At the Irvington Parents Forum blog.
I'm waiting for the many apologies due to come rolling in from all the central administrators & board members who insisted on sticking with Trailblazers for lo these many years.
My favorite was the board member who said, during the candidates' forum, "We're not changing the math curriculum because of 20 people on a blog."
He meant list serve.
Nobody apologized for MathLand when they replaced it at our schools with Everyday Math. There was no comment about how MathLand was universally trashed across the country so that one can't now find anything about it on the web except for the remaining bad reviews. I distinctly remember the first grade open house about MathLand and how they had us parents sit in little kids chairs in the library while a teacher lectured parents (many doctors, engineers, scientists, and lawyers) about the glories of explaining math with words. The classic MathLand question was something like "Explain why 2 + 2 = 4." This same teacher is now explaining to new parents why Everyday Math is so good. They are saved by the continual new crop of parents.
ReplyDeleteThere was no comment about how high school teachers used to trash the math ability of students coming from our middle school. They didn't apologize after they saw the improvement when we changed from CMP to the same rigorous textbooks the high school used. The change was made because there was a clear curriculum gap and parents complained. They couldn't deny the gap.
When I once asked the head of the high school math department whether they talk with the lower schools about curriculum, the best she could come up with was that she talked with the lower schools about not allowing so many "do-overs". In other words, it's the students' problem, because, of course, see all of the kids who do well.