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Friday, March 20, 2009

Enlightenment

anonymous left a link to a third article on the situation in Palo Alto, a news story containing this passage:
At Monday's meeting they also discussed how to improve communication with parents, Davis said. One critique of Everyday Math claimed parents might have a difficult time helping their children with Everyday Math's less traditional methods.

"Do we need to do a better job of enlightenment, do we need to do a better job of parent education?" Davis said. "Absolutely."

Palo Alto teachers pick controversial Everyday Math curriculum
So....Palo Alto parents.
Here's a thought experiment.
You are an assistant superintendent. Your parent population hails from Stanford University and Silicon Valley, and you are employed by the school district that was Ground Zero of the Math Wars.
You have two choices.
a) adopt a world-class math curriculum
b) adopt Everyday Math and do a better job of parent education

ignoring parents in Palo Alto
welcome to the Grand Canyon
a teacher-mom on Everyday Math
the plot thickens
enlightenment
Steven H on Everyday Math in Palo Alto

where parents get their information
"reality" in Palo Alto

Parents frustrated over math textsTeacher committee recommends new math textEd Week on the ed wars
interview with my cousin re: her experience with EM

2 comments:

  1. Our elementary schools here in Anchorage are implementing Everyday Math next year.

    Luckily my 2 5th graders will be on 6th grade math next year, which doesn't use EM.

    My 3rd grader though will suffer, since she struggles with reading and EM has an abundance of word problems. She is pretty good in math, but now...

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  2. p.s. It appears Palo Alto was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They had a choice between EM and enVisionMATH... which is doesn't sound much better.

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