CCSS: Ask legislators to BLOCK permanent adoption

Block the Permanent Adoption of the Common Core State Standards in Washington State


To all who oppose the Common Core State Standards: Now is the time to let the legislature know how you feel. The first bill authorizing the permanent adoption of the CCSS has hit the education committee HB1443 Click on the bill and read it. Please call your legislators and tell them you are against HB1443.

House Education Committee: http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/ED/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx
Find your legislators: http://www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx
Hotline that gets you to everyone in one phone call: 1-800-562-6000

Tell them you don't want unknowns in Washington DC to tell Washingtonians how to educate our children. Please tell them to vote “No” to HB1443.


The Common Core State Standards are known by the acronym CCSS. These are national learning standards organized by the NGA and the CCSSO and supported by the Department of Education. In an effort to “encourage” states to adopt these national standards, the ED supposedly gives states a leg up on Race to the Top applications if they adopted the CCSS.

Several states are backing away from the adoption of the CCSS over issues of money, quality, state sovereignty, and local control. Ask your legislators to
1) vote no to HB1443, and
2) actively prepare or co-sponsor a bill to block the permanent adoption of the CCSS in this state.

Key Points

Last year’s SB6696 requires a “legislative review” of the Common Core State Standards before they can be fully adopted. (The CCSS were provisionally adopted last year by Superintendent Dorn.)

Legislators must 1) vote no to HB1443, and 2) prepare a bill this session to block the permanent adoption of the CCSS.

Bob Dean waslchronicles@hotmail.com  has prepared a sample bill he’s happy to share.

Objections to the CCSS, In a Nutshell

Expensive: In a time of tightened budgets, the CCSS will cost the state and districts a great deal of money -- no one seems to know exactly how much. It’s certain that the $2 million asked for by OSPI to implement the CCSS is ridiculously low – just the tip of an iceberg. This request does not include district costs, and it’s a small fraction of the taxpayer money spent on previous standards implementations.

Untested: The CCSS are untested and unproved, with no student data to support them. Our children and our teachers are the subjects of this new, federal education experiment.

Weaker: According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, as well as various analyses done by professionals in Washington State, the CCSS for math are weaker and less clear than Washington State’s current math standards.

Redundant: Washington State taxpayers just spent $1.6 million developing rigorous math standards in 2008. Districts also spent a great deal of taxpayer money on professional development for these new standards, as well as on curricula, conferences and other related costs. The CCSS will initiate another round of expenditures, without any indication of how they will improve student learning or help teachers.

Loss of local input and control: Adoption of the CCSS will result in a loss of local decision-making and parent input on what our children are learning.

Bottom line: The CCSS will cost taxpayers an as-yet unknown amount of money in implementation, adoption of new curricula, and professional development – and they will neither help our children learn better, nor help our teachers teach better. They are counterproductive and a waste of taxpayer money.

History:

SB6696:
Signed into law in 2010, SB6696 was designed to force Washington State to apply for the federal Race to the Top "grant" initiative (RTTT), and to make changes in public education according to a federal vision. Initially, SB6696 would have forced Washington to adopt the CCSS sight unseen, with the word "shall." At that point, the CCSS weren’t even written.

That language was changed to require a legislative review. In 2010, after heavy lobbying around the state and school districts by Gov. Gregoire and Superintendent Dorn, Dorn “provisionally” adopted the CCSS. When OSPI presented on the CCSS in Spokane, they were “full steam ahead” on the CCSS and on the RTTT initiative, even though they could not or would not answer questions about process or long-term effects on students and teachers.

HB1443, introduced to the House Education Committee Jan. 21, 2011, is a wide-ranging bill that also authorizes OSPI to permanently adopt the Common Core State Standards.


Taxpayer Money:
Adopting the CCSS is “supposed” to give states a leg up in competing for Race to the Top grants. Many states have not received RTTT money, even after falling in line with the federal vision. RTTT grants sound like “found” money, but they are still paid for with taxpayer money. Public education does not need more funding through RTTT. It needs to spend the money it gets in more appropriate ways.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, as of January 2010, the country was projected to spend $664 billion (from all sources - federal, state, local and other) on K-12 education. That number doesn’t include later infusions of “emergency” funding, much of which never made it to the classrooms or even to school districts. As you know. Gov. Gregoire redirected $208 million in Edujobs money to the General Fund. The RTTT deal is that 50% of any money WA gets will stay at the state level with OSPI.

Clearly, something needs to be done, but not this. Not the CCSS. Not RTTT. Not the centralization and federalization of public education. Not the removal of the people’s voice and their vote. We need MORE voice, more choice, and more options for parents and teachers. Competition is good for education. The CCSS, however, will add to costs, lower standards, eliminate choice, and ultimately not help children learn better.

Please ask your legislators to 1) vote no to HB1443, and 2) prepare a bill this session to block the permanent adoption of the CCSS.

The House Education Committee is located at http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Committees/ED/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx

Call the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000, or find a list of state legislator e-mail addresses at http://www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx

If you have any questions, please contact Laurie Rogers at wlroge@comcast.net

"It isn't the culture, stupid"

By Barry Garelick
 
(Originally published December 15, 2010, on EducationNews.com: http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/104502.html
Republished on the Betrayed blog with permission from author Barry Garelick.)

The news [in December] that Shanghai students achieved the top scores in math on the international PISA exam was for some of us not exactly a wake-up call (as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan characterized it) or a Sputnik moment (as President Obama called it).

We've seen this result before. We've seen the reactions and the theories and the excuses that purport to explain why the US does so poorly in math. In fact, there are three main variations used to explain why Chinese/Asian students do so well in international exams:

• Version 1: They are taught using rote learning and then regurgitate the results on exams that test how well they memorize the procedures of how to solve specific problems.
• Version 2: They are taught using the reform methods of a "problem based approach" that doesn't rely on drills, and instills critical thinking and higher order thinking skills
• Version 3: The teacher or the culture produces the proper conditions for learning

It’s hard to know where to start with these, so let’s take them in order.

Version 1: In a letter to the N.Y. Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/opinion/l09test.html?scp=8&sq=PISA;%20math&st=cse ) the writer asserts that low scores on PISA may be indicative of a system that rejects the traditional "drill and kill" and direct instruction approach to teaching math. Low scores are evidence that we are not using the educational techniques deemed to be ineffective by the education community.

The letter writer also stated that our system focuses on critical thinking and "authentic" problem solving and—in a Patrick Henry-like liberty-or-death finish—argued that if it's a choice between higher test scores in basic skills and a "well rounded critically minded student," he would take the latter. Alas, he concludes that we aren't doing that very well either.

Version 2: This version is a backhanded way of saying that math education is bad in the United States because the various education reforms (e.g., differentiated instruction, inquiry-based learning, discovery learning, problem-based learning, student-centered learning, collaborative learning, small groups, the list goes on) were not properly implemented nor understood by teachers. They do this by talking about how they use student-centered, problem-based approaches.

In fact, Jonathan Plucker, an education professor at Indiana University states this in an interview with CNN. (http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/12/09/exp.am.intv.plucker.cnn?iref=allsearch ) He states that the Chinese have a "vastly different curriculum; much more problem based. Not as much drill and kill as people seem to stereotype as the Chinese are having kids memorize things for tests.”

It never occurs to the people posing these arguments that math education in the US suffers because of the reforms and the textbooks written for them. Nor does it occur to them that what they think they see being practiced in China are not the reforms that they bemoan are not being practiced here.

Version 3: This is the “It’s the culture, stupid” argument that usually carries the warning “Don’t try this at home.” Dr. Plucker mentions culture as well, as does a paper I happened to find online the day the PISA results were announced—a paper by Chap Sam Lim that focuses on how math is taught in Shanghai, the region which achieved the highest math scores of the 60+ nations participating in the PISA exam. (http://www.merga.net.au/documents/MERJ_19_1_Lim.pdf ) The author states that “We need to take note of cultural differences, so that we know what to adopt, how to adopt and what we need to modify. Merely adopting foreign practices into our own culture may not necessarily work as well as we might hope.”

This argument is based on the observation that the education-valued culture manifests itself in ways that are unlikely to happen here: long school days, after-school math “clubs” in which math facts and procedures are drilled (pointed to by some as evidence that students in China are engaging in rote learning), long hours studying and teachers who know the subject matter extremely well. The “it’s the culture” argument, fails to acknowledge, however, that the Chinese/Asian value of education is not just about hard working and respectful students.

The culture is also responsible for the adoption of a coherent and effective curriculum—one that requires well-written and logically sequenced textbooks and good solid instruction. Singapore's math program is an example of such a program that despite differences between US and Singaporean culture, has managed to work well where it has been implemented here. This doesn't mean the techniques and methods used in Singapore and China will be ineffective here. Nor does it mean that teachers here will be unable to teach it.

The “culture argument” also paints a picture of U.S. culture as totally oblivious to educational values and ignores the subcultures that place a value equal to that seen in China and other countries. Those are the students whose goals are to enter the top universities in the US, who work very hard and take AP classes and exams. Some of the parents of those students have protested against the adoption of substandard math programs such as Investigations in Number, Data and Space, and Everyday Math. These are the parents who have been told by school boards that the traditional method of teaching math may have worked for some, but not for all. Those are the parents who have discovered that the traditional methods of teaching math (in the 50’s and 60’s) work very well indeed, and are similar in some respects to how it is taught overseas.

The Lim paper points to some of the techniques used in teaching math in Shanghai: requiring students to master proofs, providing a variety of mathematical questions rather than having students answering variations of the same drill repeatedly and teachers challenging their students by asking students questions such as “Why?”, “How?”, “What if?” The drills may not be apparent to observers (like Dr. Plucker who remarked that there is no "drill and kill") because they may not be held in class; they may occur after school in tutoring centers, or at the students’ homes.

The amount of time that students in China put in to studying and working problems is considered on the one hand to be an artifact of the culture, but is rarely seen as a form of drilling. But regardless of where the drills occur, the fact that they do occur does not undermine the effectiveness of the curriculum. Nor does procedural fluency take a back seat to conceptual understanding and problem solving.

What Will Happen Next

What will happen next is likely a call to look at how the top scoring nations are doing it and what we can be doing better. But the wake-up call and Sputnik moment has already happened. We've already looked. The Department of Education in 2005 contracted to have a report done on Singapore's math program. (See http://www.keysschool.com/Documents/SingaporeReport.pdf ) And in 2006, a Presidential National Mathematics Advisory Panel was formed to examine how K-8 math education could be improved in the US (See http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/report/final-report.pdf  ).

Let's hope we stop bickering about what's happening overseas and take a look at what we've already done. At the very least, it will save the taxpayers some money. And it might even help some kids learn math.

Barry Garelick is an analyst for a federal agency and is also the co-founder of the U.S. Coalition for World Class Math. (http://usworldclassmath.webs.com /)


Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

Seattle parent hopes "Betrayed" lights fire against reform math

Note from Laurie Rogers: Reform math, excessive constructivism, and persistent administrator denial and obstruction have sunk this great country into a mathematical Dark Ages, severely limiting the futures of millions of children and devastating our supply of STEM professionals. Every week, I receive emails from perplexed, frustrated and angry parents, teachers and community advocates. A Seattle parent wrote to me Jan. 7, 2011, to comment on my book "Betrayed." Her email is republished here with her permission:

[From personal email, Jan. 7, 2011]:

"Dear Ms. Rogers,

"I just finished your chapter on curriculum. It feels like you and I have traveled the same road, bumping our heads against the same barriers. We just happen to be on opposite sides of the state.

"My frustration started when my sons attended Seattle public high schools. One attended a new, academically challenging small high school in the shadow of the Space Needle. I was told that the Core Plus math curriculum would use engaging math problems that would relate better to real-life situations. It sounded good, but he was very frustrated and needed after-school tutoring and an additional outside tutor to figure them out.

"Our other son attended another popular public high school in Seattle. I asked his math teacher if he liked the Integrated Math curriculum and he said there were better choices out there. That led me to Where’s the Math? and Cliff Mass, the University of Washington science professor who is a critic of reform math. The declining math pass rates he showed for entry-level students at the University of Washington indicated that the math problem went far beyond my kids.

"The more research I did, the worse it looked. I read the 2007 studies of William Hook, the University of Victoria researcher who compared Saxon Math in Calif. to reform programs. He found stunning improvements from Saxon Math, even in economically challenged districts. I also read the National Math Panel report, which panned the use of overly long textbooks without a clear foundation in authentic algebra. I visited our neighborhood elementary school and noticed their Everyday Math textbooks were long and complex, devoting entire chapters to the use of calculators.

"I started writing to our Seattle School District Board members, asking why they were using reform math. They had different administrators come and go, choosing reform textbooks from the elementary through high school level in all Seattle public schools. Then they would leave the district and the kids with the consequences of these decisions.

"I directly challenged Dr. Terry Bergeson in Olympia, the former state Superintendent of Public Instruction, who spent a fortune on supplemental materials to train teachers on reform math. Her failed WASL test was also expensive and gave kids credit for showing their work even if they got the answers wrong. How does that help when they test into remedial math courses in college?

"We recently had the chance for a better textbook at the high school level in Seattle. Like many parents, I wrote the Seattle School Board again to argue for the Prentice Hall books over the Discovering series. Although our director Michael DeBell voted against Discovering, he was unable to convince the other directors. That decision ended up in court with an initial judgment for the parents. The judge ruled that the district’s adoption of the Discovering series was arbitrary and capricious. But instead of replacing the books with better ones, the district is appealing.

"I am sad to see so many parents fleeing public schools for expensive private ones in Seattle. Yet the administrators go along and keep making the same arguments for reform math. I hope your book can light a fire under them.

"Thank you."

Georgi Krom
(1971 graduate of Spokane's Lewis and Clark High School)


Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column or commentary on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit comments to not more than 1,000 words. Columns and commentaries might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns and commentaries are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

"What I see" - Parent volunteer tells heartbreaking tale

By Breann Treffry, school volunteer and parent of three, Spokane, WA


We’ve heard much recently about the United States slipping in the education ranking of developed nations. Having been a product of the American public school system, I knew, like many other American parents, that the education it provides is, shall we say, lacking in certain areas. What I didn’t realize - until I enrolled my own children, immersed myself in their schools, classrooms, curricula, and classmates, attended school board meetings, and heard the stories of other concerned parents and teachers - is just how lacking that education truly is.

From home, it can be hard for parents to understand the damage that’s being done to our kids until it’s too late and our children suddenly require remediation, tutoring, or have their hopes for their future crushed when they discover they’re woefully unprepared for college. When I initially began volunteering at my kids’ school, I admit, it was to monitor the education my own kids were receiving. In these last years, however, the education all our kids are receiving has revealed itself as the train wreck from which I can’t look away. Moral duty compels me to share what I have seen that every parent should know.

While I have either personally witnessed or have reliable sources who have witnessed these atrocities within Spokane Public Schools, they are in no way isolated to this little town in eastern Washington. The trend is nationwide.

1. Cursive writing is no longer taught.
2. I see high schoolers who cannot read cursive because they were never taught to write in cursive.
3. I see math curricula that do not teach standard algorithms, but rather create dependency on calculators and technology.
4. I see curricula that drive a wedge between students and their parents by fostering a dependency on peers through excessive group work.
5. I see math curricula that prevent parental involvement by excluding the methods we were taught and teaching only “new math.”
6. I know parents who can’t help their elementary age children with math homework because it doesn’t make sense to parents or students.
7. I’ve seen the light come on for students who have struggled for years - after their tutors or parents show them standard algorithms.
8. I have heard teachers ask parents to “please, please” not teach their children standard algorithms.
9. I know teachers who have offered classes for parents on how to understand the “new math.”
10. I know kids who “get in trouble” in class when they use the algorithms they learned at home.
11. I’ve heard parents and teachers remark that math has “changed so much” since we learned it; but, of course, math doesn’t change. Two plus two still equals four.
12. I see 12-year-olds who cannot add or subtract, let alone multiply or divide, yet have been pushed through to the next grade regardless.
13. I’ve heard teachers telling students, “You have to draw pictures to show your work” in math.
14. I see third and fourth graders who draw literally hundreds of marks or pictures to figure a single math problem because they haven’t been taught efficient methods, and still get the answer wrong.
15. I’ve seen eleventh graders who cannot divide a 3-digit number by a 1-digit number without a calculator.
16. I see elementary school classrooms with a calculator in every desk.
17. I know teachers who have been told not to try to engage struggling and difficult students in lessons but to let them be content with picture books in class.
18. I know teachers who have been reprimanded for criticizing district curricula or policy.
19. I see teachers paranoid and intimidated over teaching traditional math like standard algorithms and facts drill in their classrooms.
20. I’ve heard district administrators openly discussing “problem teachers.”
21. I see students in classrooms where the teacher taught algorithms and drilled math facts excel the following year over students from classrooms where the teacher did not.
22. I know volunteer tutors who’ve been refused because they teach traditional math methods rather than “fuzzy” math.
23. I see students who are “good at math” in tears over their math homework.
24. I’ve heard a teacher tell students, “Abraham Lincoln fought and died in the Civil War.”
25. I see an appalling rate of high school graduates who require remedial math courses in college.
26. I’ve seen students who successfully test into college-level math ultimately struggle and learn that they need remediation after all to fill in the holes in their math education.
27. I see kids being taught daily to a level far beneath their capacity, and being told that they just have to sit there.
28. Alternately, I see teachers struggle to provide additional challenges for those kids using only “district-approved curricula.”
29. I see third graders singing preschool songs as a class.
30. I’ve seen district-provided material that tells teachers to spend more individual instructional time with lower-performing students than with higher-performing students.
31. I see students who mock and taunt adults in the school, with no significant consequences.
32. I see students with multiple truancies that result in no consequences.
33. I see unexcused absences that go undisciplined.
34. I see late work given full credit.
35. I see students receive extra credit points through no effort of their own, for example, when the teacher calls them by the wrong name in class.
36. I’ve seen implementation of a grading system where it’s often impossible to achieve either the highest or the lowest grade.
37. I’ve seen materials that tell teachers to train students not to question teachers or other students, not to raise their hand when they have the right answer, and not to take the lead in groups.
38. I see academic learning time used for social exercises designed to make sure everyone a) feels good and b) realizes that they’re a small part of a large group.
39. I’ve learned that - despite what the district has claimed - the WASL (now the MSP or HSPE at the high school level) is not required, not at any grade level and not for graduation in the state of Washington – rather, there are several ways to meet the graduation requirement.
40. I see students’ love of and excitement for learning turning to drudgery and perceived failure.

As much I want to spare my own children from these wrongs, it’s just as wrong for adults to sit quietly by as the next generation, with eyes wide and full of hope and excitement, receives what has become the empty promise of an American public education. The essence of public schools is education for all, yet our schools are falling far short of the claim that they will prepare students to compete as adults, let alone in a global market.

I ask parents and teachers, what have you seen that just doesn’t sit right with you? What have you been told to teach or not to teach? What have your kids brought home that didn’t make sense, but you feel you can only assume that the schools must know best? Any one of these seemingly little things as an isolated incident might not mean much but for our children’s sake, do not discount it. These incidents add up to one giant failure across the country, putting the United States at the bottom of the list. http://www.geographic.org/country_ranks/educational_score_performance_country_ranks_2009_oecd.html#maths

Parents and teachers, you are not alone. Get together, talk, stand up for our children. It’s their future and our nation’s future that are at stake.


This article also was posted Jan. 5, 2011, on EducationNews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/105500.html



Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

Replace math curricula? Administrators won't answer in writing

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Updated March 14, 2011, to include their answer, finally given on the record.]

I've been trying since Nov. 8, 2010, to get a clear answer from Spokane administrators on whether they will replace the district's K-8 reform math materials. For four months, $544,000 worth of administration refused to answer this question definitively or on the record. Far from having my back on this, the board president appeared to blame me.

For a decade or so, Spokane Public Schools (SPS) has forced reform math curricula and excessive “discovery” learning down the throats of teachers and students. In 2010, we have abysmal pass rates on state standardized math tests. The longer students are in this district, the worse they do. In spring 2010, just 48.5% passed the 8th grade math test; they needed just 55% to pass. Just 38.9% passed the 10th grade state math test; they needed just 56.9% to pass. If the data were cleansed of students who are tutored outside the district, homeschooled in math, or who came to the district from other programs, the district’s pass rates would almost certainly drop farther.

For nearly four years, I’ve been trying to persuade SPS to replace the execrable and widely panned reform math materials “Investigations in Number, Data, and Space” and “Connected Mathematics Project” (CMP). Research and student data do not support continued use of these materials – not nationally, not in other districts, not at the state level, and not in Spokane. These reform math materials and other programs like them have devastated the math abilities of an entire generation of students.

Despite miserable outcomes; despite the research I’ve given administrators; despite the parents, teachers and students who have pleaded for a more traditional approach to teaching mathematics and grammar; and despite the 2008 district survey in which a third of parents who left this district said they left because of the curriculum – administrators have refused to replace "Investigations" and CMP.

In a Nov. 8 school district Citizens Advisory Council meeting, I asked administrator Tammy Campbell if the district planned to replace the K-8 math materials. She said if the data supported it, they would look at it. (That was a diversion, not an answer.)

The district’s student data actually support driving a stake through the heart of these materials, burning them into small ashes, and burying them under 12 feet of dirt. I followed up with the school board on Nov. 17, where board President Sue Chapin suggested I ask my questions of administrators Karin Short or Rick Biggerstaff.

On Nov. 19, I emailed Short, Superintendent Nancy Stowell, Campbell, and Biggerstaff to ask if the district planned to replace “Investigations” and CMP. If so, with what? If not, why not? Short was the only one to reply. She emailed to invite me downtown to meet with her and Campbell sometime in December.

I politely declined, saying a meeting wouldn’t be necessary; I just wanted the answers. Short emailed a two-paragraph reply of which the following sentence was the only part pertinent to my questions: “We are monitoring the progress of our middle level students...and will make curricular and materials revisions as necessary and as funding is available.” (This was another diversion, not an answer.)

Short also mentioned how well Spokane students did on the 2010 state tests, compared to the state averages. But if you look at Spokane’s achievement data on the 2010 state math tests, you will see dropping pass rates, from Grade 3 to Grade 10, culminating in a 38.9% pass rate in Grade 10. For most of these state tests, the score required to pass was less than 60%.

I emailed Short, Stowell, Biggerstaff and Campbell to ask my questions again. There was no reply.

On Dec. 1, I headed back to the school board to ask for help and answers. President Chapin said I’d been offered an opportunity to meet with administrators and had declined it. She suggested going back to Karin Short. Ever the accommodating taxpayer, I did.

On Dec. 2, I emailed Short, Stowell, Biggerstaff and Campbell, thanking them for the offer to meet, adding that I didn’t have time for it. I again asked my questions, noting that the questions were simple to answer and did not require a meeting. Short called my house while I was out to suggest we talk by phone.

I emailed them to politely decline the offer. I said that, in the interest of accuracy, avoiding accidents in the new-fallen snow, and avoiding wasting time and resources, I preferred to have the answers by email. I said I was perplexed at why I could not get these questions answered, that whether I would meet with them or talk with them by phone was immaterial to the math problem in Spokane. I said I preferred the answers by email and thanked Short for her time.

Short emailed to say they wanted to talk me with directly so they could be sure they answered all of my concerns. She repeated her invitation to talk by phone.

The next day, I emailed Short, Stowell, Biggerstaff and Campbell to say that the best way to answer my concerns was to answer them. I said Short appeared to be refusing to do so under the guise of being helpful and thorough. I said I couldn’t imagine that all taxpayers could meet with her in that way. I asked my questions again and said I would be fine with telling the public of Short’s refusal to answer my questions.

On Dec. 7, Short replied with this: “Good Morning Laurie, No one is refusing to provide information; we are offering to talk with you. Since you found the previous e-mail response to your questions unsatisfactory, we want to make sure we have the opportunity to answer your questions directly. Talking directly with you seems like the best way for you to get the answers you desire and to reduce frustration.”

That last sentence made me laugh out loud.

I emailed them to say I was glad they weren’t refusing to answer my questions, while noting that they had not yet answered them. “I understand and appreciate your willingness to meet with me or to speak with me directly by telephone,” I wrote. “I desire to have these answers in writing. Email is the simplest, most effective, and most expeditious method. Having the answers in writing assures a permanent record that is not open to interpretation.” I asked my questions again and thanked them.

This email remains unanswered.

On Dec. 15, for the third time since the Nov. 8 CAC meeting, I went to a school board meeting to ask for help and answers. I asked Superintendent Stowell to answer my questions, but she did not speak. Instead, President Chapin again said I had been invited to meet with administration or talk with them on the phone and had declined. I explained that I want the answers in writing. President Chapin continued to say I had my chance to get my answers and had refused to meet. (What is it about “I want this answer in writing” that is so difficult for President Chapin to grasp?)

Director Bob Douthitt pointed to a planned curriculum “review,” mentioned in the superintendent’s work plan. I asked when and how this review would take place. No one would say when or how this would ever happen. I said that, considering Spokane’s poor (and sinking) outcomes, it’s odd that administrators wouldn’t have a ready answer to these critical questions.

My five-minute allowance to speak to the board ran out. Karin Short said nothing to me. Nancy Stowell said nothing to me. My questions remain unanswered.

Karin Short makes $129,299 in base salary – a boost this year of 5.15%.
Tammy Campbell makes $114,849 in base salary – a boost this year of 4.1%.
Rick Biggerstaff makes $77,377 in base salary – a boost this year of 7.12%.
Nancy Stowell makes a total of $222,576 – a boost this year of 1.74%.

This year, taxpayers will pay at least $544,000 to four administrators who won’t answer simple questions on the record about the K-8 math materials. I have received other district answers by email or by letter; why not these? And – instead of insisting that these taxpayer-funded government employees answer simple questions from a taxpayer – the board president appears to blame the taxpayer.

It’s difficult to exaggerate the problems in Spokane. Teachers are hounded and harassed to use poor math and language arts materials and inefficient teaching methodologies. Brave teachers say they have been challenged or threatened when they tried to teach arithmetic or grammar to their students. How crazy is that? Soon, no doubt, administrators or board directors will again be blaming weak outcomes on “uninvolved” parents, “ineffective” teachers, or “unmotivated” students. But if we removed from this district all of the uninvolved parents, ineffective teachers and unmotivated students, Spokane would still have problems with math and grammar. That’s because administrators refuse to allow teachers to teach sufficient math or grammar. It’s that plain and that simple.

(Update March 14, 2011: I finally got an answer on the record, given in answer to my questions in the March 14 Citizens Advisory Committee meeting. The answer is "No." Not until they have curriculum that aligns with the not-quite-adopted Common Core State Standards. Oh, joy.)


Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:
Rogers, L. (December 2010). "Replace math curricula? Administrators won't answer in writing." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was posted Dec. 20, 2010, on EducationNews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/104845.html

Missouri parent tells of "insanity" in reform classroom

Note from Laurie Rogers: Reform math, excessive constructivism, and persistent administrative arrogance and interference are not exclusive to Washington State. Together, they have sunk this great country into a mathematical Dark Ages, severely limiting the futures of millions of children and devastating our supply of STEM professionals.

Every week, I receive emails from perplexed, frustrated and angry parents, teachers and community advocates in states across America. Here is one sample, provided by a Missouri parent Dec. 8, 2010, and republished here with her permission:

[From personal email, Dec. 8, 2010]:

"Laurie,

"I think you will find it interesting that in my son's elementary school, the teachers are only allowed to teach reform curriculum Investigations in Number, Data, and Space....without any supplementation.

"When I found out that my son was sitting for 50 minutes per day during intervention time, allowed to draw, read any outside reading book, play games, or play on the computer -- I called the teacher and asked if I could send his math workbook from home that he worked in every night at home. I explained that it would be a much better use of his time during the day. I was told that I could.

"I sent the book, and quickly other parents were sending their children with the same books that were simply standard math practice with traditional algorithms. I was called to the principal's office. I was told that the book was not allowed. I was dumbfounded. My daughter, who was in that building the year before, had practiced in the same book the 2 years prior. She had the second highest score out of 400 of her peers on the math portion of the state standardized test.

"So, I clarified: 'You mean to tell me that my son can bring in a Stephen King novel, draw pictures, or play games, but you will not allow for him to better himself with math practice during math intervention?' I was told, 'That is true.' My husband and I walked out the door, and we decided to pull him out of that building that day.

"The crazy thing is that the 'games' were questions for no grade like, 'Write a chant or a song about a division problem.' Another was, 'If you met an alien who could not speak your language, draw portraits of what a multiplication problem will look like to them without using words.'

"INSANITY. Keep up the good work."

Stacy Shore, Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

[Later, Stacy Shore added a side note.]

"The other very alarming element of what we have been through here as of late is what happened when one mom went in to ask for copies of the 'extension activities' (that involve the writing chants, and drawing portraits for aliens, to name just a few of the ridiculous 'activities' our kids are being forced to do). When asked if we can have copies of all activities being offered to our children, we were told that we can come in and look at them, but we cannot have copies to take outside of the school. Our kids do not bring home copies of this homework, and without a couple of us parents going in and reviewing the 'activity box,' no one would realize what our kids are being forced to do.

"Insanity. And, our children are absolutely NOT allowed to practice standard algorithms in their free time. When we realized what was going on in 'secret,' if you will, we pulled our kids and ran."



Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

 

Strengthen math program with "instructional" curriculum -- and with music

By John Barber, retired mechanical engineer and 1960 graduate of Shadle Park High School

(Article originally published December 4, 2010, in The Spokesman-Review. Republished on the Betrayed blog with permission from author John Barber.)

Are we wasting money teaching math to our students? Not as in: we shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. Rather, as in: we are spending the money but not teaching them anything.

For Spokane Public Schools, at least, the answer is yes. The proof is in the test scores. In the 2010 state-wide proficiency test given to 10th graders, less than 40% of Spokane Public Schools’ students passed. The State apparently didn’t expect much of them; they put the passing grade at only about 57% - itself a level generally considered failing on most tests. So, over 60% of Spokane’s 10th graders failed to even get a failing grade.

As Spokane’s students leave high school, this deficiency in mathematics hampers their college careers. Nearly all of Spokane’s students enrolling at our two local community colleges must take remedial math there, math they should have mastered in high school.

I find these numbers, quite simply, appalling.

I am surprised there isn’t a massive hue and cry being raised over this. If I were a parent, I would be outraged at how our school system was failing my children. I speak simply as a resident of the community who is concerned about how we are educating our young people. And I am irritated at how poorly our tax money is being used in this regard.

So, what’s the cause? One sometimes hears complaints about the teachers themselves; but while there indeed may well be occasional teachers weak in the subject, placing blame on the teaching staff overall implies that across all of the district’s schools, throughout all of the grade range, there is hardly a decent one out there. This is patently ridiculous. Rather, the most likely cause, in the eyes of those observing it most closely, is the curriculum the District has chosen for teaching math.

The style of curriculum adopted by the district is of the type often described as “reform” or “discovery.” The philosophy underlying this style is that students will discover much of what they need to know themselves, without the need for actually learning anything about handling numbers (i.e., like long division). It is big on students working nicely together in groups, and big on the use of calculators (since they can’t handle numbers in the first place). This style of curriculum has been roundly criticized by mathematicians and university math educators alike as ineffective and even harmful to students’ ability to master math. But it has been the darling of the primary/secondary education establishment, and our local education administration seems enamored with it.

This problem is recognized by some in our community, who are calling attention to it loudly and clearly. They are, however, a smallish number, small enough that they seem to be easily ignored by the local education establishment.

So, what to do? Two things, for starters.

One is to change the curriculum, to the type sometimes referred to as “instructional.” As in, the teacher actually teaches (instructs), and the students learn. They learn the principles and the skills. There are a number of such curricula, with the Saxon and Singapore systems being representative. The principle feature that distinguishes this type of curriculum from the discovery variety is that with it, students actually learn their math. And test scores show it. Around the country, students in districts that use instructional curricula typically score much higher than those suffering under the discovery variety.

Number two might be a little surprising: music. While it has long been felt that active involvement in music helps students achieve academically, recent large scale studies have been showing just that, with actual test grades. Music seems to help train the mind and thinking processes to facilitate better performance in mathematics. The longer students stay involved in music, the more pronounced the effect. And it appears highly effective not only for the stronger students, but even more so for the weaker ones as well.

Music may help to compensate for an otherwise poor curriculum, such as that used in the Spokane schools. Think of it as something like a booster for a radio receiver, to enable it to better receive a weak signal.

However, that signal shouldn’t be allowed to remain weak; it should be strengthened, with a decent curriculum. And it should be bolstered with a strong music involvement (for those so inclined), either in school or privately, to further support the mathematics proficiency of our students.

Then perhaps we won’t be wasting our money teaching our kids math.


 
Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.