Recall Everyday Math in Long Valley NJ

Entries categorized as ‘Everyday Math’

I’m Lovin’ Our Board of Education Right Now

June 5, 2008 · Leave a Comment

I attended the June 3rd Washington Township Board of Education meeting and I was very pleased. You should be pleased because unlike other Board of Eds in towns like Ridgewood NJ, your BOE listened to the concerned parents and are going to review our K-8 math curriculum. To recap here’s what they talked about on Tuesday:

  1. The Education Committee reported that they supported a review of our math curriculum to examine what’s working, what’s not, and offer improvements
  2. They are forming a committee in the summer to review the math curriculum
  3. They are writing a letter back to the community that basically will say “we heard you” and here’s what we are going to do (I’m guessing because I didn’t actually get to read the letter).

I spoke with several board members before and after the meeting and every one was very supportive of listening to our concerns and evaluating the curriculum. That also includes Interim Superintendent John Sakala who I had a one on one meeting with last Friday. I also spoke with Board President Michelle Skurchak and she was very supportive and seemed happy to help. Here’s what appeared in the May 13th minutes that hinted at board action:

Members of the public commented on the Everyday Math program; equal time should be given to science and social studies in addition to math; request for an update on the gifted and talented program; grouping of students in Middle School classes; and board member e-mail addresses and answering of e-mail in a timely manner. Mr. Sakala commented that the board hears the concerns about Everyday Math and that time is needed to look into the matter. The meeting was closed to the public at 8:37 p.m. “

I stood up and addressed the board after they outlined their plan . So I don’t bore you anymore, here’s a quick synopsis:

  1. I thanked the BOE for listening to the parents who raised concerns
  2. I handed a copy of the petition (without your emails) to Interim Superintendent John Sakala
  3. I volunteered to be on the evaluation committee and offered to help recruit more people

Right now perhaps some of you supporters are not satisfied with just a review and wanted an outright recall. Obviously as the person that started this noise you may be upset with me, but please don’t be. This is a great solution for our community.

There are plenty of parents who believe that Everyday Math works for their kids and are happy with the program. There are obviously a lot of you that want it removed. We could all just dig our heels in and have this town become a casualty in the math wars like Ridgewood or we can all work together and come up with the best solution that is right for our town.

Right now our Board of Education did they right thing and it is my hope that changes will be made to the curriculum. I have some ideas that I’d like to see implemented, but until then the best thing you can do is raise your hand and volunteer for the committee when our Board of Education is ready.

Thanks again for your support. It meant a lot to me to know that there were/are so many supporters out there. As one board member said to me, “it isn’t easy to be a lightning rod” and he is correct. However, running into you at baseball games, restaurants, town events, and etc provided me with a huge boost to keep going. Please don’t stop now, because we still have some work to do.

Peace,

Eric

Categories: Everyday Math · Washington Twp

Does Oswego Illinios School District Sound Familiar To You?

May 21, 2008 · 1 Comment

A blog reader sent me this link this morning and I found it very interesting.  It seems in Oswego Illinois the Board of Education is set to adopt Everyday Math over the objections of parents (probably because the administrators are clairvoyant for the needs of our children 20 years from now).  You can read the article yourself, but for me here are the key take aways:

After lots of reflection, elementary schools here are expected to adopt an updated version of the same math program that triggered parent concerns this past fall.

David Van Boekel, the father of three children in Oswego schools, said he would have preferred a program with “more emphasis on fact mastery (and) less reliance on calculators and games.

Mother Susan Beyer said she felt during the committee’s deliberation process “that the whole deck was stacked against everything else but Everyday Math from the beginning.”

Did you ever have the feeling that McGraw Hill has an Everyday Math play book that they use to sell this junk?  It seems that the whole thing plays out like this school district after school district.   Parent get upset for the same reasons, board of eds implement it but it is a forgone conclusion, and McGraw Hill makes another sale.  I wonder (and I really know) there is a play book for getting rid of this junk.

Eric

Categories: Everyday Math
Tagged: ,

Long Valley School Board Election Analysis

May 20, 2008 · Leave a Comment

The table below is reprinted from the Morris County Clerk’s office website:

http://www.morriselectionresults.org/school_board.htm

Washington Twp Board of Ed

3/3 100.00%

Under Votes

1828

Over Votes

0

Vote Count

Percent

- Eric Frenchman

922

17.50%

- Gregory J. Antonelle

1,119

21.24%

- David Chance Healy

1,127

21.39%

- Bill Roehrich

1,155

21.92%

- Peter Graziano

915

17.37%

Write-In

31

0.59%

Total

5,269

100.00%

Reviewing vote total when each voter can make three choices can be confusing. Here is my analysis:

Adding tallied votes and under votes: 5269+1828=7097 total votes. (7097 is not divisible by 3, but maybe they added with everyday math. We’ll use a rounded answer.)

Each voter was supposed to vote for three candidates, therefore, 7097/3 = 2,366 people came in to vote for the school board on April 15. I broke down the vote total into percentages of the number of people who voted:

Frenchman 922/2366 = 39.0 %

Antonelle 1119/2366 = 47.3 %

Healy 1127/2366 = 47.6%

Roehrich 1155/2366 = 48.8%

Graziano 915/2366 = 38.6%

Note that none of the candidates received the support of 50% of the people who went in to vote. Frenchman campaigned on the sole issue of everyday math. By this, it seems that almost 40% of the town is against everyday math. Roehrich seemed to come out at the last minute as against everyday math and he received close to 50% of the voters.

It seems to me that with little publicity, at least 40% of the voters against everyday math. This is a very signifacant number. This indicates the issue demands further investigation by parents and the school board.

Joseph Benigno

Categories: Everyday Math

The Proficiency Illusion and Not Just About Test Scores

May 9, 2008 · Leave a Comment

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

Categories: Everyday Math · National Math
Tagged: ,

More on The Lattice Method Of Mutliplication

April 28, 2008 · 2 Comments

I get very fired up when ever I think of any child learning the lattice of multiplication. In one of my my more memorable board of ed campaign posts called Do You Know What Algorithms Your Kids Are Learning? I provided a pretty good example of what’s wrong with Everyday Math. It isn’t that everything about Everyday Math is a waste, but one of their marketing gimmicks in it is when they introduce methods like this piece of garbage that actually lengthens your kid’s work time besides making them seem utterly ridiculous for using arts and crafts to solve a multiplication problem. The lattice method is impossible to do in your head and does nothing more than hamper your kid’s ability to compete in the work place.

According to Wikipedia it was introduced in Europe in 1202. Hmmm 1202? That sounds like a long time ago right? I wonder why people that invented the computer didn’t use it? Did Albert Einstein use it? How about Larry and Sergey? Why didn’t they use it when they invented Google? How about getting a man on the moon? Didn’t NASA use the lattice method? Obviously not. The same wikipedia article writes that computers that use a base 2 number system use the standard multiplication method.

Imagine tomorrow you are in a meeting and you need to multiply two numbers together. You and your colleagues don’t have laptops or calculators on you; you have your cell phone but you don’t want to pull it out. All you have is pencil and paper and you need to multiply 345×12. You could

  1. Multiply it using the standard algorithm which you learned in elementary school
  2. Multiply in your head 345×10, 345×2, and then add the results together
  3. or draw pictures that look like this:

While you are still drawing your boxes and lines your co-workers will have figured out the right answer and had enough time to laugh you out of the office.

The lattice method is a perfect example of what’s wrong with Everyday Math. It is a gimmick that has been around for over 800 years and we don’t need it. The tried and true standard method works every time and is far more efficient. If Everyday Math is such a good curriculum than why don’t they go ahead and teach the most efficient method and give kids a choice? Why should a child have to learn this long method of using arts and crafts to figure out a simple math problem? They should NEVER have to learn the lattice method of multiplication but Everyday Math needs gimmicks to sell books.  The Lattice Method should be Exhibit A as to why this needs to be recalled from our schools.

Eric

Categories: Everyday Math · multiplication
Tagged: ,

Everyday Math Concerns Unite Parents

April 24, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Released for tomorrow’s Observer Tribune:

Parents concerned with the Everyday Math curriculum are joining together to voice concerns to the newly elected K-8 Washington Township Board of Education. The K-8 Board of Education election highlighted math curriculum problems specifically with the spiraling methodology, inefficient math algorithms like the lattice method of multiplication, and the lack of ability for Long Valley parents to assist their children with their homework.

“Using the March 13, 2008 final report of the President’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel, the newly elected Washington Township Board of Education has the most advanced analysis available to make critical changes to our math curriculum,” says Long Valley resident Eric Frenchman.

“Unfortunately there is no such thing as “Everyday Geometry, Everyday Algebra, or Everyday Calculus for new freshman students. Colleges and Universities will continue to look for basic skills as defined by the traditional high school curriculum this is in our high school,” says high school math teacher and Long Valley resident Sandy Zarillo.

“We are gathering data as well as circulating a petition to respectfully ask for a re-evaluation of the Everyday Math curriculum. This isn’t about NJ ASK test scores, it is about preparing our children for Algebra which is the gateway for kids continuing on to higher levels of learning. Currently there are over 110 signatures on our math petition and we plan on presenting the data to our school board in a very constructive manner,” stated Mr. Frenchman.

Concerned parents are encouraged to sign the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/EveryDayMathWT/index.html and get involved with helping to gather data by sending an email to longvalleymath@embarqmail.com. Also, please attend the April 29th Board of Education meeting to support several parents that will address the Board.

Eric

Categories: Everyday Math · General

So How Did We End Up With Everyday Math?

April 17, 2008 · 2 Comments

Did you ever wonder how we ended up with Everyday Math? Did you ever wonder why we never saw a detailed analysis of Everyday Math compared with other math programs like the state of Texas has? Well I did wonder, so I asked Jim Harmon who is on the Board of Education and voted against adopting Everyday Math when it came up for a vote. Here’s what Jim told me, edited of course by me (it is so much better not being a candidate now)

The adoption of EM in the first place was done after it was presented by the Education Committee after the Education Committee had evaluated the program out of view of the full board. When I noticed the new math curriculum on the agenda I researched it myself prior to the board meeting and, based on my preliminary research (which included the information from 2001 that Eric circulated this week with quotes from math professors and experts) I raised a major concern. Michael Rubright, an educator and a Principal joined me in voicing concerns. I demanded the following data before the next board meeting:

- A briefing on the process the administration undertook to come to the point where they recommended the EM program as the “best program for the district after thorough review of the data”, as was quoted.
- A report on what other districts across the country had implemented EM and a report on what kind of performance changes (up or down) resulted from the new curriculum.
- What other curricula had been considered and what was the objective and data driven rationale for rejecting all other options and settle on EM as the one to recommend. I want to see a side by side apples to apples, data and real experience evaluation and assessment of all options and why EM was chosen versus others.
- What are the weak points and gaps in EM and what was the detailed plan for addressing the weaknesses and gaps so that, if it is implemented in our schools, the administration can supplement and add elements so that we don’t lose value (if indeed EM was proven to actually have value).
- An explanation on why we were choosing a curriculum that is so obviously controversial and so roundly rejected by so many highly competent and highly educated professionals around the country. How will we overcome the controversy if it is implemented so that we do not suffer from lack of confidence by teachers and parents if some of the substantial criticism’s prove valid?
- Describe the implementation plan so that the board can be assured that teaching staff are well prepared to teach from day one and substitutes and aids are also familiar. Spiraling leaves kids behind if a few days are missed or an EM clueless sub is in the classroom.

In response to the questions and data requested of the administration noted above, they brought in a McGraw Hill salesperson and consultant to “sell” us at the next meeting. Finally, the books had already been purchased and were sitting on the dock at Flocktown before the discussion and vote of the Board had been taken.
Interesting huh? The least we can do now is keep the heat on the new Board of Education and ask them to recall this before any more kids are taught confusing and really useless math algorithms. Sign the petition to get Everyday Math recalled.
Eric

Categories: Everyday Math
Tagged: ,

K-8 BOE Candidates Roehrich, Frenchman Call for Everyday Math Review

April 11, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Former BOE President Harmon Agrees, Endorses Roehrich, Frenchman

Washington Township, April 7, 2008 – Washington Township K-8 BOE Candidates Bill Roehrich and Eric Frenchman today jointly called for a review of the Everyday Math curriculum installed in Washington Township schools in 2004.

“I have been very impressed with the depth of the passion Eric has revealed is out there among Long Valley parents on the Everyday Math issue,” said Roehrich, who was not on the BOE in 2004 when the Everyday Math curriculum was installed. “And I am concerned about the ramifications for our children as they go on to high school calculus and algebra. It is my understanding that there are issues there. We need to review this.”

“Other Morris County towns have gone down the Everyday or New Math trail and rejected it,” said Eric Frenchman, who details his research at www.ericfrenchman 2008.com. “Based on community input and the March 13, 2008 recommendations from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel which rejected Everyday Math’s core principles of spiraling, calculator use, and refusal to teach the standard algorithms, it is critical for our school district to reevaluate using the Everyday Math curriculum.”

Former BOE President Jim Harmon echoed the call for a review of the program. “In 2004, I spoke out vigorously against the adoption of Everyday Math. I did not feel that there was enough information presented to justify such a radical change. I voted against the adoption of Everyday Math along with Michael Rubright, a past BOE member who is an educator and a principal in another township.”

“I applaud Eric Frenchman for bringing this issue to the forefront, and getting so many parents to speak out about their concerns,” said Harmon, who also is endorsing Roehrich and Frenchman for the Board of Education.

Eric

Categories: Everyday Math · General · Open Communications · division

A Town Math Expert Agrees Everyday Math Must Go

April 11, 2008 · 2 Comments

Sandy Zarillo was kind enough to send me her letter to the Observer Tribune editor which I reprinted below. I add the bold around the text. Enjoy reading it especially people that received Antonelle’s email. You could probably guess that reading this out loud was music to my ears. Thanks Sandy.

Eric

—————-

Dear Editor:

I am writing about EveryDay Math. I am a high school mathematics teacher with two young children at Flocktown-Kossman. I have a Masters Degree in Teaching and I am New Jersey State Certified in Secondary Mathematics. I currently teach Precalculus and Algebra 2.  And I’m writing to endorse Eric Frenchman and Bill Roehrich for Washington Township K-8 BOE and Jim Liabraaten for the West Morris High School BOE based on the fact that they share my concerns.

I saw an email this week from the Gregory Antonelle campaign for Washington Township K-8 Board of Education. It contained the following:

“Fact: People who are knowledgeable and informed agree that EveryDay Math is working for our students”

As someone both knowledgeable and informed, I take strong exception to this remark. EveryDay Math is a disaster, a bad fad in education that will cripple our children as they move into high school and college and take, and fail, advanced mathematics courses. We have not learned from history – some of EveryDay math stems from the disastrous “New Math” fad in the 1960s, which was universally abandoned as a failure after crippling a generation of our mathematics students.

I am both “knowledgeable and informed”, to use Mr. Antonelle’s terms, because advanced high school math is what I teach. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “EveryDay Geometry”, “EveryDay Algebra” or “EveryDay Calculus” for new freshman students. There is no such thing as a dumbed-down “EveryDay SAT test”. Colleges and Universities will continue to look for basic skills as defined b y the traditional high school curriculum that is in our high school currently.

Mr. Antonelle’s campaign literature cites test solid scores in towns like Basking Ridge and Millburn. He cherry-picked the wealthiest towns in the state, a recognized and quantified factor in test scoring. He even cites advancement to Ivy League schools – one might as well count parent’s Mercedes in Millburn as a measure of educational success, not just mathematics. The test scores cited as successful metrics are a mirage resulting from “teaching to the test”. This has been described by EveryDay Math opponents as knowledge “a mile wide and an inch deep”. The ASK tests are an inch deep. Life after elementary school is not. It can not be waded through – you have to know how to swim.

Test results are why administrators and BOE presidents love EveryDay Math – it often produces the illusion of success by the facile ASK test metrics to which they answer to their town’s parents. ASK tests do not get our kids into college. They are merely an average to show Trenton. It is a mirage to hold up a test “average” as a measure of anything. But like a mirage it is fruitless upon closer examination.

The nature of EM is to teach in the “spiraling” method, with topics taught for a brief period of time and “revisited” at other points in the curriculum. There is also, and more importantly, very little drill and practice. To only cover math topics very quickly and not in-depth is detrimental to the basic skills needed to be successful in the higher grades.

Because of EM, our current curriculum removed all ability levels of math at the middle school level. As a math teacher, I find this simply ridiculous. Whether your child is mathematically gifted or mathematically challenged, they are dumped in the same class, learning the same thing…taught to the lowest common denominator, as it were. With this one size-fits-all homogenized approach, challenged math students are overlooked and gifted math students become bored and disinterested.

Hmmm…..now how is the transition to high school supposed to work? As 8th grade teacher is teaching the same vanilla curriculum to everyone. Yet, the high school offers the traditional varied mathematics curriculum. This means that children entering into 9th grade will take either Geometry or Algebra. How is the 8th grade teacher able to decide, based on the current curriculum, who is best able to skip Algebra and be able to take the more advanced Geometry?

Another key problem with EveryDay Math is the parent factor. Not only is EveryDay Math unknown to them, but it is in many ways counter-intuitive to the traditional math we all learned and know. Parents are an enormously important, often key, factor in children’s development. Imagine if our school system changed our mother tongue to Russian, and our parents were unable to help their children’s homework, drilling and education in any way. This is what we have done on the mathematics side – and Russian is no improvement on English!!

During the “Candidate’s Night” last week, a parent asked “If we simply eliminated EM, how would the teachers handle the fact that the current students have already been learning the different algorithms from EM?” That is EXACTLY the problem the 9th grade teachers in EM towns are being forced to face right now anyway. Students are coming to them more dependent on the calculator than ever before, with minimal basic skills due to the lack of drill and practice and a general knowledge of everything combined with no in-depth understanding of anything. An immediate change would save the students already in the pipeline, and unfortunately, not change the challenges facing the EM graduates one way or the other.

I ask our K-8 parents – when our children’s grades begin to decline once they enter high school, who will you call to complain? Will you call the high school math teacher crying that “your child never had problems before”? Will you call our K-8 school board to ask why you were told that your child was “advanced proficient”, when they most assuredly were not?

The current K-8 candidate who is being attacked by the pro-EveryDay Math Gregory Antonelle in his campaign material is Eric Frenchman. Eric is an engineer himself and would know intimately what is needed to succeed in the field of mathematics. Eric has a great deal of excellent information about EM on his website www.ericfrenchman2008.com. In addition, K-8 candidate Bill Roehrich, who was not on the BOE when EM was adopted, is also calling for a review of the program. Since current BOE member Jim Harmon is an outspoken EM opponent, and voted against its adoption in 2004, we have a good chance of removing EM before any more children are impacted – if we can show our concern at the polling booth on April 15ht. In addition, I know that Jim LiaBraaten, the candidate for the West Morris Regional High School BOE has a Masters Degree in Education and works as an engineer. Jim is deeply concerned about the transition issues at the high school level, and will work to address them there.

If you care about our children’s futures after the ASK tests, vote for Eric Frenchman and Bill Roehrich on April 15th for Washington Township Board of Education and Jim LiaBraaten for West Morris Regional High School.

Categories: Everyday Math
Tagged:

A Texas Size Problem for Everyday Math

April 7, 2008 · 1 Comment

OK, it has been some week on the campaign trail, but we are almost there. Since a few folks around town like to look at other school districts through rose colored glasses, I thought this post would be very informative for you readers.

According to the New York Sun as well as the Houston Chronicle (more in a second on why the New York Sun cared), Texas dropped Everyday Math on the list of math curriculum available for the 3rd grade. They can not use state aid to purchase the book (a district could use their own funding) for the 3rd grade but can use state aid to purchase it for first, second, fourth, and fifth (who would do that, I don’t know).

You can read the articles yourself to see their personal opinion, but what I found very interesting are the actual comparison tables that the Educational Research Analysis did on the third and sixth grade versions of Everyday Math. You’ll also notice that the sixth grade Everyday Math curriculum is not used either. Hmmm, I wonder what a THOROUGH ANALYSIS OF MATH CURRICULUM WOULD LOOK LIKE?

Well, here you go. Enjoy fun facts people. I’ve yet to find anything on the internet that compares to this analysis of math; you’ll also notice that Saxon Math was listed at the top for math curriculum.

I have yet to find or hear of a more thorough comparison of math curriculum. Judge the results yourself and make your own decision. This is not a result of me calling districts and writing down what I wanted to hear or cherry picking school districts to confuse people. This was a study conducted in Texas to evaluate math curriculum. It is an ongoing issue across the country because people are realizing why America is falling behind the world in mathematics, leading to the presidential panel to issue its report (the reason the New York Sun cared)

Good luck with your readings and research. Thanks for listening (really reading). Again, this information for me provides more data as to why we need a thorough understanding of what our math curriculum looks like. I thought it was important to see what an in depth analysis looked like.  Nice huh?

BTW – spoke with quite a few parents today while I was out and about. One person got it precisely. He said, “I don’t know why people are attacking you. It is simple, either you agree with the direction you want to go in or not. Simple decision.”  Simple.

Eric

Categories: Connected Math · Everyday Math · Texas
Tagged: , ,