We had a productive meeting at the Long Valley Middle School to get community input on our math curriculum. There was a mix of people between supporters and opponents of Every Day Math and Connected Math. There was a lot of good discussion and a few times I thought the meeting was going to derail especially during the recap of how we ended up with EM but thankfully it didn’t. Before I recap the highlights I thought my own perspective on the meeting would be appropriate especially because I surprised a few people who thought I was on my recall EM rhetoric.
I don’t favor the Every Day Math and Connected Math for reasons already list on this site. However, when I listened to parents who offered stories on how the program benefited their kids I realized that a) I don’t know how many families favored it and b) I think it is wrong for a community school to ignore the wishes of a large amount of parents, whether I personally believe it or not. The town had the chance to vote a change in April and I lost (for other reasons having nothing to do with the math). Now with the economy in the crapper and the amount of money it would take to switch out the program there is no way a 2009 budget that included new math curriculum would pass when put to the town for a vote (in Washington Township the voters approve the budget).
There I wrote it. As much as I dislike the program I’m listening to a large group of parents in town who favor it; plus fiscally we don’t have the money right now for a switch. Given that, here are my observations..
- We need more practice with basic addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication
- Kid’s need differentiation based on how they perform with the mathematics; right now we only have a Gifted-Talented and then the rest of the students.
- Lattice method should never be required learning. For some kids it is the only way for them to learn and they should get the benefit of it
- Please stop marking the kids wrong when they get the answer correct but use a different methodology
- We need to make sure our kids are prepared for High School math and algebra
- NJASK is not a diagnostic test but a test to measure proficiency for NJ’s budgeting process; I’d like to see a national test to benchmark our students with the rest of the USA
- A lot of people including myself were concerned about the thoroughness of the original recommendation, but personally I think that is water under the bridge
- Parents are even more concerned over Connected math
That’s about it for tonight. Our second meeting in next Thursday.
Eric
1 response so far ↓
pwceducationreform // March 13, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I agree with you regarding taking something away, but it’s difficult when you have to balance keeping a program that fails many or taking it away from kids it helps. We’re in a similar situation in Prince William County, although with an even worse curriculum (investigations in Number, Data, and Space).
We came up with a solution which might help you. The lemmings on our school board voted against it 4 / 4, but the idea isn’t dead.
Choice. Give every parent a choice.
There are two different schools of thought with math and unfortunately blending them doesn’t work and if you follow one approach or the other, then you are automatically leaving one group out. So why not do both, and let parents choose which works they prefer?
We all know that about half, and that’s being generous, will respond with a choice and the others just won’t care either way. So you use those kids to fill slots in the classes and try to keep them in the same program from year to year. Kids would rotate for math, just like they do in upper grades.
And choice could continue into the upper grades with CMP / Core Plus and a more traditional program. Again, parents would choose which class their child would take.
Everyone gets the program they believe is best matched with their child’s learning style and no one is forced into a program they think is bogus.
Everyone wins.