There is so much information regarding why Everyday Math should be recalled in our school district that it will have to be handled in individual posts to truly give it the justice it deserves. However, at a very high level here’s why I want it recalled:
- Everyday Math does not teach the standard algorithms that you and I were taught in school; standard multiplication and division algorithms have been replaced.
- Everyday Math believes it is better to teach your children how to use calculators wasting the time of our highly trained teachers who along with the rest of the staff represent almost 70% of our budget.
- Everyday Math teaches “spiraling” which is why our kids keep bringing home what we would call busywork (cutting, color by number, etc)
- As part of the Everyday Mathematics Research Basis (said another way – proof it works) they wrote this “The curriculum’s wide-scale implementation – approximately 2,000,000 students currently use the materials demonstrates, moreover, that such a curriculum can succeed in the marketplace.” Basically it writes that Everyday Math can work because it can be sold to school districts. That always bothered me since it sounds like the research basis for McGraw Hill (the publisher).
- According to The National Mathematics Advisory Panel final report dated March 13, 2008 “Computational facility with whole number operations rests on the automatic recall of addition and related subtraction facts, and of multiplication and related division facts. It requires fluency with standard algorithms….”
- If that doesn’t scare you enough, maybe this MJ McDermott YouTube video that has been watched almost 500,000 times will
If you believe that the math we teach our children should follow the recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and actually teach standard algorithms so they are prepared for algebra, high school, college and beyond, you’ll elect me to the K-8 Board so we can recall Everyday Math. We would follow other NJ school districts like Dunellen and Randolph in recalling it. (Edited note: made a typo there and showed it as corrected. Dunellen has enhanced their program to include standard algorithms. See this post for more explanation)
NEW!! Read Town Math Expert Sandy Zarillo’s passionate analysis about recalling Everyday Math
Eric
13 responses so far ↓
Michal L. // March 30, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Lunacy. I did know this craziness was out there. The video is very well done. I appreciate you putting this out there, Eric.
ericfrenchman2008 // March 30, 2008 at 10:38 pm
You are welcome!
Sue // April 4, 2008 at 8:25 pm
You think this is crazy. This year at LVMS they implemented Connected Math (the next step to everyday math) in the 7th grade. They never had Everyday Math!! Not only are the kids struggling but so are the teachers.
ericfrenchman2008 // April 5, 2008 at 4:25 am
Sue. I share your frustration. Thanks for the post.
Frustrated Kid from the 7th grade at LVMS // April 13, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Connected math is so wrong!
most of my peers want it reacalled too- i am getting a petition signed and working on a persuasive letter to the board of ed right now! (i realize i am a little late)
i took the SATs for the fun of it after a prep course, and worked an above average score without all based on previous years knowledge! the everyday math is so useless!
if anything, at least give the connected math to the kids who are just starting- don’t transfer teens who are used to the right way- grades are going down, and as someone who enjoys learning- i don’t like it
ericfrenchman2008 // April 13, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Thanks Frustrated Kid from 7th Grade. If I get on the board I’ll do what I can. Pass the word around to your friends and make sure they vote for Frenchman, Roehrich, and LiaBraaten.
Paul Breda // April 27, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I really appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into investigating math curricula. I am the School Board President in Mine Hill. We adopted Everyday Math in 2003-04. This year our elementary district was recognized for the greatest improvement in Grade 5 Math scores in morris County – 100% Proficient or Advanced Proficient on the NJASK test.
A few quick points: Reality is, as standardized tests have increased in prevalency in recent years, school districts are increasingly compelled to teach to them. Specifically in NJ, districts teach to the NJ Core Curriculum standards. To be realistic, your efforts would be well-directed to an examination of the benefits to kids of such emphasis on testing and curriculum standards – an even more ambitious undertaking than just looking at math.
We are a very small district, so we don’t look at year-to-year changes but at trends over time. In terms of math scores, ours are consistently high. Based on this, consensus is that Everyday Math is a very effective program. Again, it is the standards being used to measure that would be more debatable.
Now, as to the video – very enlightening to me. Let me say that I grew up using the “standard algorithm,” and have been in transportation/logistics sales for the past 20 years. Not necessarily a math-intensive vocation, BUT I have developed the ability to do the basic math used as an example in the video for the most part in my head – and IN MY HEAD I use the “reasoning/cluster” techniques demonstrated as TERC and Everyday Math concepts!
Other observations – the role of the calculator, “write about your answer,” group work . . . all concepts that I have noticed through my kids are new since I was in elementary school (1970s), and again all deriving from Core Curriculum Content Standards. Being able to “write about” math problems goes to the cross-curricular emphasis of the standards – in other words, reading-writing-’rithmatic are not “silos” but all inter-related in the real world. Same with the idea of working in groups – my kids are much better trained as “collaborators” than I ever was.
Conclusion: give a little more credit where it is due – Everyday Math introduces techniques that will probably benefit more kids who are not mathematically inclined. My take-away from your presentation is – does it make more/better engineers, scientists, developers that we so sorely need in the US? Maybe not.
ericfrenchman2008 // April 28, 2008 at 12:00 am
Hi Paul,
You make a lot of good points, but what I go back to is the National Advisory Mathematics Panel that examined why America is falling behind the rest of the world in math and it points to critical issues with Everyday Math (calculators, spiraling, and lack of teaching the standard algorithms to name a few). According to this panel, the only job for K-8 math is to get kids prepared for Algebra; that’s it. While NJASK scores may go up we are judging success on the wrong metrics, which is one of the points I gathered from your comment.
I don’t agree with being good math collaborators. It doesn’t have a use in a technological world. People need to solve problems on their own. I see it everyday in the business world.
There are some good points of Everyday Math and probably room for a compromise; however, we are not there yet. One thing however I refuse to compromise on is the teaching of the Lattice Method of Multiplication. No child should ever have to learn that garbage.
Thanks for your comment.
Eric
Amy Charles // May 12, 2008 at 7:00 am
Hi, Eric. Thanks for posting that video.
I have to say that by the end of the mult/div demo, I was fairly well convinced that the only real problems I have with this current crop of baloney is with the calculator dependence and the book-series racket. Those are major problems. But as for the rest, I think it’s fun and reasonable, so long as you spend a good amount of time on actual games instead of classroom delousing; like Paul, I use these approximation methods in my head. Personally, I like the lattice business because of the puzzle it presents — why does it work? I’ll have to try it. Essentially, I have no problem with games, so long as you have to do them yourself instead of handing them to a calculator. The culmination of a buffet like this ought to be figuring out efficient algorithms, of course, so you don’t have to keep futzing around.
All that said, I like it because my kid’s bright and I like math games, so I think we’ll have some fun and she may come out halfway sensible about basic arithmetic. I can see plenty of opportunity for setting math problems in the atlas games, and — even better — for leaving the kids to find problems. My only non-negotiable item is the calculator use, which should lead to some interesting conversations in the principal’s office.
I can already foresee having to pull her out for math, homeschool that, and stick her back in for the rest. Which is deeply annoying; I’m a single mother, and the school schedule is already messing with my ability to support her. But I learned a good 30 years ago not to expect either greatness or convenience from public schools.
However, I can see it being a disaster for kids whose parents neither enjoy math nor have the time to play math tutor.
This whole “standard algorithm” thing is a lot of baloney too, by the way. That’s the holdover from the old new math, and some of your readers will remember the infectious Tom Lehrer song. (Ah, Base 8.) There’s nothing standard about it. It works, OK. It’s not magic.
One thing the TERC/EDM business does not do, if this video is a good guide, is to explain _why_ it’s useful to have a sense of the places. Although I suspect it’s part of their emphasis on order of magnitude, and if so, that’s fine. That was a large part, if I recall correctly, of Paul…ach, I can’t remember his name. The one who wrote _Innumeracy_. But he went on quite a bit about order of magnitude, with justification, I thought.
It strikes me that the real problem here is not with the books; it’s with the math teachers and the frightened admin. K12 is plagued with dumb teachers and admins who take things like standards and tests seriously. If you had bright people in there who enjoyed math and children, and who were willing to tell the testers and curriculum Mussolinis to go to hell, which is all they deserve, just about any curriculum you chose would be fine.
Except for the calculators. That’s not fine. That’s wilfully giving the kids a form of mental polio. Nothing like making it easy for the Chinese, boy.
Amy Charles // May 12, 2008 at 7:12 am
Oh. And about collaboration — again, it’s a disaster, but only because it’s all the kids do. It’s made worse by the fact that they spend the rest of their time in some form of group care or other. And all the group caregivers are frightened of lawsuits, so the kids aren’t allowed to just wander around and play. We’re on our second generation of this now, so it’s getting tougher to undo. We have fewer adults, proportionally, who remember time alone, working alone, playing alone.
ericfrenchman2008 // May 12, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hi Amy,
Thanks for your comments they were very thoughtful. I might not agree with everything you wrote (Lattice method for me deserves to be returned to the scrap heap of history), but it is great to read another opinion.
Eric
Cornelia Lotito (an upset sibling of an EM math student) // July 23, 2008 at 2:36 pm
My brother has to do this connected math thing, as he’s going in to seventh grade. I’m a sophmore in WMC, and frankly, this math program is possibly the worst I’ve ever heard of. It’s bad enough that math is a challenging subject for many, when you create a gap between older and younger people, it becomes tougher.
How many times has my brother asked me for help on his homework? And how many times was I actually able to help? Maybe we should judge the test scores on that. When children have to draw a box with lines through it to multiply, you know there’s a problem here. We were multiplying in second grade. And my 12-year-old brother still can’t.
Also, one has to wonder how these kids are going to do in the long run, on the GEPA and HSPA. Will they be drawing boxes to multiply 3-digit numbers? On timed tests? I hope not.
They say that, in this program, students learn strategy and logic better. How, then, was it that, in the 8th grade, my logic scores were in the advanced profficiency level, with my brother’s just barely above the jaws of below profficient?
Another problem I have with this program is the equality aspect. Let’s face it: not every child learns at the same speed. And, yes, leveling is not the best idea, because you can never really have a perfect, tailored education for students. However, it must be better than teaching all kids at the same pace. There were five or six levels in the sixth grade when I was at LVMS. Now there are three. There is one class for students who are far beyond everyone else, there is one class for students who are far below, and everyone else gets lumped in the middle. Does this seem right to anyone?
Also, they teach this same math program in Elizabeth public schools. I know, because I am currently there, helping some of the younger students with their summer-school math. Long Valley isn’t the only place afflicted by this program, but for students with test scores as high as we have to be learning the same math as students far below, you know something isn’t right. And, in the school I’m in (right now, actually), there is a class about 400, with a summer school class of about 120. It’s K-8, and the eigth grade students can’t do simple math without a calculator. This is what Everyday Math has done to them, and unless we stop it, our kids will be having the same issues. I hope the BOE changes this quickly, because it actually hurts to see that my brother can’t do long division, and answers writen answers instead of math problems.
M // October 24, 2008 at 12:01 am
As a parent of two victims of EM(for the past 6 years), I feel compelled to respond to Paul. One of my children falls into the category of “not mathematically inclined” His comment “Everyday Math introduces techniques that will probably benefit more kids who are not mathematically inclined.” I respectfully, but strongly disagree. Only when in utter exasperation did I teach him specific steps using ONE traditional algorithm and gave him enough practice to actually MASTER it, was he able to obtain an ACCURATE answer, and upon doing so, actually didn’t call himself “dumb.” I was a victim of “New Math” in the ’70’s and I knew exactly what he was going through. I also knew that the program I was “guinea-pigged” on was exactly what put me into remedial math in 6th grade. Not until high school when one very wise teacher taught me the “traditional steps” necessary to accurately add, subtract, multiply and divide was I able to confidently go on to a prealgebra class. As far as doing cluster work in one’s head, I was unable to do that at all until I learned what steps were necessary to arrive at the correct answer. Once I had established how to procede with actual calculations, I was able to intuitively
group problems in my head. There are many people who can use the clustering method because they learned the much less convoluted algorithms to mastery in the lower grades.
Everyday Math is horrible for children who need these specific steps and repeated practice.
It’s like handing them a nail and telling them to find a way to drive it into a board without giving them any tools to do so.