As Kentucky educators work to revise the state’s mathematics standards in compliance with Senate Bill 1 from the 2009 Regular Legislative Session, I can’t help but be concerned that some of the same mistakes our educators made with math instruction in the first decade of KERA might still come back to haunt us.
In line with trying to avoid making the same mistakes twice, I suggest that those educators working on our new math standards should review comments made by Senator Robert Byrd in the June 9, 1997 Congressional Record. Find a copy of those remarks here.
Senator Byrd lamented the lack of progress in math instruction in the United States during the 1990s and offered up some reasons why that might have occurred.
Our educators need to read his very pertinent comments about a “whacko algebra” text, “Secondary Math: An Integrated Approach: Focus on Algebra,” and why it “really was not an algebra textbook at all.”
This textbook came to national attention after professor of economics Marianne Jennings characterized it as a “rain forest math” textbook. I heard Jennings describe the book in a conference many years ago, and she outlined the major problems with amazing insight and wisdom.
Sadly, since Byrd and Jennings offered their warnings, we have now sacrificed another generation of kids to poorly conceived math instruction because the education world refused to listen. Kentucky’s abysmal white eighth grade math proficiency rate of only 29 percent and black proficiency rate of a truly disastrous eight percent (no, this is not a typo) in the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress bear grim testimony to that.
Unfortunately, many of today’s math educators grew up in or were influenced by the “rain forest math” world that concerned Senator Byrd. Thus, we’ll need to pay attention as the new math program required by Senate Bill 1 rolls out. Hopefully, more than 13 years after Senator Byrd made his comments, someone in the education community is finally listening.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Will Kentucky’s math instruction return to the rain forest?
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4 comments:
Kentucky’s 2009 N.A.E.P white (29%)& black (8%) eighth grade math proficiency rates gives undeniable evidence of Ky's abysmal educational trainwreck!
"....[W]hite students in every state except Oklahoma (poorer), Tennessee (poorer), Hawaii, Alabama (poorer), Mississippi (MUCH poorer) and West Virginia (equally poor) outscored our [Kentucky's] whites on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress Grade 8 Math Assessment, and [Ky should worry }when of that group of six states, Oklahoma (poorer), Tennessee (poorer) and Hawaii actually were able to tie us!
The [KY] poverty excuse won’t fly any more [because] lmost every state in the South plus California and West Virginia have more poverty now than we do.
Obviously, public schools need competiton to spur quality renovation, committment to quality education because past legislative financial sacrifices have prolonged "bringing home quality education"!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Florida passes teacher merit pay bill
By the way, Florida’s performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress Reading Assessment puts Kentucky to shame.
Florida’s rate of progress in both fourth and eighth grade ranks number one for both grade levels. Florida scored well behind Kentucky in 1998, but now they tie us at both grade levels. And, Florida has a large minority population and four times the proportion of English language learners found in Kentucky, as well. Given its many disadvantages, the fact that Florida raised performance and now ties us is a miracle - for Florida.
IS THIS MORE PROOF KY EDUCATION HAS BECOME INTERTWINED WITH POLITICS?
Ky. Teachers Approve Health Care Plan
KENTUCKY....
To preserve benefits and save taxpayer money, Kentucky representatives of the teachers, retirees and school boards signed onto a deal Friday in Frankfort which would allow Kentucky public school districts, as well as teachers and retirees under age 65, to pay more for retiree health care. Under the proposal, beginning next fiscal year, current teachers would contribute an additional .25% of their payroll for retiree health care, while retired teachers under age 65 would begin contributing $37 per month next year. School systems would contribute .25% of payroll next fiscal year and gradually see that amount increase until fiscal year 2016, when they would contribute 3%.
High-performing nations such as Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore established excellent educational systems by throwing out "status quo".
Dash,
Thank you for your comments.
Kentucky's NAEP performance, once disaggregated by race, indeed is troubling. That serious situation is hidden when only overall average NAEP scores for all students are examined, which is why some groups never look at the disaggregated data as you have and as we have recommended for years.
Florida does indeed put us to shame on the recent NAEP math and reading assessments. Florida is doing a lot of things in education that we need to pay attention to.
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