Seattle's Child: More Birthday Party Choices

March 2008

Our Schools - Educating Mom:
Is Reform Math a Big Mistake?

Flash cards are out. Math triangles are in.

Mrs. Potter grabbed a chunky stack of flashcards, stood in front of the classroom and flipped through them every day when I was in second grade: 6 + 6 = blank, 7 + 3 = blank, 5 + 6 = blank. In unison, we responded 12, 10, 11. Our robotic pace slowed a bit when she held up subtraction cards.

That’s so old school.

The triangles my second-grade son brought home from school this year have plus and minus signs in the middle, with one number on each point. Students learn number families. For example, on a triangle of 6, 8 and 14 students see that 6 + 8, 8 + 6, 14 – 6 and 14 – 8 are all related.

Math triangles are part of the reform math curricula taught in more than one quarter of the nation’s schools. (See article “Math Wars” for a history of U.S. math education.) Seattle’s public elementary and middle schools teach reform math. This month the Seattle School Board will hear a recommendation for a new high school math curriculum that will be reform based. A key feature of this type of instruction is an emphasis on concepts, as opposed to computations.

In a traditional classroom, solving 89 + 21 involves lining the numbers up, carrying the one and arriving at 110 as the answer. Students learning reform math would think about the problem and reorganize it in several ways: 80 + 20 + 10, or 80 + 30, or 90 + 20. Same answer, different method.

I’m using addition examples, by the way, because my math abilities are dreadfully limited. I never liked the subject as a kid and it makes me nervous now when my seventh grader asks for help with a story problem.

I don’t get math, but Ginger Warfield does.

Math is Beautiful

“It is a multifaceted, beautiful subject and far more approachable than people realize,” says Warfield, senior lecturer in mathematics at the University of Washington.

Warfield joined the UW faculty in 1973, and in 1986 started a class for elementary education majors to teach them how to teach math. The course has evolved over the years, with the emphasis now on reform math. She prefers calling it “teaching for understanding” or constructivism.

“The old sit down and shut up way of teaching math doesn’t excite children or help them understand what math has to offer,” Warfield says.

Math is about “a hell of a lot more than numbers,” she explains. Reform math encourages students to work in groups to solve problems. They learn to listen to each other, accept differing ideas and verbalize their own opinions.

“It’s a disservice to children if we only teach them computation,” says Rosalind Wise, K-12 mathematics program manager for Seattle Schools. “They need the reasoning piece, the problem solving piece and the application of skills, too. That’s real life. Boeing and Microsoft want employees who can work together in teams.”

Warfield, Wise and others make a good case for reform math. As a parent, I like the approach because my kids understand it and they enjoy their math classes. But maybe we’re missing something.

1 + 1 = 2 Sides to Every Story

School doesn’t end for Julie Wright’s son when the last bell rings. Worksheets are waiting for him at home – multiplication practice, maybe some long division. Drills that will help her fifth grader sharpen his math skills.

Wright, a former elementary math teacher, wants to make sure her son doesn’t fall behind. She says math scores in her son’s class have “gone downhill” since the Lake Washington School District started using reform math.

“It’s failing our kids. I’ve seen firsthand that children don’t have the math skills they need. I’ve seen fifth grade boys in tears over this. It’s discouraging and frustrating,” says Wright, co-founder of Where’s the Math, a parent-led math standards advocacy group. She’s also with the Washington PTA, and math is their second highest priority this year, after state education funding.

Wright points to research that finds 50 percent of high school seniors failed the 10th grade math WASL. In 2007, average SAT math scores in Washington fell to their lowest mark since 1999. And between 30 and 50 percent of college freshman in our state need remedial math education.

She’s not the only parent who’s worried. There’s a growing trend toward hiring tutors to teach basic math skills. About 10 percent of the students at Mercer Island High School get outside help from math tutors. A Washington State Department of Revenue report found gross income from tutoring businesses increased 340 percent in the last 10 years.

Some school districts are abandoning reform math altogether because they’ve experienced drops in test scores. Tacoma schools, after using reform math since about 2001, decided last year to return to a traditional approach. Other districts are considering doing the same, just as more districts switch to reform math.

The Correct Answer?

The Washington State Board of Education is now revising math requirements, after receiving an independent review of the state’s current standards. The review wasn’t flattering:

Compared to the standards of key states and high achieving countries, Washington is not expecting enough of its students. There is insufficient emphasis on core mathematical content. Some math should be taught earlier in a student’s schooling, and some crucial math is missing completely.

“Washington’s math standards are not rigorous enough,” says Linda Plattner, author of the report and president of Strategic Teaching. “Anyone would come to the conclusion the standards are not measurable.”

Her recommendations:

1. Set higher expectations for Washington’s students by fortifying content and increasing rigor.

2. Make clear the importance of all aspects of math, including standard algorithms, conceptual understanding of content and the application of mathematical process.

Washington’s current standards are about 14 years old. Plattner, who taught math in Moses Lake before starting her Maryland-based consulting business, says we know a lot more about math education now than we did in the 1990s.

The state superintendent’s office has hired the Dana Center at the University of Texas at Houston (at a cost of at least $770,000) to oversee the revision of our math standards. This is a point of contention for some people because the Dana Center has supported the adoption of reform math curricula in other states.

Experts know more, but that doesn’t mean they agree more.

Linda Thomas is a Seattle parent and journalist. What do you want to know about schools or education? Send her an e-mail: linda@lindathomas.com. She’ll answer your question in an upcoming column.

Math Wars
How They Started and What We’re Fighting About

By Linda Thomas

How long have we been debating the best way to teach mathematics to U.S. children? Five years? It’s been closer to ten years, or even a couple of decades, right?

The controversy actually goes back to the late 1800s.

Edward Thorndike, referred to as the father of educational psychology, was the first person to apply scientific research to education. His research on mathematics led him to believe that the subject was best learned through repetition and drills.

Thorndike didn’t think the majority of students could master the more complex subjects within math such as algebra. So, he promoted a system where the majority of students had a basic level of instruction and a few went on to more advanced math. Those advanced learners were almost exclusively elite, white males.

Educator and philosopher John Dewey believed Thorndike’s classical math was incomplete. Dewey (not the Dewey Decimal System guy; that was Melvil Dewey) thought schools were teaching “dead” facts that didn’t relate to real world experiences. Dewey introduced a progressive education, where greater emphasis was placed on problem solving.

By 1915, Thorndike and Dewey had given U.S. educators two different approaches to math – one traditional based on rote learning, the other involving critical thinking and communication. Both scholars thought they were promoting the best way to educate children and both sides had research and reasoning to back up their beliefs. Sound familiar?

Waves of change crashed over math classrooms during every decade since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. In response to the fear that America was falling behind the rest of the world, the National Science Foundation came up with New Math. Throughout the 60s schools adopted the curriculum that emphasized set theory (remember Venn diagrams?) and number bases other than 10. It didn’t last.

Along with platform shoes and disco music, the 1970s gave us a back-to-the-basics math movement. By the end of the decade, national math tests showed that kids didn’t have basic computational skills or an aptitude for problem solving. Now what? Panic!

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) came out with several reports in the 1980s. An Agenda for Action recommended a “decreased emphasis on performing paper and pencil calculations with numbers of more than two digits.” In other words, leave the computations to calculators.

Follow up documents expanded on the NCTM’s vision for reforming math teaching. The phrase “reform math” caught on. As the Cold War was ending in the early 1990s, a new war over math was just beginning. Other labels for reform math include: New-new, whole, integrated, constructivist, fuzzy and touchy-feely.

Politicians took sides in the math wars too. During a 1997 Congressional debate about math education, Sen. Robert Byrd said, “new-new mush-mush math will never produce quality engineers or mathematicians who can compete for jobs in the global market place.”

The current math revolution puts parents on the battlefield alongside academics and politicians. Two parent-led organizations (Where’s the Math and Mathematically Correct) believe reform efforts are failing our kids. Math is a precise science with right and wrong answers, they say, so why are kids allowed to solve problems any way they’d like? Another concern is that children aren’t learning algorithms.

There are complaints about traditional math, too. Critics say learning through repetition or memorization leaves kids bored or confused and there’s no room for creative thinking. Students might be able to follow step-by-step math procedures, but they don’t understand what they’re learning, they won’t remember it and they won’t be able to apply it to their lives.

Although there have been various battles over the years, in its simplest form the war over math education is between conceptual understanding versus computational skill development. Can’t we do both? The latest teaching trend combines elements of both approaches. But with more than 100 years of history behind this conflict, it’s unlikely either side will surrender.

Web design by Intentional Publishing & Design