Where’s The Math?

Where’s The Math thanks SBE for their commendable job making the revision process thorough, fair and open. We are very encouraged by their recommendations. The recommendations provide sound guidance to ensure WA students receive a world-class math education that prepares them for college and the international job market. These recommendations give OPSI a golden opportunity to make WA State the exemplar for world-class math. When implemented, WA will be able to say with pride, “Here’s the Math”.

Although SBE and OSPI are working on an ambitious timeline, our children can’t afford to wait several more years before these improvements reach them. It’s beneficial to all if school districts implement them sooner.

Specific improvements that can be implemented now are:

• “Require students to memorize mathematics facts and use standard algorithms fluently” (p. 26). Proficiency in them is necessary for success in higher level math courses.
• “Students need to add, subtract, multiply, and divide whole numbers, fractions, and decimals without a calculator”. (p. 25)
• Clarify grade-level content priorities. Focusing on fewer topics in each grade so they can be learned and mastered in greater depth patterns after top performing countries and will help our students be on par with their international peers.

Julie Wright

Tacoma School Board recently approved the adoption of the new curriculum at the eighth through 12th-grade level.

The district’s new algebra 1, geometry and algebra 2 books, published by Prentice Hall, use a traditional approach. The publisher for the precalculus and calculus books is Houghton Mifflin.

Patrick Paris, the district’s math facilitator for grades six through 12, said the implementation of this new math curriculum has “been brewing for a number of years.” In Tacoma Public Schools, there has been a dual track math system where students could take either traditional math – the Algebra, Geometry and Algebra 2 strand - or the integrated mathematics program (IMP).
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This year according to students’ schedules, Paris said, there is only one high school that maintained the integrity of the IMP program. “We’re going to let the IMP program sunset,” Treleven commented.
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Once the IMP sunsets, there will be one basic math track for students. However, Paris noted students will have options of what classes to take to fill their math requirements including the standard classes, as well as business math and applied math, through the district’s Career and Technical Education program.
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The publisher for the precalculus and calculus books is Houghton Mifflin.

Paris said the math committee outlined a set of guiding principals as to what the district needed prior to looking at any materials. At the algebra, geometry and algebra 2 level, five different publishers submitted materials for the district’s review, according to Paris. He noted Prentice Hall was selected due to the extra materials that will be able to support organizations that do outside tutoring via web sites as well as the technology resources available for teachers.

Read the entire article in Tacoma Weekly

The Washington State Board of Education (SBE) has released the final version of the “Washington Sate Mathematics: Review and Recommendations”. Linda Plattner of Strategic Teaching, a consultant hired by SBE to do the review, wrote this report. The report is intended to guide OSPI in the rewriting of the Washington State Mathematics Standards. The report reviewed the current standards, the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR’s) and the Grade Level Expectations (GLE’s). A team of reviewers compared Washingtons standards with those of several key states (California, Indiana, Massachussetts) and countries (Singapore, Finland) and other standards documents. The standards were graded in nine rubrics.

A summary of findings by rubric:

• Content: Today, Washington expects its students to learn less content than do other states and high-achieving countries.
• Rigor: when similar mathematics content is present at the same grade levels, Washington’s students are expected to do less demanding work with that content.
• Specificity: Washington’s GLEs are a lot less specific than standards in other documents.
• Clarity: The lack of clarity stems partly from GLEs that are written at the general, rather than specific, level. Another cause is Washington’s repeated use of the verb “understand,” which is open to multiple interpretations.
• Depth: numerous topics are missing and many of the topics that are included are underdeveloped.
• Grade to grade coherence: there are serious interruptions in the content, and single topics are sometimes scattered throughout the document
• Measurability: content is often vaguely defined and because verbs are unobservable and therefore not measurable.
• Accessibility: the format makes the standards difficult for most people to understand and easily use.
• Balance: the standards document underemphasizes mathematical content and algorithms.

The Washington standards scored quite low in comparison to the other standards. In the last five rubrics, the Washington standards earned the lowest possible score. The report gives the following summary of recommendations:

Our recommendations, which are organized with the most important at the top of the list, are:

1. Set higher expectations for Washington’s students by fortifying content and increasing rigor.
2. Make clear the importance of all aspects of mathematics: mathematics content, including the standard algorithms; the conceptual understanding of the content; and the application of mathematical processes within the content.
3. Identify those topics that should be taught for extended periods at each grade level and better show how topics develop over grade levels.
4. Increase the clarity, specificity, and measurability of the Grade Level Expectations.
5. Write Essential Academic Learning Requirements that restructure the standards document to clarify grade-level content priorities and that reflect both the conceptual and procedural sides of mathematics.
6. Create a standards document that is easily used by most people.
7. Create small, expert Standards Revision Teams for each grade band and systematically collect feedback on the revised standards.

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Doubts about Washington’s standards have long festered. This year, amid mounting evidence that the math WASL was deeply flawed, the state Board of Education launched an independent review of its foundations: “grade level expectations” and “essential academic learning requirements.”

These GLEs and EALRs, as they are called, were developed over a period of years by the state superintendent of public instruction’s office. Their deficiencies reflect directly on the stewardship of the superintendent, Terry Bergeson.

The first part of that review – done by six master teachers and mathematicians – is now finished. It’s alarming.

The panel compared Washington’s written standards to those of California, Massachusetts, Indiana, Singapore and Finland, all recognized as among the world’s best. The comparison is not flattering.

Stacked up against California and the others, Washington’s overall standards got the lowest score in every category the reviewers considered: depth, grade-to-grade coherence, measurability, accessibility and balance.

Regarding the depth of those standards, for example: “Numerous topics are missing, and many of the topics that are included are underdeveloped.”

Measurability: “The content is often vaguely defined . . .”

Balance: Washington “underemphasizes mathematical content and algorithms.”

Algorithms? That’s a fancy term for reliable problem-solving techniques. Those have been given short shrift in Washington’s math standards, despite being essential for success.

“Algorithms are tools,” the report says, “yet nowhere are students asked to memorize their addition and multiplication facts (also a tool) or use standard algorithms with fluency and efficiency.”

The missing algorithms reflect an educational philosophy – popular until recently – that de-emphasized exercises and memorization in favor of “investigation” and understanding of mathematical concepts.

Continue reading in the Tacoma News-Tribune

To read the SBE report go to www.sbe.wa.gov and click on “Washington State Mathematics Standards Review.”

Most students in the Olympia, North Thurston and Tumwater Class of 2009 appear to have passed one hurdle toward graduation: Reading and writing scores show that at least 83 percent passed one or both of the state-mandated tests in the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.
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Lawmakers delayed until 2013 a requirement that students must pass the 10th-grade math WASL to graduate.
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About 48 percent of the 10th-graders passed the math portion of the test, about the same as last year.

Read article in the Olympian

A new report for the state Board of Education provides useful insight into what school districts ought to teach students. The study highlights areas that critics have worried about: basic math skills, including the ability to solve number problems, at every level. Students need to reach higher levels of math to be ready for college or skilled job opportunities.

The board’s report goes to Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson, whose office faces a huge challenge in translating the ideas into new math standards by January for the 2008 Legislature. But the report gives the commendably collaborative Bergeson a good starting point.

Read more in the Seattle Post Intelligencer

See also State’s math committee gets cues from public

48% of tenth graders passed the math portion of the WASL, a 3% drop from the previous year. Statewide about 58% of fourth graders passed the math WASL, a drop of 1% compared to last year. However, at North Beach Elementary almost 92% passed. Niki Hayes, former principal of North Beach, attributes this spectacular result to the use of Saxon text books. Saxon, a curriculum that can be described as the very opposite of a “reform” curriculum, was more recently also adopted by the Tacoma school district. In contrast to what Ms. Santorno stated in the article below, the inquiry-based (reform) math curricula are the cause of of the math problem, and not a solution.

by Jessica Blanchard

… math continues to be a problem for many. In all but grade 3, fewer than 60 percent of students were meeting the math standard.

Marc Frazer, vice president of the Washington Roundtable, a business group that lobbies for higher education standards, … [said] “We can’t kid ourselves that we’ve done enough. … Vast numbers of students pay for extra math classes immediately after getting a high school diploma so they can begin post-secondary studies. We need to change that.”

[Seattle School] District officials had hoped to see major improvement on that front, especially among middle-school students, who began using a uniform, inquiry-based math curriculum during the past school year.

“But sometimes it takes more than one year,” Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno said. “We really need to strengthen our goals and make sure everybody’s going in the same direction.”

Read more in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Math is used in so many other subjects. It is a key stepping stone for all of the physical sciences. If our students are not strong in math, their weakness will carry over to many other subjects.

Current math curriculum in NSD focuses too much on theory, not enough on classic algorithms and memorization of basic facts. I don’t want all rote memorization, but the current curriculum has too much focus on the variety of ways to get an answer, not on the most efficient way. There needs to be a balance between reform math and classical math.

There is too much emphasis on estimation. Frequently, the process to reach an estimate involves more steps than simply solving the original problem. I believe if students truly master their basic facts, then estimating an answer will become second nature.

My children are not always learning to mastery, despite their high abilities (two are in EAP). The recommendations to the SBE included prioritizing subjects at each grade level; I believe this will help teachers focus on a single topic, enabling more students to reach mastery.

The current curriculum introduces impractical solution methods, including tearing paper into tiny pieces to solve a division problem. While this may be useful in primary grades to initially understand the concept of division, it is not viable in 6th grade, where students were instructed to use this method to determine 10% interest on $40,000.

I highly recommend that NSD hold Math Forums, where parents can openly discuss their concerns with the math curriculum. I agree with the Math Standards Revision Recommendations and would hope that NSD would change their curriculum to align with the updated standards when they are released. The recommendation to include a practicing math professor in the committee is critical to maintain practicality in our math curriculum. We need to prepare our students to be active participants in the working world, where math competency is crucial in health care, technology, engineering, and sciences.

Edie Lie
MIT Bachelor of Science, Caltech Master of Science
Parent at Woodmoor Elementary and Maywood Hills Elementary
Where’s the Math? member

submitted by Lying (Lyng) Wong
NSD School Board Meeting (8/28/07)- Public Comment

On hearing from legislators and school administrators from across the State, the NSD’s current math program using Everyday Math (EM), Connected Math (CMP) and Core Plus will be among the OSPI approved curricula in 2008. In the face of things, this is good news for the District. The District will be spared the enormous expense of changing its program, and it will reinforce perceptions that the District is in proactive compliance of OSPI recommended curricula.

Now, let us contrast this with the standards Recommendations submitted by the State Board of Education (SBE). The first 3 Recommendations focus on content, which include:

• Focus on Standard Math Algorithms
• In depth coverage of priority topic areas
• Continuous & extended coverage of priority topic areas
• Master applying standard algorithms manually before using technology (e.g., calculators)
• In high school, coherently develop geometry beginning with a good introduction to proofs

Page 9 of the Recommendations state, “Without the core content, little else matters.” Unfortunately, all 3 of the curricula adopted by the NSD (EM, CMP & Core Plus) violate the content recommendations from SBE.

• None focus on standard math algorithms, or continuous and in-depth coverage of priority topic areas - e.g., EM does not “believe it is worth students’ time and effort to fully develop highly efficient paper-and-pencil algorithms …. Mastery of the intricacies of such algorithms is a huge endeavor [and] … doomed to failure for many students.”
• All 3 encourage technology use - e.g., EM explicitly states, “It is simply counter-productive to invest many hours of precious class time on such algorithms. The mathematical payoff is not worth the cost, particularly because quotients can be found quickly and accurately with a calculator.” With regards to Core Plus, most of the exercises could not be completed specifically without a TI-83, 84 series graphing calculator. E.g., much time is spent building tables of data (e.g., a column of “x” and a column of “y”) and then having the calculator generate a function that fits the data. No development of the least-squares theory is presented, it is all black-box button pushing.
• Core Plus only briefly introduces geometric proofs.

In light of the Recommendation’s content requirements, the District cannot continue maintaining that it is providing our children with the necessary content for a solid foundation in mathematics. Furthermore, the District needs to replace, or at the very least strongly supplement, its current math program using curricula that satisfies the Recommendations from SBE, such as Hake/Saxon or Singapore math.

In many of my talks I’ve referred to a group as “math ed professionals”. I want to be clear that I don’t include math teachers in this group. “Math ed professionals” are generally not math teachers at all. Some of them have been, but if so, probably only at the elementary level. It doesn’t take a degree in math to become a math ed professional. A degree or two in education or psychology will do. A couple of years teaching second graders and a special assignment to an NSF funded project are even better. An ambitious person with such credentials can rise to a position of authority on mathematics curriculum irrespective of their personal mathematical skills.

In the last few years I have met many math teachers with integrity and dedication in this district and others. Good teachers are a key to educational excellence.

An experienced high school math teacher can teach calculus, and is keenly aware of what a student must know before they can succeed at that level, starting at the earliest grades. These people are professionals and should have a key role in making decisions that affect their work.

This district has such teachers, but their numbers are dwindling because they are being worn down by their math-ed oriented management. They are told that their ways are outdated and wrong and that they should shut up and do as they are told. Integrity and dedication give way to disgust, embarrassment, and resignation. They are replaced by fresh ed-school grads, steeped in constructivism but with little expertise in math.

I’ve been told privately by Northshore math teachers that they were deprived of any say in the adoption of Core-Plus and its ilk, and they are under a gag order not to publicly voice criticism on curricula. Other teachers I’d encountered at various open houses and parent nights have said volumes with their body language when I asked them pointed questions about Core. Their bitterness at having had it shoved down their throats is clear.

I could not work under such conditions. Like your teachers, I too have trained long and hard to be good at what I do. The difference is that in my position as an engineer, the judgment that I’ve gained through experience is valued by my employers, rather than discounted or despised.

I speak for your teachers today, because they can’t. You may think of me as a crank, but I can’t be charged with insubordination as a consequence of speaking my mind.

Educational excellence cannot be achieved without excellent teachers, empowered to do what they do best. Your experienced teachers are an invaluable resource that your administrators are squandering. They parade carefully prepared presentations before you, designed to show that reform math is working, while suppressing the voices of those that know otherwise. So long as ideology is allowed to trump experience, the strength of your math staff will continue to deteriorate, and our children will suffer for it.