Home stretch! back soon--

Down to the last 100 pages of Debbie's book, which is fantastic.

So still no blogging, but ----- I have bullet points!

• The tuna cure: Surfer and Abby now eat tuna, lentils, and olive oil (plus, starting in the past week, a few carrots). Basically: a low-rent version of palisadesk's high-protein diet for mast cell cancer in dogs. Surfer--who, it turns out, can't tolerate chemo--appears to be fine. (But we'll see.) The younger vet told me mast cell cancer is the dog equivalent of pancreatic cancer: Surfer, with a Stage 3 diagnosis, was a goner unless the Kinavet worked. Older vet, back now from his own brush with death, says: "It's not a death sentence." (Ed says: Can we always see the older vet?) Funnily enough, we encountered the same division of labor during the two years my mother was sick. The younger doctors would waylay my siblings and me for The Talk (Your mother is dying. Let her die with dignity. If she doesn't want to die with dignity, persuade her.) Then the older docs would say things like "In intensive care we support your mother's organs until her body is strong enough to handle those functions again." The older docs were always right. And they never mentioned death with dignity, which was wise because my mother didn't give two figs for dignity.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Common Core illustrative texts v. what 7th graders read in my districtxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• 4.6% tax increase proposed (I'm voting no, thank you for asking)xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Borrowing to pay teachers: the tax-cert loopholexxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• SAT score decline (also in bullets)xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Erica Meltzer's book is out!!!xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• New high school principal for Irvington who worked for TFA

One board member told me that when the board met the new principal he must have used the word accountability in every other sentence.

Are we the first affluent district ever to hire a TFA person?

We may be. A TFA alum certainly seems out of place here in Westchester, where affluent districts are snapping up superintendents fleeing New Jersey's salary cap.

Our new super replaces the superintendent against whom a number of us waged a running battle for 5 long years (or was it 6?). He is a man in his late 30s or early 40s, trained in elementary education, whose only previous experience--in New Jersey, where his wife and son continue to live--was heading a tiny K-5 district.

We are paying him $250K per year on a 5-year contract. During a minor depression.^* (Did I mention I'm voting no on the budget?)

I think it's possible, perhaps likely, the TFA hire would not have happened without 6 years of citizens' op eds on the Irvington Parents Forum.

Ed told me, when I started the Forum, that revolutions always have writers.

I believe him, and All revolutions have writers has been my essential reason for carrying on. Well, one of the essential reasons, the other essential reason being that both sides of my family came from Ulster.

That said, I don't expect a revolution. The new superintendent has thus far been more of the same, and he was supposed to be The One; all 5 board members said so. The new principal will come into a gatekeeping culture that has been in place for many, many years.

The single best observation anyone ever made to me concerning my district's unshakeable self-regard:

...[W]e're great because 10 kids do spectacular things by senior year. The other 150 will get by and there are no glaring inadequacies.

That's not going to be easy to change.

^* Depression at historinhas

Yonkers bites the dust

Ed just told me about the Yonkers report. I'd been wondering when that shoe was going to drop.

The unreality around here is .... harrowing. You hear people say that "we" ("we" as in the school district) don't pay pensions (the state does), and the state should begin paying for mandates, too.

Of course, if the state were to begin paying for mandates, we'd be spending more on mandates, not less, because we'd be paying for mandates in Yonkers as well. Yonkers is broke, but they've still got mandates.

Nobody understands retiree benefits, either, including me. The Irvington school district, population roughly 7000, has a liability of $101 million for retiree health care. A friend of mine, an accountant, says that we are "fundamentally bankrupt."

What I don't understand is: when does the shoe drop?

Does it have to drop?

Or can we just go on like this forever, paying health care for all current teachers and all retired teachers as we go?

If we can't go on like this forever, when do we end up like Stockton?

Stockton: 292,000 citizens; $400 million retiree health care liability
Irvington: 7000 citizens; $100 million retiree health care liability for the school district alone

"Stockton officials awarded [retiree health care benefits] to city employees in a series of votes in the 1990s but made no effort to fund them, intending simply to pay costs out of their budget as workers retired. As hundreds did just that over the years, the costs grew. Next year, the city's fiscal documents project, retiree health costs will surpass those of the city's regular work force. At last count the city's unfunded liabilities for retiree health care are above $400 million.

Stockton Mayor Ann Johnston voted for these expensive measures when she served on the city council. "We didn't have projections into the future what the costs might be," she told the Record, a Stockton newspaper, earlier this month. She added, "I learned that you don't make decisions without looking into the future."

Council votes to approve ever-greater benefits were often unanimous, according to Record columnist Michael Fitzgerald. "Nobody gave thought to how it was eventually going to be paid for," says Mr. Deis, the city manager."
How Stockton, California Went Broke in Plain Sight by Steven Malanga

I gather we've got at least one current board member who thinks retiree health care costs are nothing to worry about; that $101 million is a paper liability, not a real one.

I fear we've also got at least one person running for school board who has told parents that 'we don't pay pensions,' and another who told me personally, when she was serving on the board two years ago: "We're parents. We can't deal with unions."

My accountant friend tells me that when he ran the figures he found that Irvington teachers in the first 17 years of their careers receive average 5% raises each year, not counting "grid increases." ("Grid increases" are the across-the-board increases in everyone's pay the union negotiates every 3 years when the contract expires.) Add in the grid increases and teachers have been averaging something in the neighborhood of 7%, I think. Year in, year out. With inflation running at 2% until the crash, below 2% since.

I gather, too, that NY has some kind of law forbidding local school boards from working together with other boards in union negotiations. The union has national backing and expertise to draw upon; the volunteers who serve on local boards are on their own.

Royal Coach Lines

email to the Parents Forum:

Hi everyone -

Our son Andrew is autistic. He is entitled by law to a summer program.

He is also entitled by law to bus transportation to the program.

However, as I write, it is 9:16 and Andrew is not at his program.

The reason?

According to the woman at ROYAL COACH LINES: “The driver sat in your driveway for 10 minutes and no one came out. So he called the dispatcher, and the dispatcher told him to leave.”

Note: the driver did not honk.

The reason the driver did not honk: it is illegal. We had no idea. We’ve been sending developmentally disabled kids to school on the bus for decades and the drivers have always honked. In fact, they’ve honked too much. This summer’s driver, whose arrival times have been unpredictable, honks.

BUT honking is illegal, and today’s driver –a sub – did not honk.

Nor did the driver simply step outside his bus and knock on our door. (Is that illegal?)

And the dispatcher did not call us once he’d heard from the driver.

In short, no one associated with ROYAL COACH LINES took initiative; no one went beyond the call of duty. No one took responsibility for actually doing the job we hire ROYAL COACH LINES to do.

And no one expressed the slightest regret that the job was not done. I spoke at some length with the lady who answered the phone at ROYAL COACH LINES. She appeared untroubled by the fact that ROYAL COACH LINES did not deliver Andrew to his program; in fact, she did not appear to think that failing to deliver a child to his program reflected poorly upon ROYAL COACH LINES in any way at all. ROYAL COACH LINES employees complied with the applicable rules and regulations, and they are entitled to collect their fee.

American taxpayers fund so much for kids, for seniors, for those with disabilities and hard luck: we deserve better than this. We deserve services that actually do the job we hire them to do.

Next summer, I think the district should find a different bus company. Surely we can do better than ROYAL COACH LINES.

Catherine

parents ageing out

palisadesk is on a roll:

As for parents changing the system -- good luck with that. Bureaucracies, especially large and monopolistic ones, are notoriously impervious to customer complaints. Those in charge know that even the most militant parent will "age out" of the battle in a decade or less, and a new crop of starry-eyed, or simply naive, customers will present themselves.

Colorado Coalition for World Class math

CO Coalition for World Class Math

CT Coalition for World Class Math
NJ Coalition for World Class Math
PA coalition for World Class Math
United States Coalition for World Class Math
Parents' Group Wants to Shape Math Standards
Common Core Standards: Who Made the List?

Incentives

The quality of patient care when focused on the patient, the unresponsive school district, Precision Teaching, business acumen, and Don't Shoot the Dog. The connection is

Incentives Matter.

We need to Incentivize the behaviors we want to see more of.

Behavioral Science has shown us that We Improve What We Measure. Positive Reinforcement works best by measuring successes and rewarding them. But even just charting the results with no other reward improves the outcome for what's measured.

So we better measure the right things.

What outcomes do we want to incent?

Often, we're talking about this at the student level. But what if we turned it around, and instead of using e.g. Precision Teaching just on students, we did it to the teachers? The principal? The School Board?

Seriously, if we want transparency from the school board, can we chart it? What if we kept a celeration chart on the web showing the District' Response Time to a parent's request for data? Just KNOWING the chart is publicly available should have an effect.

Or how about keeping a chart showing number of conversations board members have per week with non ed-speak people? ie.e parents or students?

Or a chart showing the number of conversations had without a lawyer present in the room?

Or a chart showing how many parent suggested curricula/materials/ideas were adopted?

Any other suggestions for what behaviors we want to incentivize? Any suggestions for the metrics to do it?

How about in the classroom, by the teacher? How about at the principal level?

Any chance we could get a school board to adopt putting the celeration chart for their principals/teachers/etc on their web site? That would really make a difference.

"reality" in Palo Alto

I think it depends on the elementary school. My kids are in middle school now and they have quizzes. I'm not opposing EDM on my own family's account, since my kids aren't in elementary school any more. But, having survived TERC and managed to become proficient in math through our own non-PAUSD enrichment, my kids are an example of what you should not have to do. And I care about the kids whose parents can't coach them through. I hated having to spend precious playtime grinding on math while they wasted their time in school, but at least I was able to get them where they needed to go. In our family's experience, this is a town of special deals, where if you get something for your own family you shut up about the problem, but I am against special deals too and think public education should serve everyone.

Posted by reality, a member of the JLS Middle School community, on Mar 30, 2009 at 2:36 pm

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 texts
Teacher committee recommends new math text
Ed Week on the ed wars

interview with my cousin re: her experience with EM

where parents get their information

I've left this comment in response to Sean Cavanagh's post on Palo Alto:

Cavanagh:

"This is a difficult choice," one parent said in written comments about the math curricula, which the board asked for. "Well-meaning parents should not be able to vote based on five minutes of Google research."

Which raises another question, in all of these skirmishes: Where are parents getting their information about the various math curricula? Is there any emerging consensus on the math curriculum at early grades? What do debates like the one in Palo Alto say about where these debates are going?

Catherine:

Here is a source of parent information:

K-12 MATH EDUCATION FORUM
April 24, 2008, 5:30pm - 7:30pm, Port Discovery
Dr. James Milgram
Dr. William Schmidt
Dr. Stephen Wilson

I think it would be worthwhile asking where administrators and teachers are getting their information about the various math curricula.

In my own district, "information" about math curricula comes from ed schools and textbook publishers.

Mathematicians and those employed in math-related professions are not consulted, and when such individuals attempt to offer their expertise regardless, they are ignored.

+++++

Concerned Parent put me onto Leading Minds/Baltimore Curriculum Project.

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 texts
Teacher committee recommends new math text
Ed Week on the ed wars

interview with my cousin re: her experience with EM

Steve H on Everyday Math in Palo Alto

responding to Sean Cavanagh on Re-examining a Math Skirmish:

Cavanagh: 'Focal Points' reflects a growing consensus that A) the current math curriculum is overcrowded and confusing for teachers and students; and B) creating a more focused curriculum and encouraging students to master certain key topics lay the groundwork for their foray into more difficult math later.

Steve H: Everyday Math does not meet either condition A) or B). But then again, "encouraging" mastery is just so wishy-washy it could mean anything. The Focal Points are just used to get others to go away so that schools can continue to decide on all of the details.

Cavanagh: Which raises another question, in all of these skirmishes: Where are parents getting their information about the various math curricula?

Steve H: You can't pick and choose your arguing points. You know quite well that there are many serious, well-founded objections to these math curricula. By not focusing on real problems, like ensuring mastery rather than "encouraging" mastery, you either don't understand what's going on or you're trying to change the subject.

The Focal Points is an educational turf manifesto. It's designed to make others go away. It won't work. Details matter. It's time to move beyond the simple argument that parents just want what they had when they were growing up. Let's talk about why parents have to care about this in the first place. Because schools aren't getting the job done.

March 18, 2009

The notion that Well-meaning parents should not be able to vote based on five minutes of Google research is going to be hard to sustain given the fact that Google now supplies a very large portion of the "curriculum" to which American children are exposed.

In my district, which has adopted every known "initiative" promoted by ed schools and their ancillary consultants and vendors,^* "research" means Google and teachers routinely pull "projects," assignments, and tests from the internet.

e.g.: recent Advanced Placement writing assignment given to high school students: Google 10 pieces of nonfiction writing on the web -- any kind of nonfiction writing written by anyone at all -- and summarize each.

If Google is good enough for AP Comp teachers, it's good enough for parents.

What's Google for the goose is Google for the gander.


^* differentiated instruction, 21st century skills, media literacy, balanced literacy, reading workshop, writing workshop, Assured Writing Experiences (AWEs), middle school model, exploratories, interdisciplinary teaming, cross-curricular everything under the sun, character education, and so much more!

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 texts
Teacher committee recommends new math text
Ed Week on the ed wars

interview with my cousin re: her experience with EM

a teacher - mom on Everyday Math

Posted by RWD, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, 10 hours ago

To me, the ignorant statements are the ones made by math committee members who suggested that parents obtained their information on the two math programs under consideration by "googling" it. An incredibly high number of parents in this district have graduate degrees; we might actually know something or have something to offer this process. While I appreciate that three parents (and more -- some teachers are also district parents) sat on the selection committee, no one put out a poll to the community to see who of us might have experience with these programs beyond a brief trial period. As a new member of the community, I couldn't have sat on the formal committee, but I have some feedback on Everyday Math that I'd like to feel was heard and respected.

I am an educator (my graduate degree is from Columbia's Teachers College) and a mother who suffered -- and I do mean to say suffered -- through Everyday Math with my daughter for three years prior to moving to Palo Alto. I chose where to live because of the excellence of the school districts, but I verified their excellence by making sure that they did not teach Everyday Math. Obviously, I feel strongly about this program in a negative way. I know that I will have to return to the days of homeschooling my very intelligent daughter in math -- something I have not had to do at all this year. Neither of us enjoyed that supplementation, but it was necessary -- as our teachers admit it will be necessary for our students. (That's a problem, don't you think -- the suggestion that "gaps will be filled" -- ?)

Our specific problems with Everyday Math far exceed the different language -- the whole "spiraling" approach to learning, where components of the curriculum are not mastered before moving on, is problematic; it has come under scrutiny in the education community for its inefficiency, especially because students need to re-learn concepts before advancing again on the spiral. I can't see how "mastery of concepts" is a high priority in Everyday Math, yet it was on many of the parents' priority lists at the community meeting. And that is just one example.

At the end of the day, not enough parents know enough about this program and just how funky it is -- and I think that if they did, there would be even greater concern. If parents can't make it to the PAUSD offices to review the materials like I did, what can they do? (Google it! Or nothing.) And for those of us who actually attended the meeting, what information did we get about the two programs? (Little.)

Look, all things considered, I am really happy with our teachers and the school district, but I think the superintendent is right on the money in expecting trouble over this decision. I know that our teachers will "fill in the gaps," but, quite frankly, I'd rather NEVER hear those words in terms of my kids' education. Shouldn't we be reaching rather than bending, here?

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 texts
Teacher committee recommends new math text
Ed Week on the ed wars

interview with my cousin re: her experience with EM

welcome to the Grand Canyon

The Palo Alto textbook selection committee has voted for Everyday Math.

Before the secret ballot was taken, committee members summarized the pros and cons of the two finalists and also tried to address parent complaints against Everyday Mathematics that were raised in a community meeting last week.

Positives of Everyday Mathematics included depth, quality of conceptual lessons, a high-quality teachers' manual and strong electronic resources. Concerns included a plethora of components, occasional assumptions that students have mastered concepts they might not have mastered and a problematic transition from fifth grade to what students will need for middle-school math.

"There's a huge gap between what they get in fifth grade and what they need is sixth grade," one fifth-grade teacher said. "The hole is as huge as the Grand Canyon. So we're going to have to address that problem as a district."

This is the kind of thing that makes me think parents need the right to sue their school districts.

It will be interesting to see how this situation unfolds. Assuming the quotations in the article are correct, the superintendent does not appear to be enthusiastic about the committee's recommendation, which means the board will receive mixed signals. If I were a parent in the district I would, at a minimum, urge the board to delay its decision until the district has a plan in place to remediate Everyday Math's deficiency where the transition to sixth grade math is concerned.

Are people familiar with enVisions?

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 texts
Teacher committee recommends new math text
Ed Week on the ed wars

interview with my cousin re: her experience with EM

a math "skirmish"

at Ed Week

I left a comment that doesn't seem to want to post:

Parents can find information about why other parents -- many of whom are themselves mathematicians or are employed in math-related professions -- object to constructivist math curricula at kitchen table math, the sequel, which I cofounded with Carolyn Johnston, a mathematician who was struggling to
remediate Everyday Math at home.

And here is an interview with my cousin who sent her child to private school because of severe problems with Everyday Math.

My position in the math wars (and in the reading wars & the liberal arts wars) is simple:

Parents need a vote and a veto.

I am not a mathematician.

But when I see real mathematicians rejecting this curriculum, I want school districts to do likewise.

At the same time, I am willing to fund Everyday Math for those parents who freely choose Everyday Math for their children's education. I support the choices of others, and I ask that they support the choices I make.

The curriculum wars will end when parents and taxpayers have a place at the table.

interview with my cousin - July 2005

I did this interview with my cousin in summer 2005 & posted it to the original kitchen table math on July 11,2005.


part 1: how Everyday Math came to my cousin's town

The 2nd grade teachers had a grant and were very excited. I think the teachers were turned on by the program. So they started introducing it in the 1st grade.

Nobody else liked it. I hated it, and many parents complained.

Teachers in the upper grades didn't like it, either. The district was always having these huge teacher-board meetings to convince the other teachers that they had to adopt it, too.

Eventually, when the grade school kids got to high school, the high school teachers were in horror because the kids coming in couldn't calculate. They complained that the Chicago Math students had to spend all this time guesstimating and figuring out what the answer was to one small step inside a complex problem. The students were too slow; they were hung up on the basics.

This war went on for a decade. I don't know how it came out. I do know that for at least the first couple of years after Chicago Math came in they were not getting lots of kids proficient on the state tests. I'll ask my friend who teaches at the high school whether they're still using the books. She had 3 kids who went through the system, and she hated Chicago Math.^*


part 2: easier for mathematically talented kids?

One of my daughter's friends had a very easy time with it, and was successful at it. She really soaked it up. Someone told me that kids who are chronologically older and have math talent, maybe they respond to it better. My daughter was the youngest in the class.

My older daughter, though, had a babysitter who had Chicago Math at New Trier when we were living on the North Shore. She said it was a failure. The New Trier students were the first guinea pigs, because it was Chicago Math. She said Chicago Math came from a bunch of ivory tower people figuring the whole thing out and then trying to disseminate it to all these little children.


part 3: developmentally inappropriate

I once told the assistant principal that in the Saxon book, when you've done something wrong you go back. You can't advance until you get it right. I said that's what I like about the Saxon program.

He said, "Well children can do that with Chicago Math, too.' He was suggesting that my daughter had the ability to assess herself in Chicago Math, and that's what she should have done. She was a little adult who could self-assess.

But she couldn't. She was too young, and she didn't know enough about math to be able to assess how much she knew about math.

It's like driving. When you know how to drive, driving is built into your thinking process.

If you don't know how to drive, you're not going to have the confidence to figure out what your problem is. If you can't get from one corner to the next, you're not in a position to assess why not.


part 4: spiraling

Chicago Math gives you advanced math problems sprinkled in with the elementary math your child is learning. They slip it in.

They would have you guess at the answers for the advanced problems, but then they never gave you the answers so you didn't know if you guessed right or not. You're always a work in progress with Chicago Math. So you never get a definite answer. And you never had a sense of completion or success on a day-to-day basis.

But my pet peeve was that it sped you along at a rapid pace and you never mastered the material that you left the page before. When my daughter was in the 2nd grade one work page would be coins; the next day you'd be dealing with weather; the next day you'd be dealing with problem solving. My daughter had no sense of what a quarter or a dime was.

When I was taught math, each day you built on what you knew. When you did the coins you learned a penny, a nickel, a quarter. You kept going. Telling time, same thing. You work on time until you get it. You don't just have a flash of it one day.

In Chicago Math you had one page on one topic, then you went on to something completely different on the next page. There was no repetition. It was irresponsible, very ungrounded.


part 5: frustrating

They would want my daughter to guesstimate whether something was 50 or not, or 100 or not. And they wanted her to do that before she knew 25 and 25 was 50, before she knew what the building blocks that made a number were. It's hard to estimate something before you know that numbers are created.

To guesstimate is so frustrating. Math has a yes or no answer. And with math, when you go 5 x 7, it's 35. That's the answer. Children at a young age want to have something concrete. They learn from 'This is wrong' and 'This is right.' They like getting the right answer.

In Chicago Math, children don't get that reward.


part 6: demoralizing

First they give you an intuitive flash that of material that is above your level, that you aren't successful at. It's like a prelude.

The thinking is that when you get to the material for real, you've had a prelude. But on a day-to-day basis if you're always getting preludes, the child never has a sense of completion or success.

There was never a sense of mastery; there was never a sense of completing a task successfully before moving on to the new material that you were supposed to pick up intuitively.

Chicago Math was like trying to learn a foreign language by hearing tapes every day and intuiting what the words mean. Then 3 months later you're supposed to know what the tapes are saying.


Part 7: boring

It was too abstract and theoretical and boring. It's boring when you don't have the light bulb go off in your mind because, 'Oh! I got it right!'

The best you could think was, 'Well, maybe I got it right.

I think it's crippling.


Part 8: Saxon Math

I moved my daughter to private school after 4th grade. She's worked with the Saxon Math books ever since.

It took her awhile to get to a stable place in math because she had gaps in her knowledge, and because she didn't have confidence in the basics. She learned new concepts; she could understand them. But under testing she would crumble, because she didn't have confidence.

In Chicago Math, computation doesn't become second nature. I guess in new math they teach you all these steps you have to take. They make multiplication into 5 steps. Chicago Math makes learning to multiply real slow, and so damn confusing.

So she was bogged down in trying to do it in the new math way. It took her several years to overcome that, to get solid in the basics.

She improved greatly with the Saxon book. She's doing fine at the high school level. She just finished 9th grade, and she does well in math now.


^*Everyday Math was developed by the University of Chicago. Everyone in my cousin's town in MA called it 'Chicago Math.'

national standards redux

I've left a comment on the Flypaper post re: Randi Weingarten's op ed promoting national standards.

Weingarten thinks we ought to convene a "broad-based group" to "take the best academic standards and make them available as a national model."

All well and good; we've heard it before. Personally, I have no interest in the views of broad-based groups that aren't broad-based enough to include parents and taxpayers.

If you've time to weigh in at the Flypaper, that would probably be a good idea.


parents need a union
how to change the system (Moses on Caro)
Mary D: No Child Left Behind observations and reflections