At the next School Board meeting (See the March 4th agenda here.), the board will decide whether or not to institute an Opt In Option for Traditional Math (See item 29 on the agenda.). In addition, the board will consider a motion to enforce an increased emphasis on Traditional Mathematics (See item 30 on the agenda and read Dr. Otaigbe’s motion, Traditional Math in Elementary Schools (Otaigbe).).
The Opt In Option for Traditional Math would provide parents with grades K – 5 children the option of having their children taught in a traditional math class. Otaigebe’s proposal is described in detail at the link above.
Below is a letter a parent sent to the School Board about those two proposals.
Dear Chairman and School Board Members,
I have been thinking hard about the two math proposal drafts presented at the recent board meeting. The two proposals or motions were for the “opt in to traditional math” (option 1 presented by Trenum) and the “dual textbook blended approach” (option 2 presented by Otaigbe). I have reached out to a number of parents to solicit their feedback and most have expressed great concern that option 2 (the dual text blended approach), if approved, would leave things essentially unchanged for the math program in our schools. I too am concerned that the spirit of this proposal would never be fully supported by the math department and as a result there would be no consistent implementation between classrooms or schools just as we see now. Another risk with option 2 is the potential disruption that could be caused for the less experienced classroom teachers if there are any broad changes to the math program without the full support of the math department. I think it is critical that something be approved soon to allow execution time to have it in place before school begins in the fall, I think that we are all eager to move forward.
From my observations, everything from the current math pacing guides to the professional development by the math dept, to the messages sent by the math specialists and subsequently principals to our teachers in the schools, support Investigations and ONLY Investigations 100%. Most parents are seeing only smatterings of supplementation that is supported for those SOL objectives which are not covered at all in MI. In my experience this year even the supplementation that has come home is far below the ability of most students and insufficient to teach the content missing or weak in MI. Only option 1 (the opt in to allow use of a traditional math text as the primary text) will ensure that our children and teachers are allowed to use a non-spiraling traditional textbook as the core. And only option 1 frees teachers from the tightly scripted MI curriculum and pacing guides and gives teachers the tools and flexibility to adjust instruction to meet the needs and challenge all learners. Option 2 on the other hand may easily result in just more “talk” of a blended curriculum without anything really changing unless Investigations becomes the supplement and a traditional text the primary.
The logistical problems we have heard voiced from some speakers who appeared to be opposed to the “opt in” option 1 don’t have any basis in fact. As I see it there are a couple of options for implementation of the opt in approach, neither of which would even require transferring students between schools. Parents would need to notified of the options and given an opportunity to select a core math text preference for their children as: “Investigations in Number Data and Space” discovery learning spiral text, a “Traditional Math” Textbook that is non-spiraling and supports direct instruction, or “no preference”. First scenario is, the “opt in” traditional math students could be assigned to one class together and the number of students in that class can be balanced out with students who are transferring in or out mid-year (who probably would struggle with the transition to MI mid-year anyhow) and/or balanced out with students whose parents indicated they have no preference in which math program their children participate in. In the second scenario we can see that we actually don’t even need to have separate classes for the traditional math students. This may in fact make things even easier at the school level, because math can and should be treated as just another subject and the schools already have a system in place for these rotations. Just as teachers and schools currently do now for reading, students in the same class would be assigned to math groups and the opt in students could just be taught with the traditional texts and materials as the teachers did a couple of years ago prior to MI implementation. Just as with reading this better allows differentiation of instruction to challenge and ensure progression for all students. Some grade levels already use this model to switch classes during reading time so that one teacher can focus on students who are at a similar level. Regardless of the math text used there should be consideration of ability and differentiation to better challenge and meet the needs of all students. Those students who opt in for traditional math would simply be grouped together during math instructional time as is already done now for reading. Does it cause problems at a school if there aren’t exactly 25 or 28 students in each reading group now? No, and it wouldn’t for math either! There most likely wouldn’t even be a need to transfer kids between schools to participate in a traditional math program. The “no preference” students can be used to balance the classes or math group sizes and gives the teachers the ability to also place those students where they think they will do best as well as to balance out the math groups.
I have seen no evidence in recent months or weeks that the math department would work to implement option 2 in the spirit which parents are advocating for, even if that proposal was approved. Many of the staff and educators we have heard speak at the board meetings seem to approach this as more of a philosophical argument and recent math nights and memos to teachers all demonstrate that the math department has no intention of backing down from their full and complete support of a pure constructivist math curriculum using Investigations.
Neither of these draft proposals before us are a perfect solution but we need to move forward and parents will have an easier time supporting the Opt In proposal because it would at least provide the assurance of choice. I hope that regardless of the outcome of these two proposals there will be a shift in the focus of the professional development to ensure that the professional development for our teachers in math will focus more on content and direct instruction of that content; and less on pedagogy, discovery learning and trying to sell the ideas to the parents and teachers.
I have been just researching some of the curriculum and standards from outside PWC for my own information and came across these California State Standards for Math. I wanted to share these with you because the sections are well organized and topics are designed to build upon one another to progress in an organized fashion. There is a table on page 10 of this section that has a brief summary:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/math-ch4.pdf
This chapter of the same CA state standards addresses what content should be covered at certain grade levels top best prepare students for algebra and higher math:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/math-ch3-k-7.pdf
The complete document can be found here:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/
I have also attached are a couple of articles written by Dr Stephen Wilson, a well respected math professor at JHU and consultant who was involved in a recent review of WA state standards and evaluation of math texts. Dr Wilson has analyzed select strands of the WA state standards and assessed those against several texts including Investigations and on page 27 is a brief summary of his findings for TERC Investigations: http://www.math.jhu.edu/~wsw/ED/wswmathreviewterc.pdf
There was also a recent elementary textbook review done for the State of Texas in which the publisher of MI pulled the Investigations text from consideration. I contacted the reviewers for additional information because Investigations was missing from the evaluation and will attach the letter of explanation and text review summary I received from them.
One final item of concern is that neither of the two proposals discussed above seem to limit or eliminate the use of Investigations in 5th grade. MI doesn’t meet the minimum number of SOL objectives to support the VA SOLs and as such, MI was NOT approved by VDOE for use in 5th grade.
I really appreciate the serious consideration and thought that board members have put into this issue and I look forward to hearing your refined proposals at the next meeting. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like further clarification on anything.
