The Skipper gets off Gilligan's Island

The Skipper in the title is none other than Skip Fennell, President of NCTM who testified before a subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee. This is a guy you'd definitely want to be stranded on an island with, because he would surely know how to get rescued. Here's an excerpt from his testimony:

"I would like to address an element of a child’s education that is often overlooked by policy experts and elected officials. As members of the National Science Board and other prominent education leaders have noted, a child’s first—and perhaps most—influential teacher is a parent. Any call to action—small or large—must recognize the crucial role that parents play in encouraging children and exposing them to knowledge and ideas about any topic or subject, including mathematics. Without parental support and involvement, it will be very difficult to convince young people of the urgency and importance of STEM literacy in this country."

His politburo is quite good. The party-line answer of "the influential role played by parents" is designed to make everyone feel good. But what it really means is, if you want your child to learn math, you better do your part at home. Which means more than providing a support for learning. It means that the principle role that parents play is to make up for the lack of instruction provided by schools forced to use inferior math programs, and taught by teachers with inadequate math knowledge.

Which brings me to the Focal Points. The focal points are like an ink blot test. You can see whatever you want to see in them. If you want to adopt TERC in your school district, just say it conforms to the Focal Points. Why not? That's what Prince William County in VA did last year when they adopted Investigations. Well, actually they said it after Scott Foresman, the publisher of Investigations said it. Check it out: on the County's website is a "correlation document" prepared by Scott Foresman (publisher of Investigation) showing how Investigations meets the Focal Points. It's located here. This is for the new edition of Investigations.

You may also be interested in the School Board's document that they prepared to rebut the protests from one lone parent (an engineer) in the County against Investigations. Go here and scroll down to where it says: Clarifying Misconceptions about Investigations in Number, Data, and Space and click on it. It's described as: "This position paper was written by members of the PWCS Office of Mathematics in response to some criticisms and concerns about Investigations."

Here's only one of many gems: "The crisis in mathematics education in the United States is at least twenty-five years old. Programs like Investigations did not create the problem, but were developed after 1989 to address the problem." Reminds me of that old joke:

Mother: Stop pulling the dog's tail.
Child: I'm not pulling, the dog is pulling.
(Cue laugh track)

As they say in blog land: "Read the whole thing". Then weep.