of assessments and professional development.  This will provide transparency and the necessary guidance and oversight as new programs are instituted.

I present all this information about CA’s Math Framework to show that the answers on how to achieve a balanced and internationally competitive math program are not far away.  In fact, most can be found in this book or a just a few mouse clicks away.

Now more than ever, students need a world-class math education to succeed in the global job-market.  On behalf of “Where’s The Math?” I’d like to thank Sen. Pflug, Rep. Anderson, and all the other legislators who are undertaking the monumental task to make this a reality for WA students.   Providing math programs that align with top performing nations will open the doors of opportunity for WA students and will have a profoundly positive impact on our students and our state.