Using the right math program does work

Some Fayette County schools started using the ‘Singapore Math’ program in 2009. Initially, there was fear that this rigorous math program would cause declines in scores.

Well, flash forward to 2011. Now, a lot more of the school district’s elementary schools want ‘in.’

It seems that Singapore is starting to really shine – with Kentucky kids.

According to a Jim Warren report in the Herald-Leader, several Fayette schools using Singapore have made dramatic progress, including some nice improvements for minority populations.

Even the New York Times knows Singapore is a program to watch. The Times reports Singapore Math is being used in schools from inner city New York to the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington that President Obama’s daughters attend.

The news about Singapore Math is no secret to us. We wrote about the success of this program in our KERA @ 20 reports, “KERA (1990-2010): What have we learned?” and “KERA@20,” both on line here.

Still, it’s nice to see more evidence that Singapore works, especially since that includes working with Kentucky students, especially our kids of color.

So, here are some bigger questions.

The nation of Singapore has been shining in international mathematics testing for years. As we ask in our KERA @ 20 report, why is it that only a handful of Kentucky schools are currently using it instead of ‘fuzzier’ math programs that confuse kids and parents?

How much evidence has to be put in front of our educators before they finally accept the obvious?

Part of the answer may be found in the New York Times article.

Teachers have to know some math to teach Singapore.

However, in Kentucky elementary school teachers can get a degree and be certified to teach after taking only one, trivial math course titled “elementary math.” It is taught below the level of college algebra. That probably isn’t good enough preparation to really teach mathematics, even to elementary school students. Just maybe, teachers fighting Singapore may think their own mathematics skills are inadequate to teach this highly successful program. If so, it’s time for someone to realize the kids deserve better. They deserve a high quality program like Singapore, which works in inner city schools, schools right here in Kentucky and the president’s daughters’ school, too.

How Kentucky - and the US - was dumbed down

Here’s a neat You Tube that meshes perfectly with our KERA @ 20 reports.



After you view this You Tube, check out our KERA @ 20 reports to learn how bad ideas about education held Kentucky back for two decades.

Drill, or be killed

I just spent a snowy afternoon watching the excellent movie, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.”

In this fictional tale of a British Man O’War in 1805, the captain of an outgunned warship realizes he must drill his gun crews until they can fire two broadsides in the time his much more heavily armed French adversary can fire one if the odds are to be evened.

The alternative to the drill – is being killed.

Flash forward to modern times in the real world. When KERA began, education Progressives told Kentuckians that requiring students to practice skills like mathematical operations and learning phonics were “Drill and Kill” activities that destroyed students’ desire to learn. These educational gurus assured us that if we followed their fanciful dreams about education, all would be wonderful in Kentucky’s public schools.

The problem: those gurus were wrong. Unlike the hero in Master and Commander – who knows what he is about – the “Drill and Kill” crowd was long on unproved theory, but woefully short on reality.

Result for Kentucky’s students, especially in mathematics, have been stark.

In 2009 Kentucky’s ninth grade white students were bested in federal testing by whites in every state shown in green in this map. Only in one state in the entire country, West Virginia, did whites get scores that were statistically significantly lower. Since whites make up about 85 percent of Kentucky’s public school population, it is clear that the vast majority of our students perform behind their peers in other states.


With math now recognized as a key skill for the 21st Century’s economy, it is clear that, thanks to bad advice from education gurus, our kids didn’t drill enough. The resulting deficiencies could kill our kids’ chances for a highly productive working life.

You can read a lot more about the mistakes in KERA in the Bluegrass Institute’s report series, KERA @ 20.