Recall Everyday Math in Long Valley NJ

In this week’s Observer Tribune there is a nice article called Everyday Math furor heats up and there are a few interesting points that I’d like to comment on. All and all I thought it was a very fair and informative article.

First up are comments from Board President Michelle Skurchak. “In the three years that I’ve served, there has not been any prior indication that we have a programmatic problem. I would have expected we would have know about it.” According to the article, but not in quotes, Skurchak said politics plays a role in the expressions of public concern.

Hmmm….Well, there have been problems and I don’t know why the Board doesn’t know about them. Besides the obvious problems with the kids struggling with the first year on Connected Math (the 7th grade has about 100 signatures on their own petition) many parents have told me stories about discussions with teachers and administrators when kids had problems marked wrong because they did it the older way. There are plenty of comments on our petition page but here’s just one example from a parent:

When I initially started questioning and, yes, complaining, about Everyday Math I was given a PROMOTIONAL VIDEO by the math department (distributed, apparently, by the company that sells the program !) and was told it would “answer any questions” I had re the program. No, it did not. Upon further questioning/ complaining I was offered a “parental study class” that would teach ME the program so I could help my child with the Everyday Math homework!! Excuse me….I already “passed” 4th grade math…and still have the “times” tables memorized. It seems that the way I was taught math (and which helped me get an MBA) was “confusing” my little student and making her ’stress out’ over homework!

There are many other examples like that, so to answer Michelle’s comment I know there are problems, but perhaps they never percolated up to the Board or perhaps people didn’t feel empowered to speak up. I don’t know why Michelle didn’t hear about this outside of an election, but the 170 signatures we have right now say it is time for a change and we have a problem. As for the unquoted comments regarding politics, this is about as apolitical as you can get. I’m not running for any public office in town and nobody has asked me or cared about by national party affiliation.

Later on, Ruth McCurdy says this in response to NJ math proficiency scores of 97 and 98, “I don’t know how else you can better scores that much.”

I think I know how how you can better scores especially on tests that have been made easier over the years and rank near the bottom of standard tests in the country. What? Tell me you never questioned if NJASK are appropriate tests for measuring math proficiency. Tell me you never wondered if the tests were easy or not. What are you going to do if your child is highly proficient on these “tests” but later on can’t compete at higher level maths. Well I wondered these questions and so did another parent who sent me this link with a few quick summary points below: www.fordhamfoundation.org/doc/The_Proficiency_Illusion.pdf

• We found that New Jersey’s definitions of proficiency in reading and mathematics are less difficult than the cur scores set by the majority of the other 26 states in this study, at least in the lower grades
• In other words, New Jersey’s test are generally below average in terms of difficulty
• The level of difficulty changed from 2005 to 2006….while the mathematics are now easier to pass, although not for all grades
• This finding is consistent with the recent National Center for Education Statistics report which also found New Jersey’s standards to be in the bottom half of the state distributions for the earlier grades.

Do you really think Everyday Math is helping our kids to be proficient? I don’t. Sign the petition to help us get rid of it. Join your other brave neighbors who have signed the petition.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/EveryDayMathWT/index.html

Eric