In today’s Argus Leader is a story about how the Sioux Falls Catholic Schools are using a blended math approach.
A few excerpts and thoughts:
Due to parent push back and what they saw happening with the children under “Every Day Math”, the district moved back toward more traditional math. Meaning as one student says, “This year, they explain it better.”
The Sioux Falls Public School District’s K-5 curriculum series, Investigations, includes an explainer of “constructivism” on its website. TERC dives deep into the philosophical reasoning behind the new math. A sample: “No one true reality exists, only individual interpretations of the world.” This is the philosophy of the curriculum writers. No wonder parents are seeking alternatives to public education.
Math reforms aren’t new. In 1989, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published curriculum recommendations that championed understanding the concepts of math over practicing skills. Another version of “new math” was unveiled about 20 years before that. Not one of these reforms has worked. Why are we always trying the experimental? Why not stick with the tried and true, reasearch based, teaching and learning?
Teachers still use the reform-math materials for enrichment, but they reintroduced older material from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
“You can’t just stay with the old,” Mahoney said. “The Harcourt book we’re using, Harcourt no longer publishes that series.“
And there you have it ladies and gentlemen. This is the crux of the issue with the Common Core or any other set of national standards. Pearson Education has quietly bought up almost all the education publishers and allowed those companies to keep their name. Everything Pearson does is Common Core. And for the few education publishers who have managed to stay in business, they will also have to align everything to the Common Core to continue to stay in business. The state says that local schools choose their curriculum. How did Henry Ford say it? “People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black” You can have any curriculum you want, as long as it’s Common Core.
Catholic schools blend approaches to math
For the first time since Dakota STEP assessments were introduced, students in the city’s largest private-school system didn’t take the same state tests as their public school peers.
The move is part what Director of Instruction Joan Mahoney calls an “interesting journey” in curriculum. Catholic school classrooms switched among three different approaches to math learning in three years. And with the state’s switch to the Common Core-based Smarter Balanced assessments, Sioux Falls Catholic School officials decided to opt out.
“There’s some things that they need to work out,” Mahoney said. “It’s just best for us right now to stay with some tests that are tried and true.”
The system overhauled its math curriculum last year. Educators rolled out the new lesson plans, departing from old methods of teaching to new material in an attempt to match with standards adopted in 2010 by the state.
The new provider, Everyday Math, offered a distinct change, Mahoney said. But the move didn’t seem to sit well with parents.
Kris Ripperda, 42, has five children in the Catholic school system. The changes involved fewer problems per assignment and cumbersome problem-solving techniques with standard algorithms.
“There wasn’t as much practice on a particular skill,” Ripperda said.
Ripperda brought her concerns to the school system’s math committee, and to former Superintendent Tom Lorang.
Teaching to the new curriculum last year meant a complete shift in her class, and the changes caused more stress for children and parents, said Mary Anne Hexamer, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Mary Elementary.
“It was advanced, without the foundation underneath it,” Hexamer said. “Does that make sense?”
Continue Reading at argusleader.com
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