The Washington Post's Front Page headlines Math Investigations
today! IT stated many issues with the program! You need to email or
write Loudoun School Board immediately and you will get results.
Parents Rise Up Against A New Approach to Math
By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 19, 2008; A01
Greg Barlow, an Air Force officer in the defense secretary's office
at the Pentagon, was helping his 8-year-old son, Christian, one
recent night with a vexing problem: What is 674 plus 249?
The Prince William County third-grader did not stack the numbers and
carry digits from one column to the next, the way generations have
learned. Applying lessons from his school's new math
textbook, "Investigations in Number, Data, and Space," Christian
tried breaking the problem into easier-to-digest numbers.
But after several seconds, he got stumped. He drew lines connecting
digits, and his computation amounted to an upside-down pyramid with
numbers at the bottom. His father, in a teacherly tone, nudged him
toward the old-fashioned method. "How would you do that another
way?" Barlow asked.
In Prince William and elsewhere in the country, a math textbook
series has fomented upheaval among some parents and teachers who say
its methods are convoluted and fail to help children master basic
math skills and facts. Educators who favor the series say it helps
young students learn math in a deeper way as they prepare for the
rigors of algebra.
The debate over "Investigations in Number, Data, and Space," a
Pearson School series used in thousands of elementary classrooms,
including some in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Howard counties,
is one of the newer fronts in the math wars. Such battles over
textbooks and teaching methods are fueled in part by the anxieties
of parents who often feel powerless over their children's education,
especially in subjects they know.
The curriculum, introduced in the 1990s and updated in a second
edition issued last fall, offers one answer to the nation's
increasingly urgent quest for stronger elementary math education.
The nonprofit organization TERC, based in Cambridge, Mass.,
developed "Investigations" with support from the National Science
Foundation.
Some experts and parents find it wanting. "There's very little
substance. I read through all the kindergarten curriculum. It's
wishy-washy," said Steve Santee, an engineer whose daughter Olivia
is in first grade at Cedar Point Elementary School in Prince
William. "My wife and I are very fortunate. She's a former math
teacher, and we can teach her all the way up to calculus."
Learning Less by Heart
The program de-emphasizes memorization and drills and pushes
students to use more creative ways to find answers, such as drawing
pictures, playing games and using objects. Prince William officials
say "Investigations," which cost the county more than $1 million,
teaches students why an answer is correct, prepares them for
algebraic concepts on the SAT and increases passing rates on state
exams.
Carol Knight, Prince William's math supervisor, said that when
children break down numbers into multiples of 10 and 100, their
understanding of place value and "number sense" increases.
"Memorization will only carry you so far," Knight
said. "With 'Investigations,' kids understand the real values of the
numbers and are not doing shortcuts. When they multiply 23 times 5,
they'll do five 20s to get 100, and then add five 3s to get 15, and
they put that all together and get 115. What they've done is made
actual use of the numbers."
Knight said Prince William revamped its elementary math in part to
raise "embarrassing" SAT scores that were below national and state
averages last year.
Prince William classes use "Investigations" from kindergarten
through third grade, and there are plans to introduce it in fourth
grade in the next school year and fifth grade after that.
But many parents are lobbying the School Board to kill the program.
Opponents have submitted a petition with 1,000 names and started a
Web site, http://www.pwcteachmathright.com . They have been checking
out a video called "Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth."
"I don't know what happened in Prince William. Have the parents
visited the classrooms? This has to be a decision made by everyone
that's affected by it," said Cathie Dillender, a senior Pearson
executive who handles math issues. "We have a lot of happy customers
out there. We're all educators, too, and we certainly wouldn't
publish a program that would not work with the kids."
In the Classroom
One recent day at Springwoods Elementary School in Woodbridge, third-
graders used a mix of methods to solve word problems. Some had
difficulty grasping what skill to apply for which problem. For
instance: "There are 28 desks in the classroom. The teacher puts
them in groups of four. How many groups of desks are in the
classroom?"
Ilana Cooper and Audrey Mishler teamed up on the problem. Audrey
drew hash marks in groups of four on her paper but stalled. She
broke out a set of plastic cubes. Maybe her tactile senses could
help.
"How about 4 times 28?" Audrey asked Ilana.
"Yeah, that sounds good," Ilana said.
The teacher, Rhonda Ellington, came over. She put cubes into groups
of four. A few minutes later, Audrey and Ilana used their fingers to
count the groups of cubes. They arrived at 7, the correct answer.
Jesse Mishler, 33, a financial services manager, said that he and
his wife, Priscilla, initially sought to persuade Audrey to memorize
flashcards, but she resisted.
"We were trying to teach her to memorize things like 2 times 2 is 4.
It created some frustration and anxiety on her part," he
said. "We've changed gears. I came to the conclusion that she
shouldn't be put in that spot. We felt it was best to partner with
the teacher."
Prince William officials cite research from the "Investigations"
publisher showing that the percentages of students using the
curriculum who are passing state exams have increased in school
systems in 20 states. Prince William's data showed that 80 percent
of second-graders who used "Investigations" in the past school year
were proficient in all 10 skill areas of a Stanford Diagnostic
Mathematics Test.
But skeptics say results from the Stanford test show that second-
graders ranked average nationally and that first-graders ranked
slightly below average, well below parents' expectations.
The critics also point to test scores in the Greece Central School
District in Upstate New York. Steven L. Walts, now the Prince
William superintendent, presided over the implementation
of "Investigations" to schools in the Greece district during his
tenure there as superintendent.
Elementary and middle school math test scores rose in 2006 and 2007
in the Greece schools, but results in various grade levels still
ranked the district much lower than most of the other 17 districts
in its county, according to research by a retired Greece principal,
Douglas Skeet.
Debates over math curricula have flared in many parts of the United
States. In Ridgewood, N.J., an incoming superintendent who supported
math alternatives such as "Investigations" was recently forced to
back out of the job after parents complained. In the Alpine City
school system in Utah, officials scaled back "Investigations" under
pressure from lawmakers and parents, though test scores improved.
In the Washington area, Arlington has been using "Investigations" at
all elementary schools for the past two years. Ann Wilson, PTA
president at Ashlawn Elementary, said parents initially were
apprehensive but have since been positive. In the 2006-07 year, 56
percent of Arlington third-graders scored "advanced" on the state
exams, and 90 percent passed.
In Fairfax, most elementary schools use traditional books, but
teachers are increasingly using "Investigations" as the main text as
they get comfortable with it, said Frank Atchison, math coordinator
for the county schools.
As for Greg Barlow in Prince William, the former fighter pilot with
college degrees in aeronautics and astronautics, he finds himself in
a new role: home-school dad. He has spent about $100 at Sam's Club
and Costco on math textbooks.
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On 2/19/08, CLM wrote:
> Evergreen Mill 5th Graders are Guinea Pigs for this program.
Three of the 5 classes are
> using Math Investigations 100&37;. My former "A" student has sunk
to a C and is suffering
> terrible self-confidence issues due to this program and a nasty
teacher who continually
> tell her she's "not thinking" when she can't make up her own
solution to a problem. We
> VA parents need to unite on this ASAP!
>
>
> On 2/15/08, Thanks wrote:
>> ...and while you;re at it, get rid of the Math Sup! She has
>> wasted taxpayer dollars with this worthless program and has sent
>> year old textbooks to your LCPS warehouse to collect dust. These
>> are true facts and should NOT be ignored.
>>
>>
>> On 2/14/08, LCPS NEWS wrote:
>>> Well, at the beginning of this year, I was in a "training'
>>> with the LCPS math sup. It was stated that all schools would
>>> be doing MI next year. Well, a year is changing things
>>> SLOWLY. Now the official LCPS policy is that they are going
>>> to only continue to do MI fully in the select schools. They
>>> are going to collect data for 2-3 years and then make the
>>> decision whether to fully implement MI. If they do, I am
>>> gone. But, I have spoken to school board members who are
>>> aware of what is going on and don't like it. Keep the
>>> pressure up parents in LCPS! IT IS WORKING!! GET RID OF MATH
>>> INVESTIGATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>>
>>> On 2/14/08, PWC Math teacher (middle school) wrote:
>>>> From what I've heard as a math teacher at the middle school
>>>> level, the county does not have plans to abandon MI.
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone heard anything different?
>>>>
>>>> On 2/14/08, PWC parent wrote:
>>>>> Some parents in PWC noticed this on your school webiste:
>>>>>
>>>> http://cmsweb1.loudoun.k12.va.us/loudoun/cwp/view.asp?
>>> A=3&Q=469339
>>>>>
>>>>> Don't let Math Investigations' dumbed down approach to math
>>>>> take over in your elementary schools!
>>>>> We are making progress in PWC in our fight against Math
>>>>> Investigations. (see Feb 08 articles in Potomac News)
>>>>>
>>>>> www.pwcTeachMathRight.com
>
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