School Days School Days….dear old golden rule days. Readin’ and Ritin’ and Rithmetic…Taught to the tune of a hickory stick…
There is a nasty little rumor circulating around PWC schools. That rumor deals with the School Board and the Math Textbook Selection Committee. Rumor has it that the school board selected its own text books and disregarded the work of a committee that had spent 5 months meeting and collaborating. When one hears rumors like this, it’s best to turn to videos to see if the rumor is true.
On February 1, the PWC Math Department presented the recommendations of the math textbook adoption committee to the PWC School Board. Mrs. Knight, math supervisor for the county, gave a slide presentation which included committee history, methods utilized, and recommendations. School Board members asked questions for clarity regarding the process and the recommendations. Mrs. Knight answered a continual stream of questions regarding method, participants, conclusions. Her answers appeared honest and direct.
The Textbook Committee involved well over 100 teachers, principals, and parents representing all different grade levels. There were sub committees that matched content from each text book series to the curriculum, compared and contrasted grade level content , evaluated vertical strands, and held on average 16 hours per person of collegial discussion about the text books being scrutinized. Evaluations were put in rubric form and recorded anecdotally.
On February 15, the school board assembled to vote on the recommendations of the textbook committee. Pictures are worth a thousand words. At least 2 of the school board members appeared motivated by pure politics. They were influenced by the contention over the Math Investigations series from previous years and made no bones about it. It was very obvious. So was the eye cutting. I don’t think adults realize they are eye cutting and everyone can see them.
Many of the members spoke. Mrs. Covington and Mrs. Ramirez actually knew what they were talking about. Mrs. Satterwhite and Mr. Trenum wanted us to think they knew what they were talking about. They didn’t. The more they spoke, the more apparent it became that they had never spent a day in their lives as a professional math educator. Both board members tried to convince their audience of the worth of one text book series but failed miserably to really explain what the merit of their product was. I kept hearing words that really didn’t fit the problem or the solution. They failed to spell out why one textbook was better than the other.
The real villains here were not the political hacks. The hacks were transparent and I could have predicted their behavior last summer, if not earlier. The real villains are those who allowed the hacks to have their way by voting with them. The School Board wasted tax payer money. Hundreds of staff hours, perhaps thousands were spent by dedicated staff, parents and administration evaluating textbooks, creating rubrics, doing veritcal alignments and comparing text book coverage of SOL objectives. The School Board simply failed to listen to its staff.
Why make these people waste their time? Mrs. Satterwhite, Mr. Trenum and I suspect Mrs. Bell pretty much had their minds made up long before February 15. They were on a political mission and it was fairly obvious to the skilled eyes of those watching weasel politics in PWC. They had probably made promises to constituents long before that night.
But what of the others? Mrs. Covington, Mr. Johns, Dr. Otaigbe? Mr. Lattin was absent. Mrs. Ramirez voted with the staff. She was the only one who exibited the basic respect to accept the hard work of the staff. Didn’t Mrs. Covington, Mr. Johns, and Dr. Otaigbe have enough respect for the folks that had spent literally thousands of hours of work? Obviously not. They lacked the integrity to vote for the recommendation of over 100 people, most of whom had years of experience as math educators. Some of the parents on the committee had been placed there by the school board members themselves.
What I saw was shameful. I am not sure what was worse, the politics or the chicken bok bok bok to stand up and do the right thing. The behavior was sneaky and underhanded. A ‘friendly amendment’ is unprecedented in PWC school board history. Many of the staff members weren’t really sure what had happened and Supervisor Knight had to ask for clarity on what had been decided. Other staff seemed equally confused. The employees had been blindsided.
The school board needs to abide by its own policy. If it is going to select text books, based on political motivation, then it needs to just do it and save everyone’s time. I am sure those teachers would have rather been at home spending time with their families. I doubt they got paid one extra dime for their efforts. If the school board doesn’t value the professional opinions of the staff, get rid of them and replace them with computerized math programs. See how the constituents like that. Some of those school board members didn’t even know how purchasing works for the textbooks. This was the same person who was speaking of text book rigor. He obviously doesn’t realize that Prince William County School curriculum is not based on a textbook, but on the standards of learning for that subject. Textbooks are a tool. Furthermore, teachers have been bitching for years that kids don’t know their multiplication tables or their subtraction facts. The choice of textbook isn’t going to alter this truism one iota. A good set of flash cards and some at-home practice might improve that problem.
Mr. Lattin and Mrs. Ramirez are the good guys. Mr. Lattin wasn’t there. That kept him out of trouble. Mrs. Ramirez supported the staff that had been tasked with a monumental job. She didn’t say one thing and do another. The others need to step up to the plate and be ready to do their own text book selection. I doubt that any teachers in any other subjects are going to be willing to put the time in like the math department did. The math department was slapped in the face.
Mrs. Satterwhite, if you are going to cut your eyes at your buddies for their approval, best to do it when the camera isn’t on you. Mr. Trenum, save the textbook grandstanding for another day. You failed to adequately explain to the audience what was wrong with the textbook selection that won 65 to 16. Was it just that the staff supported one book and you all chose the opposite? That’s what it looked like.
Middle School and elementary school have totally different curriculum needs. Has there ever been a time when there was one adoption of a text book series K-8? I don’t think so. Curriculum compression was discussed. Special text books were selected to cover 3 years of math in 2 years so that advanced students could take all 3 years of middle school math in 2 years and add algebra as their 8th grade math course. The school board managed to screw that up also. Why? They don’t really understand the math curriculum and what has to be accomplished.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Leave the curriculum implementation to the experts–you know, those people who are trained to do a job and who we, the taxpayers, pay the big bucks to for their level of expertise. The school board has condemned the children of Prince William County to 6 years of a really sucky math book that doesn’t match the curriculum. Those people you didn’t trust, the math teachers, will once again have to gather materials from a variety of sources to be able to teach the objectives to the children. It would have been so easy to just adopt a textbook that was the correct resource for the job.
Moon-Howler
@MSM
That post did come across badly to me as well but their point is valid; if we teach to the lowest common denominator to increase SOL pass rates, we badly let down the advanced students. We use additional resources to work on math as well but there are many who can’t.
We need engineers and scientists desperately not just a nation who can all balance their checkbooks.
@MSM
In an anonymous blog, no one is presenting themselves personally as anything. If I wanted to be self-aggrandizing (correct spelling helps regardless of your IQ) I would have used my real name. I would not have made that post using my real name for the very reasons you attempted to cite.
Building bird houses and cooking are fine; no problem here with either of those worthy activities. But I want my kids to be able to handle physics, engineering, economics, etc. as well. IQs are highly predictive of success in those areas.
I asked a serious question and wonder if anyone has a serious answer?
I agree Ed, passing SOL’s are too much of the focus in our learning environment. I can only speak to my experience with my kids. MI in conjunction with learning times tables and simple addition and subtraction calculations is the best way, in my opinion, to create problem solvers, not just rote robots. There is a place for both.
Have you ever seen Khan academy funded by Bill Gates? They have found a way to incorporate both, learn the basics but then it to have real life adventure problem solving with math.
“but then connect it to to have” I forgot to put the word connect in my sentence.
I’m glad that it worked out for you but my son found the process highly frustrating; the other kids did not like his way of working things out and it just increased his iscolation.
The multiple methods leave many kids confused about which to use and many are unwieldy with larger or inconvenient numbers. They are not really discovering they are just trying some of the ways the teachers have already shown them with the traditional way not being one of them.
I personally think we should teach the basics first then work on these strategies once the kids understand the numbers but the whole program was presented the other way round.
@Ed, yes we need engineers and scientists. Hopefully they will arise out of our advanced math programs. Those courses are plenty rigorous.
I have not stated how I feel about MI for every kid. Smart kids get it and should have a variety of tricks up their sleeve for problem solving. Smart kids can learn algorithms quickly and don’t need to spend a semester on routine calculations.
Kids less capable need the understanding, especially kids coming in with various educaational backgrounds. Today we have the technology available to spend more time thinking and less time doing routine calculations such as one can do on a 5 dollar calculator.
I think its biggest problem is probably PR and that people who don’t loving it had to teach it. Elementary teachers, as a rule, aren’t usually your strongest math teachers.
Parents had pretty much the same reaction to ‘New Math’ which also attempted to teach from a conceptual point rather than a calculation point of view. As a gparent working with an elementary age student, the biggest problem I had was knowing what he had been taught in class. The school to home transition was just not good, but I don’t think that was the fault of the program as much as it was school personnel.
There were so many other problems there that it would be unfair to MI. Perhaps the real shame is logistics prevented PWC from actually being able to have an opt out program for those kids whose parents did not accept the program.
Let’s face it–as adults much of what we have come to expect from schools is based on how it was done ‘back in the day.’ Make that back in OUR day.
@Moon-howler
It is a pity opt-out was blocked and I don’t think it was logistics. I believe it was a fear of making MI look bad.
The cost of a calculator is irrelavent; using one switches off the think about numbers part of the brain.
I don’t believe they have any place in school before pre-algebra.
Did you experience new math in the 70s here? Complete disaster in Europe. New is not always right.
@Moon-howler
One other thing before I get back to work…
I’ve heard the “back in OUR day” argument made before. For me that simply isn’t true.
My involvement came about because my son couldn’t do basic math after 2-3 years in MI.
The answer from the experts was “be patient” but it didn’t get any better so I interviened.
I’m glad I did because every parent I talked to felt the same way but chose not to object.
Actually, stepping back from all of the fray, I stand by the professionals making the recommendations and the school board accepting those recommendations. The utter rudeness of having people do all that work only to toss their recommendations for all but high school courses is beyond the pale.
I suppose the rudeness is perhaps an underlying theme in all of this. Actually the way people came on my blog speaks pretty much for the entire experience. Many people flew on here balls to the wall demanding that I abandon blog rules in addition to giving them instant needs gratification.
The real deal is that I am on no one’s pay check, am not seeking election, and I have no sponsors. I will continue to expose what I see as an abrupt departure from the School Board’s own policy so that some board members can keep promises to the ones who brought them, so to speak. I also saw some board members who apparently were afraid to stick to their guns now they don’t feel quite so emboldened.
It was very obvious to me that conversations had gone on outside of the public eye and that cannot happen. I will be watching for it.
Why me? Why not me? No paycheck, no sponsors,no running for office. I also don’t much care about running up the numbers on my blog. You see, its real hard to bully someone who has nothing to lose. None of the normal threats work.
“I stand by the professionals making the recommendations and the school board accepting those recommendations.”
At the risk of actually wading into the deep end, I would have to respectfully disagree. While I have stayed on the periphery of the MI debate, I do have considerable experience with the “work” and “recommendations” of the school’s planning department. Quite frankly, their “work” and “recommendations” are usually engineered to achieve a pre-ordained end and tossing them aside is usally, IMHO, the most prudent course for the School Board. One need look no further back than last year’s fiasco regarding the additions to Stonewall Middle, etc. Perhaps I’m a little too jaded but I have no faith in either the PWCS or PWC staff in many of the various departments to deliver an objective results on almost anything. I have caught them lying and burying facts and statistics for far too long. In this particular instance do not underestimate the influence of publisher funded lunches, swag and “training” sessions, often held far outside the county. Here’s wher I get in up to my head, the Superintendent’s past history does not lend itself to trusting anything that comes out of Independent Hill when it comes to contracts of any nature.
@KimS
I never said MI was just an anything. I said textbooks weren’t the curriculum. Those Standards of Learning objectives are the curriculum. That is the way it has been for what…20 years. Yes, MI is a method of instruction, somewhat like Montessori. It doesn’t matter what MI calls itself. That doesn’t make it the county curriculum.
To be more accurate, I should have said that PWC curriculum is the Standards of Learning plus any thing the county wants to add as an objective.
It does get cofusing when educationalese is spoken. ” SOLs” can mean the standards of learning for that course or the end test. Or, it can mean…well…we won’t go there.
I believe you and I see the role of the school board differently. I see them as the elected board who hires a person to oversee the operation of the county education system. Their role is to set and codify policy, contracts, and major educational thrusts. Some school boards apparently have a more hands on role. That is what I see happening now.
What I don’t like to see happening is politics getting in the way of education but they always do.
You know that MI wasn’t a failing system for everyone. Many kids flourished mathematically under the program. I am also sure some didn’t. Some kids really do better with traditional math. However, watching a room full of kids interacting and learning in a room where the teacher likes being the facilitor and believes in the program…nothing like it. Its a sight to behold and the interacting kids do understand the concepts far better than the pencil pusher kids.
Too bad this situation had to become a winner take all situation. The losers then became the kids.
@Mom
I am speaking of core academics only, not the planning office. If you can’t trust your academic staff to deal with academics, then something is seriously wrong, wouldn’t you say, since the entire purpose of a school system is to educate.
There are people who don’t trust school systems. They send their kids to home school or private schools. There are people who do trust their school system who still home school or go to private schools, for whatever reason.
As for publisher pushed lunches—oh let’s just have a resounding round of oh bullsheist.
Whoever came up with that one really doesn’t understand the process.
You should be more worried about your doctor being bought off with vacations and dinners than your teachers. Contrary to popular belief, they won’t do anything for pizza. Doctors often get really plush things for prescribing the right drugs.
I would trust publishers with teachers more than a school board actually. Why? Publishers now throw in free consumables and texts for orders. Now who cares more about saving that kind of money? A teacher or a school board with 80k students in the system?
Looking at Mrs. Satterwhite’s campaign webpage, it appears that she was a single issue candidate: Killing off Investigations.
http://www.alysonsatterwhite.com/Issues.html
I see fiscal transparency but no details. Does that mean she is going to work against site based management? Does that mean schools will no longer determine how to spend their money and that Big Brother down at the Hill will be determining how many paper clips, computers and softballs will be going to each school, just like they used to do in the good ole days?
What exactly does Ms. Satterwhite have planned along the lines of fiscal responsibility?
@Ed
When it is your child, you do what you have to do. I understand that. I always used to wonder if my own attitude sometimes tainted my kid’s progress when they knew I liked or didn’t like something.
Ed, I do understand being concerned over your kid or in my case, kids and grandkids. However, and forgive me, but I must ask…did you always present a voice of reason and try to sell your point about opting out of alternative classes for kids who just didn’t deal well with investigations or did you treat the school like you first treated me?
Selling vs beating someone over the head with a club?
My point is, often, when dealing with institutions and corporations, you just have to do a real good selling job. I think both tradtional and MI could have been preserved. But I digress. I never intended to discuss MI. I have mixed feelings and they are immaterial.
However, I do care about who choses the tools of the trade. A math book really shouldn’t become political.
What do you think of Khan Academy? I very much support technology in education.
“I am speaking of core academics only, not the planning office. If you can’t trust your academic staff to deal with academics, then something is seriously wrong, wouldn’t you say, since the entire purpose of a school system is to educate.”
What’s the difference between your professional academic staff and the professional planning staff? Is there some reason that one group of “professionals” should be accorded a greater level of trust than the other? If you’re going to inherently trust the recommendations of one shouldn’t you inherently trust the recommendations of all? Not in my jaded universe.
“Whoever came up with that one really doesn’t understand the process.”
Unfortunately I do understand the process at the Federal, State and local levels. The role of perks (payola, baksheesh, etc.) in the procurement process at all levels is at an unprecedented height and growing. Publishers throwing in “free” consumables is written into their marketing plans and is a line item in their balance sheets. They’re not giving away anything, they are buying access and acceptance to further their own bottom lines.
Mom, if you really think that teachers whore for free pencils and pens then I hope you sent your kids to private school where no one would ever think of doing such a thing. I think what you are suggesting is if one publisher buys the teachers sitting at the Hill on a Saturday doing text book evaluations better pizza than its competion, that will the text book that will be picked?
Its a lot easier to bribe 8 school board reps or the brass at the hill than it is the classroom teachers who are doing the evaluating. That argument isn’t going to hold water. In fact, I actually think what you are really saying is that you trust politicians more than you trust paid employees. I think I am going to now take a break and go off for a good chuckle.
Before I go, I do want to say the the planning division, transportation, food services, security and academic programs all have different functions. Why would I trust one over the other? Depends on what I want to get done. If I want to get my gdaughter’s lunch ticket straightened out, I am going to head to the cafeteria manager. Why? Because I know for a fact before I make the call that the admin at XXX High School is going to try to placate me and make me think no one would ever use someone else’s lunch ticket at THAT school. Yea right. The cafeteria manager is going to pull the records and analyze the ticket use with her watchful eye and give me her expert opinion so we can deal with the problem.
@mom, one more little tiny thing…don’t be too quick to dismiss the consumables. The company that throws in workbooks for every kid for 5 years is saving the county, and thus, you, the taxpayer millions of dollars a year. I wouldn’t turn up my nose at any material that kids were going to use nor would I call it a bribe. If you are in the business of educating kids, those kind of freebies, often written off at tax time, are used when it comes to textbooks giving the most bang for the buck. I haven’t seen Corey Stewart sending over unlimited checks to the School Board, nor should he.
I think that is using your limited resources wisely.
Does anyone know how much those consumables for the ‘chosen’ text book are going to cost each year? The silence is deafening. I believe they are used in grades K-1.
Therein lies the major difference in our opinions, I think. I don’t trust the academic staff to deal with the academics of our school division. Not one bit. They’ve lied to school board members and the public about our children’s performance on state mandated tests, they’ve misrepresented the facts about instructional programs they advocate, and they attacked any parent or teacher who dares question them. So no, I don’t trust them one bit.
the way I see it, the school board is supposed to serve as a moderating force against a government entity and reign that entity in when it oversteps it bounds or fails to do its job.
We really do see different roles. @ Kim
I was also including teachers in the academic staff, just to clarify.
I don’t know why anyone has to lie to anyone about test results. Anyone has access to all information except a specific kid’s results by name.
What do you mean by attack? You should see some of the behind the scenes stuff here that I got last night and won’t release. My mail also sizzled. Kim, I am not accusing you of attacking me. If you did, it isn’t on this blog. However, I got lots of hate mail. If that is what the central office staff and individual teachers got, I can’t even imagine going to work.
I haven’t had that many people tell me off since I helped out with the immigration blog. The difference is between me and them, I don’t collect a pay check or guard a position. I am not running for office and I sure am not bucking for a raise. If people don’t come to the blog, then they don’t. I have people get mad at me and leave all the time. Sometimes they cool down, sometimes they don’t. However, I can’t imagine going to work at my profession and having to face that all the time.
Frankly, I was astounded by the name calling and general rudeness. I am sure you get my drift.
But we really do see the roles differently. I pretty much see politician.
Our curricula are the expectations we set for our students and the materials and methods we use to ensure that they meet those expectations. MI is more than just a way of teaching. It’s more than just a textbook. It is an all encompassing curriculum with its own standards and its own philosophy. It is the county curriculum. What we teach our children in elementary school for math, with only a few exceptions, is defined and dictated by whatever is included in the Math Investigations program.
We teach to the Standards of Learning. There is no additional stuff in PWCS.
part 1 Wrong
The curriculum tells what you are going to learn and what you should be able to do with what you learned. It is stated as an objective, The student will be able to ______.
It is accompanied by examples and some strategies, etc. The core is that specific objective.
A textbook, any textbook, is a resource to teach the curriculum. You can use part or all of a text to do this.
The PWC curriculum, which can be for a course, an entire subject, or an entire institution, is made up of objectives that are in strands: Number and Number Sense; Computation and Estimation; Measurement and Geometry; Patterns, Functions and Algebra; and Probability and Statistics. [from their website]
part 2 wrong
Other ‘stuff’ is sometimes added to grade level curriculum.
Now, were elementary teachers told they would teach MI, probably. I can tell you a school that did darn little of it though.
But MI is not curriculum in the County. Maybe it is in MI’s own mind but PWC would never tell you it was the curriculum.
The fact that MI keeps coming up time and time again is a deflection however. I don’t believe I ever mentioned MI in my original post. My concern was about teachers picking a text book series at various instructional levels. The teachers were over-ruled and the school board felt that they were in a better position to choose the text books. I say, why waste everyone’s time?
It just dawned on me why this happened. When the textbook selection committee was started up, and teachers and parents were selected to be on the committee, Ms. Satterwhite was not on the school board. Now she is. Had she been on the school board instead of Mr. Richardson, the committee might not have formed at all. Perhaps she would have just declared from the start that the board members would chose the textbooks and the teachers and central stuff could just stay out of it. Mrs. S spoke and the rest of the sheep followed. Mr. Lattin was absent, Mrs. Ramirez is not a sheep. Now I get it.
@Moon-howler
It is not in my nature to beat anyone. I was frustrated when I saw your post which I considered to be poorly researched and inflamatory.
When I then saw you posting responses but not approving new posts, I may have got the wrong idea, sorry.
I appeared before the school board on many occasions over the math and got very negative repsonses from Latin and Richardson no matter what data was presented. Most others at least thought about it.
I read out well thought out (in my opinion) speaches and gave them a copy so there was no misunderstanding as I am not a good public speaker.
Mr Richardson rarely answered my questions even though he was my board rep. He jsut wanted the issue to go away and was rude and abusive (see youtube).
The county math scores have dropped compared to the state so it is not just my kid.
Annecdotal but I’ve heard very negative comments from middle school teachers about rising MI kids.
And those math nights; Pearson has a page dedicated to beating parent opposition. That is for their financial gain.
All the professional development that was needed and the results were worse, not better. I’d say the hill failed us.
Ed, the new posts are behind the scenes and I don’t always go back but once an hour. In other words, if I am out here responding to people, I don’t know that there are new comments.
As stated earlier, Elena is not involved in this topic and she will not be. So, that leaves me working on my own here.
First time comments always go to moderation. (or if you change your email address) That’s just how we are set up. You start off as an immigration blog, you have to have some stop gaps.
Now I ask, is bellowing at me the way to get me to hurry up? Nah. I really respond to people skills, If you talked to the staff the way you talked to me, I would be a real slow mover.
I am going down to the next box. I want to reassure you about something. I already spoke to Ms. Kim about long blocks blinding me so I need to follow my own request.
@Moon-howler
The reason MI is relavent is the math department chose that tool. The effidence for success that was used to sell it was bogus.
A parent called the school districts in there. Most had failed with it and dropped it.
The text adoption that year was skewed by the department to get the result they wanted In doing so, they lost the trust of the board and most county residents with a mathematical background.
@Ed, MI was not relative to my post. If you live in PWC long enough, you will come to understand one common expression: This too, shall pass. A very wise man once told me that and to date, he has been right on.
People try new things, I don’t care what field you are in. Do you want your kids to go to school where no new innovation is ever tried? I sure don’t. A parent does this, a parent does that. Don’t you think the professional staff checks those things out?
If I am not mistaken, the math department was planning on a traditional program with some inquiry sprinkled in where appropriate. For example, students might learn to regroup and rename the traditional way but they also might be showing alternate ways to subtract. It seems to me like the more different strategies a student learns, the better off he or she is.
You say I did poor research. I didn’t do any research. I talked to a couple of teachers and I watched the video of the meetings. Tell me what I reported that was incorrect. It all came from the county videos. If it wasn’t on those videos, I sure wasn’t reporting it.
I was incendiary? Probably. Why not be incendiary. I have watched videos of school board meetings before. Parents stood in the back of the room and hooted and made rude remarks. Staff and teachers were accused of being on the take and all sorts of other things. I stop watching for a while and then pick up again and frankly, not much has changed. It appears that the same people who were on the war path over MI now had their haatchet lady at the helm and she chopped.
I heard 65 to 16 in favor of adopting envision from the video. You know, there is nothing like a video to tell the whole story. That isn’t even close. The middle school text books were messed with. What made me the maddest? Those school board members who paid lip service and then took the chicken way out and messing with the middle school text selection. Oh, and did I mention the arrogance of those board members who think their opinions replace the opinions of 65 highly trained professionals.
I can afford to be incendiary. No one on the school board is going to come after me and threaten my job. That must be a real pisser. An untouchable. I am not running for office so you can’t vote me off the island.
Prince William County employees can’t be incendiary. That is the reason I don’t allow employees of PWC or the City to be trashed on this blog. They can’t talk back. I will also never release their IP address to anyone. City or County.
As long as there is video, I will continue to speak out. The most dangerous people in the world are people who have nothing to lose. They might tell the truth. And speaking of truth, opinions are neither true or false. They are just opinions. however, if I state something thawt isn’t true and someone shows me where I was wrong, I will gladly correct it.
I have no experience with the PWC school system administration, but know that much of county staff, in particular senior staff, has a record of lying, incompetence and conflicts of interest. In that sense I agree completely with Mom. Mom seems also to have a great deal of experience with school system staff so I’m not discounting anything being said in that realm. I don’t think Mom or anyone else is criticizing teachers here. To a large extent they are caught in the middle. Bureaucracy is our target.
Here’s another telling story from my experience in the 90s with the college that decided to chose the lowest common denominator over excellence. One of the assistant deans was a control freak bureaucrat who tried to dominate the faculty and manipulate their every step. Her background was in education and she had a graduate degree in education. She told me once that her background made her more qualified to teach college courses in my field than I was. This despite the fact that I had two graduate degrees and abundant practical experience in the field. That was her attitude regarding all faculty in all fields of study.
One would think that the wise course of action would be to ignore such nonsense and such people. However, the new dean who had been hired about a year before I resigned started giving her and people like her great latitude and control over faculty. The previous dean prior to his retirement had for years focused on fund raising, and relations with alumni and the business community. He left the faculty alone to do their jobs.
This was in reality an existential question as the bureaucrats (administration) rather than the educators needed to justify their presence. They did that by exercising a ham-handed, incompetent and altogether unnecessary dictatorship over the faculty who knew what students taking their courses needed to accomplish.
By the way, my family’s experience with PWC public school teachers has been excellent. I want to be reassured that they will be allowed to teach my children what they need to excel and be able to master the hard subjects later on in life.
@Need to Know
That’s it in a nutshell.
Site based management used to be great but MI did away with that and the burocrats took over.
I do not see teachers as academic staff. I consider teachers to be teachers. Academic staff, to me, are the bureaucrats on the hill.
Denita Ramirez was told point blank in public session by academic staff that the math test scores in schools in her district had improved under Math Investigations. She said that gave her comfort that the program was a success. I pulled the scores for the schools in her district and it turned out that pass rates were down in 75% of the schools in her district. Two weeks alter a friend of mine addressed the board and listed the scores and increases or decreases for each school in Ms Ramirez’s district. Mrs Ramirez responded by accusing her of attacking the good teachers and administrators in schools in her district. She apparently had no concerns with district academic staff lying to her or the citizens of our county.
Would you consider having a school board member identify the school your children attend in open session and state that perhaps the problem was with my child or my child’s school and not the instructional program an attack? Would you consider having the Principal at your school bad mouth you to your children’s teachers and other parents before the school year begins because of your concerns about the math program an attack?
Google Prince William County Schools, Where Rules Don’t Matter and watch the video. I was one of the parents the attack was directed at. All because I dared to say that I didn’t think Math Investigations was a good program, because I dared to verify the assertions of county academic staff and expose them when they lied, and because I dared to hold the school division accountable for following the laws of this state. I actually have a ruling from the Attorney General that Prince William County School does have to follow the Virginia Administrative Code. Amazingly, at one point PWCS actually claimed that they didn’t have to follow state law!
I used my name in my posts here, listed my email address, and have no idea what your email address is to send you anything. Anyone who sent you something horrible ought to be ashamed of themselves, because that’s not acceptable behavior.
If it is, it never came from me. I know I was attacked in public and in private, and my husband believes that my activism has led to retribution against our children by our school’s administration (thankfully not out school’s teachers). I have chosen to remain silent on things I’ve seen in our school system, both administratively and in my local school, that I think are reprehensible because I fear more retribution against my children. Just posting my support for the school board’s decision to reject the school division’s recommendation under my name has me filled with dread.
I wish it weren’t this way. I wish people could trust that could express concerns with the way the government is doing things and not be subject to harassment or intimidation, and especially not feel like their children will be harassed or intimidated.
I also wish I had a flying pony and could still fit into a size 6. The flying pony may happen but the size 6 is soooooo never gonna happen.
No one should be attacking you. If they did, they owe you an apology.
@KimS
That’s why we are a little sensitive. I was called into an ambush meeting with the associate and a bunch of teachers and admins after I spoke out against the math program NOT against the school.
I was told I shouldn’t be bad-mouthing the school to the board (I never mentioned the school).
I was blunt with you for the reasons stated above and I appologized for that and I do so again here but perhaps you understand some of what went on and why we are all a bit gun-shy.
If you re-read your original post, I think you will spot some of the accusations that caused the upset.
@Ed
Sorry, I meant moon-howler’s original blog post 😉
@Ed, I am sure I did step on some toes. I accept your apology. You also didn’t know the blog rules and lay of the land, so let’s just start over. Deal?
I am an older parent than you are. I have had 4 kids in PWC schools. Some of my gkids are in PWC schools. For the most part, it has been a good experience. I want to reassure you.
My oldest is my stepson who lived with us the entire time he was in school. When he was in 6th grade, I got called into Marstellar and told that the boy just didn’t know his multiplication tables. I had worked with the kid until we were both blue in the face, for years. I think I started in 3rd grade and 3 years later, the scenery had not changed. I even have this picture of him sitting at his little desk, in PJs, hollering and crying because I was making him sit there and do flash cards.
We wrote the tables. We sang the tables. I taught him to play jacks. (he was humiliated) So when the old bat 6th grade teacher (who might have been only a couple years older than I was) called me in, I definitely felt like I had been sent to the principal. So she lashed into me about helping him and that is was my job as a parent, (blah blah blah) You know, back in those days the teachers took more liberties with parents.
I told her that I worked with him all the time, etc. She said I needed to do more. By then I was frustrated and indignant. I told her that if he hadn’t gotten them by now, he was just going to have to learn them through osmosis and stomped out.
He must have learned them. He graduated from high school and he graduated from college. For about 15 years he has owned and managed his own mutual fund and he makes money hand over fist. He handles more money belonging to other people in a day than I will probably ever see in my lifetime. Reagan was president when he graduated from high school.
So it all works out. I would not have thought the kid would amount to a hill of beans that day in 6th grade. But he did and life ticks on. I don’t think that the others learned the times tables on time either. My daughter probably did but the darn boys didn’t. I tried. They just didn’t think it was important I guess.
I tell you this because it sounds like things haven’t changed. They didn’t know how to do fractions and they were weak with basic facts. It is simply the kid condition.
I expect the gkids don’t know them either but I’ll be darned if I let any old bat teacher 20-30 years my junior take me to task over it!!
@Kim,
I am going to let your story be your story without feeling the need to chime in on it. After all, its your story and coming from your perspective.
I have some PWC county stories involving my kids, that looking back, just should not have happened. I ate a few of those also, for the same reason. At least one of mine was very serious (as opposed to just being annoying) but I feared reprisal.
I hope my story to Ed makes you smile just a little.
I have not condemned or defended MI. I have only observed it a few times and have only worked one on one with it with a g-child. My knowledge base is not sufficient to defend it as an entire math program. I also am a big believer in different styles of learning for different people. I would probably be there calling for a mix of both traditional and inquiry.
My outrage goes to how it all went down. I think teachers really know best what works, especially collectively. I felt like they were dissed. I don’t mean 1 teacher. I mean a bunch of them. If 65 teachers like a program and 15 like something different, that says something to me.
It was obvious that the issue had been discussed and not in public. That bothers me. I witnessed eye contact being made, you know, reaffirming eye contact. Most people don’t even realize they are doing it.
And yes, again, the middle school text book selection comes up. That should not have happened. Middle school is deceptive. The certification even changes in middle school. In other words, your 6th grade math teacher might not be able to just walk into 8th grade and get a job. Its problematic and math specialists probably are the ones who know best there. They can see the entire picture.
Break time….
I have been truly amazed at the way parents have successfully mobilized to move the school board on this issue. I just wish they were equally determined to move both of our boards on class size, assessment, and compensation – all factors that arguably have far more impact on student learning than textbook selection.
Totally agree, observer. I wish I had thought of it.
Class size will become more critical the longer PWC is in ‘save mode.’
Something decision makers rarely think of, especially for high school and middle school levels–if a teacher has 37 kids in one class, you have to keep 37 desks in that class all the time. The fact that there are no bodies in them really doesn’t mean a thing. Many classrooms simply aren;t designed to hold that many students.
I’d love to help there but there is only a certain amount of money.
I need an achievable goal.
While I fully support the teachers, their pension costs went up way more than the cost of a pay raise due to poor market performance. I wish I had that kind of benefit.
Clearly, we spend to much on admin and I’m not an accountant.
Can you get the board of republican supervisors to raise taxes? I don’t know.
@Ed, it doesnt cost money to lobby locally. The pension costs went up because the state used the VRS like an ATM. Paying into VRS got delayed and now it is time for the chickens to come home to roost.
You hit the nail on the head. The tax rate needs to be set higher. Corey won’t agree to that because he wants to run for higher office on an ‘I
didnt raise your taxes’ ticket.
I wish you all would work on just class size. That is a place to start. It is the one thing that really matters in the grand scheme of things that seems to make the biggest difference in quality instruction.
The VRS is tricky. It was in grand shape, especially compared to other states until recently. The market has come back. The state wasn’t putting in enough. They weren’t skimping, as I understand it, but the legislature wouldn’t mandate the right amounts. This has been an ongoing problem, both D and R.
I think a lot of the admin could be gotten rid of if there was no more NCLB. Don’t get me started there. I am like a broken record. Someone shut me off.
@Moon-howler
I think you are a little off base.
Most of us support a “fair” selection process and I’m pretty sure Alysson does too.
The reason she is there and the reason we don’t trust the process is MI.
They brought in an MI advocate to kick of the text selection last time and tell them what to look for and then paid her to do PD in the county. That’s not right.
Which last time do you mean, Ed? Do you mean last summer when the people were selected for the text book process? Please elaborate. Can you document that someone was paid for consulting services.
I guess I don’t see the connection. I am confused. The county was using MI in elementary school. No one sneaked and did this. It had the support of the Superintendant. Different programs are tried everywhere in the United States. You all are talking like these folks are doing something bad or dishonest. What it amounts to is you don’t like it. Other parents to. However, like most things, those on the defense have to get better organized and louder.
I never got into the MI good or bad side. I took a brief look or two or three and decided I had paid my dues. It doesn’t matter what this was over. It doesn’t matter if it was math or English or science or social studies. The process was hi jacked by the school board. It was a hostile take over. No one said boo over it. The public was not informed. The papers didn’t cover it.
Let’s get down to specifics. Let’s just cut one little chunk out of the pie. Why were the texts selected for the middle school program ditched and replaced with something else? What is the justification for that?
As much as you all wanted to prevail, and you pretty much did, you aren’t the only people in the county. Many people liked and saw the value of the program. To you, the ends justify the means. But, what if some time in the future, you are part of the other side. What if unethical means are employed to get rid of something you like? The precedent has been set now.
@Ed, relating to an earlier conversation. I simply can’t decipher all this. I am not sure where we stand.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/mar/16/1/tdmain01-localities-await-particulars-of-gas-retir-ar-1769838/
@Moon-howler
I rfer to the previous text adoption, the one that chose MI. Ruth Parker opened the proceedings and guided them towards MI. Then she came down to do paid proffesional developement in MI.
They ditched big ideas because it’s selection was driven by the marketting not the content. You would have had a scramble to get kids into extended and away from it. The committee was split over big ideas/math connects. It wasn’t exactly out of left field.
The privous cycle was hijacked by the admin; we did what we could to take it back.
@Moon-howler
I would be happy to see them offer constructivist math as an alternative but it is not ethical to experiment on our children without our approval.
It is highly unethical to skew and cherry-pick the results to hide it’s failings.
They have no one but themselves to blame.
Nothing we did was unethical. Old-school, pointing out the facts and making noise until it finally sinks in.
If they do away with a program I “like” but have no evidence for, I’ll just have to accept it and move on. If I have evidence and am passionate enough, I’ll make a fuss.
I think Ed already responded to this, but in the adoption 6 years ago a well known advocate of reform / constructivist math who had openly recommended Math Investigations was hired by the school district to “advise” the textbook adoption committee on what they should be looking for in a textbook. Once the division selected Investigations she then secured a contract with the division to provide professional development to our teachers.
The process the division followed to select Investigations, which had not been recommended by the VA DOE as a K – 5 series, did not appear to follow VA DOE regulations that are part of the Virginia Administrative Code. We went round and round on this with the school division at the time, ended up with a ruling from the VA Attorney General that PWCS does actually have to follow state law, and had meetings with the Chair of the VA BOE regarding the issue. She told us that it wasn’t the VA BOE’s job to enforce the rules and regulations it passes and that if we felt we had a case we should pursue it in court.
So that, among so many other things, led some of us parents to develop a somewhat skeptical and mistrusting attitude towards the school division and the academic staff at Independent Hill.
This time around there were no “education experts” who did the kickoff – it was just the committee. The only concerning aspect of the process was the sales demos, which were held at the end of the process. They took so long there wasn’t any time for discussion afterwards and we had to vote on our selections at the next meeting, so there really wasn’t any time to review our notes or discuss the materials again. That’s why the school board asked for the ratings of the texts from the evaluation forms as opposed to the sticker vote tallies. The ratings on the evaluation forms, at least the ones that weren’t updated, reflect the committee members opinions on the texts before the sales demos. The sticker vote tallies reflect their feelings after the sales demos.
I’ve seen evaluations done by other school divisions, and they used a score that combines the points awarded based on the evaluation rubric and then sales demo into one number.
Quote from MH “I guess I don’t see the connection. I am confused. The county was using MI in elementary school. No one sneaked and did this. It had the support of the Superintendant.”
When Investigations was adopted by the division it was not the approved text. It was being used in several schools and in some classrooms in schools around the county. The division says the early implementation schools and classrooms weren’t pilots even though the teacher’s satisfaction with the program was cited by division staff as justification for adopting Investigations and mandating it county-wide. We actually began referring to the schools and classes as non-pilot pilots – and the reason the division couldn’t call them schools / classes pilots is because parental consent is required before a division can pilot non-state or division recommended materials or programs in classrooms, and that consent had never been obtained.
Not to speak for Ed, but when he says the program was sneaked in, I think he’s referencing the dishonestly from division staff regarding Investigations.
Division staff never disclosed that Investigations was not recommended by the VA BOE / DOE for use as a K – 5 series. It was recommended for K – 3 and grade 5, but not for grade 4. It was rejected by the VA DOE / BOE for inadequate content match with the VA SOLs. To be honest, I’m not ever sure staff were aware that Investigations wasn’t state recommended as a K – 5 series because they claimed it was for more than a year, until one day they finally admitted it.
Division staff also either did extremely poor research or intentionally mislead the school board about the extent of the controversy and reasons for the controversy regarding Math Investigations. The School Board knew that Investigations was controversial and had asked division staff to report on the reasons for the controversy. Staff reported back that the controversies were due to inadequate professional development of teachers and poor communication with parents communities. The sources they consulted regarding the controversy were the speaker mentioned above who was an advocate of Math Investigations and the textbook publisher. They never contacted any of the multiple school division mired in controversy to obtain their opinions or any of the groups actively fighting Investigations to discuss their concerns – and there were and still are plenty of them. They never consulted mathematicians who live in this are and are involved in K – 12 issues to get their opinions. Just the speaker who’d advocated Investigations and the textbook publisher.
Then there was the evidence of success provided by the textbook publisher that division staff provided the school board. One of our parents contacted the school divisions listed in that report and discovered that the majority of them had dumped Investigations because of declining test scores in math and reading and the large percentage of children who didn’t have the foundational skills to do middle school level math.
There was also the less than open discussion of what adopting a curriculum like Investigations would mean. Investigations is based on an instructional philosophy known as reform or constructivist math (it has other names as well). The approach it follows was sharply different from the approach we’d been using and, at least from my perspective, adopting this curricula was more than just adopting a new textbook. Staff balked at that characterization at the time and claimed it was just a textbook. Now here we are 6 years later, and the truth is finally emerging as staff are now stating that when we adopted Investigations we adopted a reform or constructivist approach to mathematics education.
All of that is water under the bridge now. I just provided it to give you an idea of where the mistrust and skepticism has originated.
I followed the MI controversy here somewhat. It wasn’t on my front burner so I didn’t get into details. I suppose I was aware of the highlights and lowlights. I have lived around here for a long time and this certainly wasn’t the first disagreement I have seen over various teaching methods and processes. Whole language made a big splash also.
As for mathematicians, math educators haven’t even settled on calculator use yet. How can anything else be settled?
My point still rests on the process. Actually the water under the bridge should really have no bearing on what happened in February. At the very least, the committee should have been sent back and given a different directive or whatever it takes. The school board should never be in the business of chosing a text series like that.
They answer to me as much as they do to you. I plan on paying a lot closer attention now I see how things are going to be. I remember some big old guy…I won’t mention any names because it has been so many years ago…drove a red sports car who sort of decided he was a one man school board until the others decided they weren’t going to do his bidding.
I believe I am trying to say over reach. That is what I saw in the video. Over-reach.
Pardon the repetition, but you don’t have that many different people giving an opinion and spending that much time evaluating only to have the new kid on the block come in and smack them all in the face. That really is what happened.
What I find amusing is the City is going through a school upheavel. They want to improve their school system and are looking for ways to bring up their test scores.
The bottom line is no one wants to see innovation. Fix the test scores but don’t try anything different. Most parents would be very happy if schools taught just like they did back when they were in school. To do otherwise disturbs their comfort zone.
That’s just one of those ‘JUST Is’ situations of life.
The City needs to be mindful of what happened in the county and learn from it.
Our recent guests here have talked as though most of central office has some sort of personal gain from much of what has been discussed. That simply is not true.
Trying to catch up and my internet connection is acting up, so please forgive me if I hit on something that’s already been discussed. I’m also trying to do smaller posts, but to answer all the questions means more frequent posts.
Per MH “Let’s get down to specifics. Let’s just cut one little chunk out of the pie. Why were the texts selected for the middle school program ditched and replaced with something else? What is the justification for that?”
I can’t address the specifics because I’m not a school board member and have been told their thoughts, but here’s my best guess.
The committee had selected Big Ideas Course 1 & 2 for 6th and 7th grade Math, VA Pre-Algebra for 8th grade math, Math Connects Course 2 for extended 6th grade math, and Prentice Hall Course 3 for extended 7th grade math. That’s 5 different books with different content expectations and no consistency for MS math.
Teacher comments on the evaluation forms for Big Ideas noted that the text was lacking in rigor and wouldn’t be enough for our more advanced students. So you had a less rigorous text being selected for students in the regular classes and more rigorous texts for kids in the extended classes. You also had a 7th grade text approved for 6th grade extended math, in a class where at least half of the standards and expectations come from the 6th grade SOLs. The rating between Prentice Hall Course 3 and Connects Course 3 for 7th grade extended math was close according to the evaluation rubrics, so I’ll call that one a toss up.
So the net effect was two tracks in Middle school – one with lower expectations and materials for our regulars students and one with higher expectations and materials for our extended students. You also had the rather unfortunate statement of a school division employee that the students in the “regular” classes really weren’t expected to do 4 years of high school math (which means they won’t be going to college as you need 4 years of HS math to be eligible for general admission to most 4 year colleges).
From what I gathered, that didn’t sit well with many people.
Our extended math classes are supposed to be accelerated instruction that compresses 3 years of instruction into 2. They are supposed to be for our students who are willing to work hard and able to meet those increased academic demands and enables them to take Calculus in High School. Our regular classes are supposed to be to the same standards and expectations as the extended classes, just with the state’s suggested pacing of instruction. These classes aren’t supposed to be the college bound and non-college bound kids and aren’t supposed to be the “dumb” kids versus the “smart” kids.
So I think that two track thing – with one track using much more complex materials and the other using less complex materials – just didn’t sit well. You also had several teachers on the textbook committee admit that the reason the less complex text was selected for the regular classes was because of the knowledge deficiencies they were seeing in the students arriving from elementary school.
So I believe the decision was made, and I’m just speculating here so I could very easily be wrong, but the decision was made to use the same series from K – 8th grade so that there wouldn’t be knowledge gaps and there wouldn’t be two different tracks with different expectations in middle school. Using one series from k – 8th grade means where the 5th grade book leaves off, the 6th grade book picks up, instead of the 5th grade book ending as M and the 6th grade book beginning at Q. It also means that what you expect comprehension wise from a student in regular math versus a student in extended math is the same, you just expect that the student in the extended class will reach that level of comprehension faster and, as such, is in a class that has accelerated instruction.
That’s just what I’ve gathered was the thinking there.
@Kim,
I want to address what you just said but I have to be out for a while. I also have to get book names etched into my brain. Bear with me..or is that bare with me….I shall return.
@Moon-howler
Try something different in math is risky and has failed badly before. Not being honest about the results is the absolute pits.
I’m not against inovation as long as the results are carefully and honestly monitored.
They would admit nothing; we had to force it out into the open with statistics and FOIA requests. They tried all the tricks they could to dissarm the opponents; besides getting better results that is.
If you talk with many college level mathematicians, they’ll tell you that calculators in elementary school is a bad thing. Calculators in high school, especially graphing calculators, are a different story.
While calculator use is a big point of contention, I don’t think it’s the primary one. I think the primary point of contention is what isn’t taught in reform / constructivist courses that the mathematicians I’ve spoken with believe is vital to developing the foundational understanding of mathematics that is necessary to succeed in math dependent fields.
Dr Frank Quinn has an article he recently published about this called THE REFORM CURRICULUM IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE FOR HIGH-TECH CAREERS (or tech killer) that you might find interesting. The most important thing about his article is that he teaches at Virginia Tech and he’s discussing Virginia schools. But, like you said, that’s water under the bridge.
I agree with you about the water under the bridge. Certainly the acts of the past affected the level of trust I put in the process, which was why I volunteered to serve on the committee, but what happened happened and can’t be changed.
As for the process, I’m not sure I agree with you on the finality of the committee recommendations. The committee’s job is to recommend a text to the school board and the school board’s job is to either accept or reject what they recommend. The school board isn’t there to just rubber stamp whatever the division wants to do.
In this case the committee was split – both at the elementary and middle school levels until the sales demos. The ratings and comments on the evaluation forms are evidence of that. The lackluster justification for selecting the texts shows that as well.
The only reasons enVisions was selected over Connects in elementary school was its on-line materials and support for inquiry based instruction like we have with Investigations. The only reason Big Ideas was selected over Connects in middle school was it was a less challenging text and would make it easier to fill the gaps from elementary school. None of those are particularly compelling reasons and both of them would have continued and expanded the instructional approach that just doesn’t seem to be working. If kids don’t get subtraction in 3rd grade or don’t know their math facts in 5th grade, the program you’re using isn’t working.
So the school board chose to make a change and went with Connects. That is within their authority.
Having been around the block more than a few times, I hope the division actually tries to implement the program effectively and doesn’t set it up to fail. I said earlier that transition won’t be easy, and it won’t be. Our kids have become accustomed to doing a handful of problems to demonstrate fluency, at best, and will be expected to crank through 20 problems or increasing difficulty without complaint. That’s a huge hurdle to overcome. I saw a video by a psychologist about “habits of the mind” and the only thing I can equate it to is our kids have developed the habit of doing just a few problems to demonstrate that they “get” something, and having to do 10 – 20 problems in one sitting, alone, will be a shock to them.
And that’s just the work issues. When it comes to fluency, that’s a whole other story. At a very high level, and only focusing on one content area…….
Kids entering 3rd grade it’ll probably just be addition and subtraction facts and the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction that will be expected but haven’t been taught.
For kids entering 4th grade it’ll be addition and subtraction facts, the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction, and multiplication and division facts to automatic recall that will be expected but haven’t been taught or achieved.
For kids entering 5th grade it’ll be addition and subtraction facts, the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction, multiplication and division facts, the standard algorithms for multiplication and long division, simplifying fractions without graphical representations, and adding and subtracting fractions with dissimilar denominators without graphical representations.
Some of the kids will already know this stuff, so that could make it easier, but if the majority of them don’t, then we’re looking at a very difficult start of the year. And all of it is predicated on our teachers having the materials and knowledge they need to provide that level of instruction. That’s a lot of ifs and a lot of places where inadequate prep can and will come back to bite us.
@KimS
Kim, you seem to have a very good grasp of the problems they are going to face.
I mentioned at more than one board meeting that the transition to the traditional program in middle school was going to be a challenge and I don’t think they took me seriously. I am not familiar with the buzzwords over here so probably was not understood.
Clearly, the transition from math investigations to a more main stream program is going to be harder still.
I only hope the math department have the childrens’ best interest at heart and take on the task.
Mastery of the basics is still the best grounding you can give them; that’s why we spend so much time doing times tables in the car. I think the summer work books that the PTA paid for brought my son’s math on way more than a year of investigaitons…
Kim,
They will be taught the curriculum for whatever grade they are in, just like they were last year and the year before. Prince William County Schools never got an exemption from teaching the curriculum and when I say curriculum, I mean the VA SOL math objectives for that grade level.
Teaching basic facts doesn’t have to be tied to much of anything including English.
Now back to the process for me. I had to say that first part. It is critical actually.
I guess the school board can do anything they want to do until they are challenged legally or individuals are challenged at the ballot box. That of course, is setting ethics aside. Prince William County will continue to have difficulty attracting math teachers if the practice of over-riding teacher recommendation gets out. You are aware that it is often difficult to fill math positions, especially if a teacher leaves mid-year? The higher the level, the more difficult it becomes. Is this School Board as concerned over math classes being taught by permanent subsitutes when no certified teachers can be found? They should be. Are they concerned by the number of special needs being placed in math classes? Are they concerned by the number of students in general being placed in math classes? They should be.
What do you mean by rigorous and how rigorous should a regular (not extended) text book be? I would think that it should be able to be read by most of the students which would include most sped and ESOL or whatever the term of the week is for limited English speakers. I kept hearing ‘rigorous’ and no one ever says what they mean. Difficulty of problems, number of word problems, number of problems, difficulty of concepts all might make a person say ‘rigorous.’
The bottom line is, if the textbook isn’t the right resource to use, the teachers will simply leave it on the shelf and spend your hard earned tax dollars running off worksheet after worksheet of problems that best help them give students practice with the objective being taught. That is the reality.
Not all students enrolled in extended 6th or 7th math will take Algebra. Some will need more time. If they go to Algebra before they are ready (usually having nothing to do with prior instruction but actual math maturity) it is generally to the detriment of that student. So what to do with him or her? That student will take Pre Algebra. I hope that kid won’t be repeating the same book he or she used in 7th grade extended. That would be too bad. It’s an ego thing.
I have yet to hear a good explanation for meddling with the middle school textbook selection. I think KimS gave it her best shot but she failed not because of lack of effort but because there isn’t a good reason. Notice that the recommendation had different texts for different levels? There was a reason. The needs of the 6th grade curriculum are different than that of Pre-Algebra and the extended classes are even more unique. Those teachers serving on those committees know what is needed for those courses at the grade level they teach.
The School Board needs to lead. They failed to do so. Perhaps Mrs. Satterwhite will learn that as she becomes more experienced since she was first out of the gate fulfilling her campaign promises.
Leading might include a directive, usually given to the Superintendant as to what the goals and wishes of the School Board actually are for textbook selection. The direct intervention was heavy handed and signaled to everyone in Prince William County a vote of no confidence in the math department, whether that was the intention or not. It said, we do not trust you all (collective math department and teachers) to even pick out a textbook to support the curriculum. Is that really the message that the School Board meant to send? If you cannot trust those professionals to pick out a textbook, how can you trust them with your children?
One can only hope that no one was watching. The School Board needs to apologize to every math teacher in the county and if they were smart, they would undo the mess they made at the middle school level. What they did clearly indicates that they are unware of the types of programs that actually taught and the needs of the students in those courses. The School Board needs to lead, not pound on the desk. They pounded.
@Ed
I believe the so called problems are hypothetical. It could be that your child and the rest of the kiddies will enter 6th grade with a lot more in-depth understanding of math concepts and will be more successful than previous classes of students.
PWC is a fairly mobile demographic. Kids move in and out. The ones who move it are up to speed in nothing flat. It probably has a lot to do with the dedicated math teachers in Prince William County and the strong program that is in place.
I know a young man who moved in and out of MI then back into MI. He never missed a beat. Interestingly enough, this kid had his grandfather teaching him algebra he had such a good understanding of what made math tick.
At what point will the anti-MI parents (Pardon the nomenclature but I don’t know what else to call you all.) decide to move on? I never got to the bottom of my initial problem with the school board because all explanation was colored by dislike of MI. I just hope that the SB will not do that again. They have the authority but lack the credentials to make the best choice.
Please take on class size next. It really has a great deal more bearing on learning in the long run.
@Moon-howler We’ll move on when the math department get real and drop MI. It was not research based and did not improve performance, quite the opposite. It is the math department that owes the oppology.
So, class sizes. Unfortunately, it’s a question of money and where it is spent. The teachers wanted a pay raise. They made a lot of fuss and got what they wanted at the expense of the kids by increasing class sizes.
The ecconmy, while imrpoving has a long way to go. The county needs to raise revenue but without additional ecconomic activity, that would mean raising taxes on those that are already struggling. A very difficult thing to justify.
The teachers wanted a raise? How dare them! They made a fuss? They haven’t had a step increase for 3 years. The teachers aren’t getting a raise this year.
How about all the parents who liked the math program? Are you all going to go to war over this? Ed, I don’t think anyone has done more to prove my point than you have. Why on earth do you think the math dept. owes you an apology? There is plenty of research behind MI.
Didn’t happen last year; you had lower 6th grade SOL results especially advanced and I heard of multiple complaints from middle school teachers over a lack of math skills.
1. The SOL tests are not the only measure of success.
2. Test scores everywhere were lower.
3. All middle school students were complaining or just the 6th grade teachers? Where was this happening?
1. Not the only measure but a good indicator and the one used to jsutify things to the board when they are positive.
2. But ours were lower. We dropped in state ranking so on average, we did poorly.
3. Obviously, I don’t have access to all middle school teachers. I have only heard it from 6th grade.
Don’t get me wrong, some better explanation is good. I like explaining 17+23 as 10 + 20 and 7 + 3. They do it that way in Europe for very young children but understanding comes from practice not discussing different ways to add up. They need to quickly move onto more efficient methods.
I wasn’t saying they didn’t deserve on, I was just being practical.
The only people who stood up for MI at board meetings were a small group of teachers and a personal friend of one of the staff. There was no parent revolt in support of MI.
There is no valid research to support inquiry based math and the admin did not follow proper procedure for an experimental program.
They continue to push unproven methods because of their belief shift which has no basis in fact. They are seriously damaging the kids’ futures in science and technology and this period will be looked back on with as much distain as modern math of the 1970s.
They have learned nothing from the past.
@Ed It sure sounded to me like you were faulting the teachers for wanting a raise. Did you get a raise in the past year or so? If you didn’t, were you happy over the fact you didn’t? I keep seeing teachers across the United States who aren’t getting raises and people acting like they had some hell of a nerve for wanting more money. Its a US theme these days to blame public employees for wanting to earn a decent living.
I would say that most parents don’t get worked up over various programs and most parents think that the teachers should be making those decisions. I know many people who said that gang of parents were so mean they just didn’t want to get involved or get their name out there. I can only liken it to when the FLE program was being implemented. The only parents who bellowed were those who didn’t want it at all. Everyone else was afraid to get into the thick of it and figured that if got taken out that should be part of family life, it was easier to handle it themselves than to get tangled up in brewhaha in public. Its always small bands of people. Boundary changes seem to draw a big crowd but that has an end in sight.
Really, don’t assume that because no one else formed a parent group that it meant they agreed with you. I would assume someone agreed only if they joined your group. Does your group have a name, by the way?
Is there a procedre for experimental programs in the county? State? Is MI experiemental? Lots of district used it and other Montesorri type programs that have been around a long long time. Programs come and programs go and other programs get modified. There are always going to be new challenges and new needs in mathematics as technology changes, job needs change, student demographics change and as state and federal requirements change.
Ed, how many adults do you know who say they are stupid in math or that they can’t do math? I know lots. You won’t see any adult saying that they are stupid in reading and that they can’t read. No one brags about illiteracy. Yet they feel perfectly fine and justfied saying that they are innumerate. How on earth do you combat that attitude? What makes it socially acceptable for millions of people to claim to be stupid and unable to perform one of the core subjects in school? What makes math teachers go to school sick all the time? They can’t get substitutes for their classes.
What motivates those charged with finding a better mouse trap? Do you seriously think the math staff/teachers in Prince William County have some evil plot against your kid? They want kids to be successful in math. The old ways don’t necessarily work for all or most kids. Lots of the parents are giggling and saying they can’t even balance their checkbooks. The math staff/teachers aren’t sitting in some ivory tower trying to feed their egos by inventing some razzle dazzle math program. They aren’t doing R & D for some corporation trying to make their first million. They are taking a look at all kids, doing reading research, and trying to implement programs that will ensure more math success for ALL children.
All I can say, Ed, is I hope my children never have the middle school teachers you have been hearing about because good middle school teachers don’t blame their kids or their colleagues in elementary school when their students don’t perform to their expectations.
Standing ovation to Observer.
@Observer
I agree but I think they were blaming the elementary program as they had to do a lot of remedial work this year.
I don’t think they are happy about all the enquiry based PD they are getting either.
Middle school has been doing a great job of getting the kids ready for high school and I don’t think they see the changes as positive. Just my gut feeling…
Ed, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that whoever was blaming the elementary program for shortcomings to parents was being extremely unprofessional. Furthermore, at that level, its those teachers’ job to shore up any deficiencies. Now iy is the job of the algebra, calculus or geometry to teach the multiplication tables? I don’t think so. But kids moving from grade level to grade level, yea, its their job to bridge the gap. Kids forget and some concepts and skills are more difficult to retain than others. Then there are fractions. All self respecting kids forget hot to do fractions. It is the curse of kids and math combined.
I don’t know – my kids are in a PWCS elementary school and still routinely have to do a lot of the things that many of you suggest have disappeared like timed calculation drills, 1-20+ problems at a sitting, etc. From where I sit, it looks like our quality elementary teachers have continued to use their professional judgement to utilize all available resources and methods to make sure the kids are learning what they need to know for success at the next level.
Middle school teachers blaming elementary teachers and high school teachers blaming middle school teacher and students is unfortunately a phenomena that is as old as the hills. I don’t know that it is a particularly accurate measure of the effectiveness of curricula, programs, or textbooks.
Observer, that has sure been my experience also. I was sitting here thinking that I either lived in a different county and someone forgot to tell me or else my gkids moved and forgot to tell me.
You are so right about all that you said.
Problem is it varies from school to school depending on their philosophy and teacher to teacher depending on their experience and abilities. As you say, in many ways, it always has.
And no I don’t think drills are the only way or even the best way to learn math.
They just need enough practice and mastery of useful alogorithms so they can get to the next stage without having to figure out the right stategy for the underlying calculation.
Math Investigations claimed that the standard (or US) algorithm is harmful to their math deveopment. I still had to fight in 4th grade to have my child be allowed to use it because the teacher “didn’t like” his explanation of how it worked. Never mind that he couldn’t explain how the MI methods worked.
@Ed
1. So you are telling me that there were some positive results?
2. SOL scores–what other changes might have influenced your test scores? Tell me the years and which grade levels please. Were there boundary changes or a new influx of kids? How much did test scores come down? Did a teacher resign and the school not replace him/her with a certified teacher (which often happens)? Were the scores you were talking about division wide, school wide, and for all grade levels in which MI was taught?
3. I already commented on 6th grade teachers. Another thing, It used to be that 6th grade teachers could hold elementary certification rather than math certification. Is that still the case or has the state changed all that?
I am going to disagree that increased practice increases understanding. Increased practice increases accuracy more than understanding if the practice is done correctly. Increased practice increases proficiency if done correctly. I keep throwing in the word correctly because it doesn’t help anyone to do 20 problems a night and to do them wrong. You don’t want to reinforce bad habits.
Your child is lucky that you cared enough to go to school and sit in his/her class and observe his math. Your child is lucky to have you at home in the evening to help with assignments and to sort out the school day.
Lots of kid don’t have that kind of help. Their parents are working 2-3 jobs and no one helps with homework. Those kids need to understand more than the average bear.