April 2008
Letters to the Editor
Proud of Seattle Schools
Once again a positive story about Seattle Schools! (Educating Mom, “What’s to Love about Seattle High Schools” in the February issue of Seattle’s Child). As a parent and substitute teacher you have no idea how that thrills me. Yes, there are problems with the system, as Educating Mom acknowledges when she needs to, but there are also a lot of things to be proud of. The article about Seattle high schools was a perfect example of what's right about our schools.
Thank you Seattle's Child and thank you Linda Thomas.
– Paula
Seattle mom and teacher
No Fan of Reform Math
I just read your piece (Educating Mom, “Is Reform Math a Big Mistake?”) in the March issue of Seattle’s Child. I believe you answered most of the questions regarding “reform math” and the real world.
Most of our lives are related to money. If we cannot do the calculations to work out a mortgage or decide if an investment is reasonable or add up a grocery bill, we are at the risk of being stolen blind. Other, higher math problems cannot be done at all without a fundamental knowledge of the underlying calculations.
Educators should be able to see the young people of today and their introduction to work and see that most of them need extensive training in the basics of math and writing, before they can even begin to be productive.
Students approaching the end of high school deciding on a career in a field that needs these skills cannot ever go back and effectively learn those things that should have been learned by rote (for most people). Now we find that jobs are being restructured so they can be done by low-skilled people and then jobs are outsourced to developing nations at the lowest cost.
I could go on, but it would dilute my feeling that new math, reform math, or just plain “guessing math” is a real disservice to our children and to our nation!
– Bob Browne
Shoreline
Get Back to Math Basics
You wrote an article that is dear to my heart
in the March issue of Seattle’s Child regarding math education
in America. One of the fundamental problems in math education in America
is that the people arguing about the math curriculum are not people who
use math in their everyday work. They are educators, not mathematicians
nor scientists who use higher math in their daily work.
We are a family of engineers and physicists. My father-in-law is a physicist;
my husband has a Ph.D. in Solid Physics working as a researcher; I have
an undergrad degree in mechanical engineering, now an M.D. working as
a radiologist; my brother is a computer scientist; my dad was an engineer,
etc. We are a family that values math education. My children are drilled
to learn their basics so that they have accuracy and fluency to recall
math facts. Unless the children learn the basic math facts to the point
where the basic arithmetic is easy and nearly rote without thinking, they
do not have the necessary skills to learn and master algebra or more levels
of math beyond that.
Problem solving skill is not learning mathematics. That is learning logical
thinking. They are related, but are not the same. Americans have confused
logical learning from learning the basic building blocks of higher mathematics,
which is the mastery of arithmetic. Logic does not necessarily help you
with the fluency of arithmetic. Just as one cannot read for the informational
content without adequate reading fluency, one cannot learn higher math
without the basic math fluency. This is what the educators do not seem
to understand about higher mathematics.
One or the reasons we teach children arithmetic is so that they are capable
of learning higher mathematics in high school and college. Calculus is
a minimum requirement for any kind of science education. In order to function
in our society, one does not need any more math than simple fractions
and percent calculations. Therefore, most do not need to understand algebra.
However, if we as a society have a goal to educate as many engineers and
scientists as we can, then we need to ask THEM how to educate the children.
If we as a society want to educate everyone to balance checkbooks and
buy houses with the understanding of the finance cost, then we are doing
an adequate enough job. If we want more than that, let’s ask the
people who use math everyday. Most scientists will tell you that reform
math has failed our children miserably.
– Michelle Oh
Mother of 8- and 5-year-old boys attending Kumon math
Seattle
Math Article Short on Facts
I really enjoyed reading your blog in the Seattle PI. Your article (on Reform Math) in March’s Seattle’s Child is short on accurate facts. I believe that readers of the article, rather than being informed, will be confused.
That 60 percent passing score applies only when some members of the class have had several WASL math retakes.
The passing rate on the initial Spring WASL for 10th graders
in 2005, 2006 and 2007 are as follows:
2005 = 47.5 percent
2006 = 51.0 percent
2007 = 50.4 percent
(These scores include 10th graders that passed the WASL in grade 9).
The above research required two minutes on the OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction) Web site (www.k12.wa.us). I believe your article needs immediate modification.
It is incredible that in addition to using the 60 percent figure, you called into question Ms. Wright’s 50 percent figure.
In regard to Dr. Warfield, there is very little in the way of objective research that will support the efficacy of her positions. The last decade of decline in math skills should be sufficient evidence of the folly in her position.
The USA’s PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) math scores are still in free fall. Only 22 percent of recent high school graduates can place into a college level math class at Seattle Central Community College (average of four recent years which was fairly stable from year to year) and a full 50 percent of the recently graduated entering students could not place above the equivalent of High School Math One.
A full one third of entering ninth graders in Seattle’s high schools were unable to score above math level 1 on their 8th grade Math WASL. They are Math “Clueless.” Grade level promotion in the Seattle Schools appears in most cases to require only the ability to breathe.
I urge you to start looking at relevant data – rather than promoting the unsupportable positions of Dr. Warfield, et al. I call these positions unsupportable because there is not data to support them. If there was any data, surely the two expensive glossy documents called “Research That Matters 4: Closing the Gap” and “Research That Matters 5: Taking Measure, Does Modern Math Education Add Up?” produced by the UW College of Education over the last two years would contain some data. They do not.
A good place to begin researching this math education topic from a data driven perspective would be my blog at The Math Underground, http://mathunderground.blogspot.com/.
– Danaher M. Dempsey Jr.
NCLB highly qualified in Math, Chemistry, Science
SBE Math Panelist
Teacher at Alternative for Individuals High School
Clover Park School District
Wrong Facts
Boy! You have some really big WRONG facts in your recent math article.
– Becky Dykes
Careful Discussion of Math Issue
This is the first time I have ever written in response to a publication. But I had to tell you how much I appreciated your thoughtful discussion of different approaches to teaching of mathematics.
When I saw the headline, “Is Math Reform a Big Mistake?” I groaned inwardly, thinking it would be yet another cheap scare story, a la “Why Johnny Can’t Read”, or “Why Johnny Can’t Add.” But I was very impressed with your careful research. As a former teacher and principal, I appreciated that you gave readers some perspective on the long history of “math wars.” Like the history of reading instruction, there have always been philosophical differences in the way we approach teaching. And there always will be!
Of course, as you pointed out, it is not an “either/or”
argument about concepts vs. fundamentals. It is both. And good teachers
have always done both.
Thank you again for your great work.
- Katherine Mendenhall
Sammamish
Incomplete Reporting
Good morning! I never grab the Seattle's Child, but this time the title of your article caught my interest. However, as soon as I started reading, my interest turned into disbelief. You fail to define "reform math," you talk about Julie Wright's son and the math scores for Lake Washington School District, but you do not report what the scores used to be and what the scores are now. You write about SAT and WASL scores but you do not indicate what schools or districts the students come from and "what kind of math" they are using. Furthermore, you do not specify what the scores at LWSD where before the "reform math." Have you, by any chance, checked the SAT scores in math for the University of Washington, and compared them with what they were 10 years ago? Have you checked what percentage of the Mercer Island students had tutors 10 years ago?
I really think that journalism comes with responsibility, and part of that responsibility is putting all the facts together, and not just throwing out some statements so that people interpret them the way you want them to.
Thank you for your attention.
- Claudia Sibila
WA Certified Court Interpreter
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