Where’s The Math?

Texas Challenges City on Math Curriculum

The state of Texas has dropped a math curriculum that is mandated for use in New York City schools, saying it was leaving public school graduates unprepared for college.

The curriculum, called Everyday Mathematics, became the standard for elementary students in New York City when Mayor Bloomberg took control of the public schools in 2003.

Read more in The New York Sun

At first glance, it is hard to ignore the fact that the decline of math scores from the mid-60’s into the early 70’s is remarkably coincident with the introduction of the New Math into curricula and schools, (early 60’s to early 70’s).The New Math brought an overly formal approach to math in the lower grades which included aspects of set theory.While the high school texts that emerged from that era were definitely better than what had come before, the lower grades suffered and math computation and procedural skills declined.

The continued decline in the 70’s is remarkably coincident with the follow-up to New Math after its demise: books containing drills, basic skills and procedures in a thrown together hodge-podge of exercises that frequently lacked the central theory and motivation that the books in the 40’s and 50’s embodied.

The climb of math test scores in the 80’s is remarkably coincident with the publication of “A Nation at Risk”, the bad news report on the nation’s schools by the National Commission on Excellence in Education and the “Back to Basics” movement that came about shortly thereafter, in which textbooks now started showing more attention to problem solving.Finally, the drop in computational skills starting in the 90’s and into the 2000’s is remarkably coincident with the release of NCTM’s standards in 1989.

Read the entire article in Education News

I would therefore add to the list of possible factors influencing the upward trends in achievement scores from the 40’s through the mid-60’s the textbooks in use, and the implementation of the theories behind them.This is not to say that the traditional math of such time was perfect.If I had to compare the “Arithmetic We Need” texts that I used with Saxon Math, or the math program used in Singapore, I would say the latter two are superior with much more challenging word problems.I can say, however, that the essentials of math were covered well, which would include place value, why a particular algorithm worked, thorough application of fractions and multiplication and division of fractions (similar to Singapore’s approach) and application of procedures to solving word problems.

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See Math, other issues may add up to new Eastside school board members in today’s Seattle Times

…
Math curriculum topped candidate races in the Bellevue and Lake Washington districts, where all the challengers are members of “Where’s the Math?” — a statewide group advocating that districts move away from so-called “new math” curriculum to use more computation-based or traditional math.

In Bellevue, returns showed longtime Bellevue resident Michael Murphy had a slight lead on incumbent Jan Still for the Director District 4 seat.

“It’s still too early to tell, but my suspicion is that there are upset parents in the district … and when people get upset they vote for change,” Murphy said.

…

For Lake Washington’s Director District 2 position, parent Chris Carlson was winning against Matt Gregory, who was appointed to the seat in June.

“If there is anything responsible for a winning margin, it would be math,” Carlson said. “Math is the thing that is responsible for getting people to vote in this election.”

Anyone who has been involved in the debates surrounding math education (and there are more than a few such people) have come across the arguments that “Traditional math doesn’t work” or “The old way of teaching math was a mass failure”. These are generally heard early and often at school board meetings or other forums at which math textbooks and programs representing a math reform philosophy are being debated. ….

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