February 13, 2000
From: Concerned Parents of Reading (CPR), MA
To: The State Board of Education
Re: Proposed Changes to the State Math Frameworks Standards
Dear State Board of Education:
Concerned Parents of Reading (CPR) was formed by a group of parents who became concerned about Reading's implementation of the "Chicago Math Program" Everyday Mathematics following the presentation of the program at the Birch Meadow Elementary School Parents' Night in April 1997. As parents we had noticed that the computational skills of our younger children (K-4) did not seem to be as advanced as their older siblings when they were at the same grade level. We soon discovered that high grades did not necessarily indicate mathematical competency. Our children overly relied upon the use of calculators and, when challenged with the simplest of problems, resorted to finger counting. Further review revealed that textbooks were replaced by disposable journals and that, even at the third and fourth grade level, our children didn't fully know their multiplication tables. There was a lot of writing about mathematics in the journals, but that less emphasis was placed on the ability to perform math computational skills. (Chicago Math is one of the "constructivist" math programs allegedly designed to enhance "problem solving skills" with a de-emphasis of computational skills.)
Concerned Parents of Reading's research led us to uncover California's experience with the "New New Math" programs. Beginning in 1985, California adopted the first of the new standards in math structure which led to fundamental changes in the way math was taught. (This actually preceded the National Council of Teachers in Mathematics (NCTM) standards which were adopted in 1989.) California modified their Mathematics Frameworks in 1992. Charles Sykes, the author of, "Dumbing Down Our Kids" (St. Martin's Press 1995), devotes a chapter to reviewing of the California Experience and the NCTM Standards. (Enclosed on a separate sheet is information, taken from his book, that is particularly applicable to our experiences in Reading and in Massachusetts as a whole.) CPR learned that the results of these early changes in Californian mathematics education were so pernicious that the 1991 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rated the math skills of California's students in the bottom third of participating states. The damage was done in California but Concerned Parents of Reading believed our schools need not make the same mistake, or so we naively thought at the time.
On May 14th, 1997, CPR met with School Superintendent Dr. Haratunian and Assistant Superintendent Dennis Richards to discuss our concerns and our findings. At Dr. Haratunian's request CPR presented a discussion list : 1. CPR's first request was the testing of all fourth graders for mathematics achievement by the California Achievement Test and to evaluate the results before committing to expansion of The UCSMP program. 2. CPR's second request was the formation of a Mathematics Task Force composed of teachers, educators and parents with higher levels of mathematics and science skills. (Everything we have learned about " New New Math", the NCTM Standards and the UCSMP program convinces us now more than ever that a Task Force is necessary to review Reading Math Standards and their implementation.) 3. CPR's third request was to review how the UCSMP (Everyday Mathematics) was selected for Reading's school system.
What became of the above requests? Only after six months of hard lobbying were the 5th graders tested by the newly revised Stanford "9", a NCTM aligned examination. Unfortunately, both the school administrators and the school committee declined to take any action on the test data. Concerned Parents of Reading had to go to the State, under the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain the previous Stanford 8 scores which represent the record of Reading's earlier, older math curriculum. ( An enclosed chart details a summary of the specific data we obtained.)
Reading's math performance was in the 80 percentiles in the years 1993-1995. A downward trend appears in 1996 and 1997. The first students utilizing the "Chicago Math" program were tested in 1997 with the Stanford 9. This downward trend continues in the "Chicago Math" program with computational skills dipping to the 67th percentile in 1997 and Total Math dropping to 73 percentile. The same group of 1997 students were re-tested in 1998 and the data shows a continuing drop in their computational skills.
Concerned Parents of Reading had only asked that a balanced math program be used in the Reading Schools, one that stressed both concepts and computational skills and that grade by grade learning goals and objectives be achieved! Instead, our parent group was stonewalled. Data was denied which repeatedly forced us to obtain information under the State's Freedom of Information Act, including access to an anonymous teacher survey done by the school administration.. The anonymous survey revealed that 86 % of our elementary school teachers felt the program had major problems. Some central themes expressed by the teachers were: the material is too scattered, there is too much skipping around, moving on without mastery, too much material, no clear identification of what's essential and the list continues. Yet, the superintendent had released a report on Reading's math program, prior to CPR obtaining the real surveys, which distorted the results of the teacher survey and reported they actually loved the program! The superintendent denied our parent group copies of the original teachers' surveys until, with help from the State, our group finally obtained the information.
The objective test results indicating problems with Chicago Math were also ignored. Today the "Chicago Math" program continues to be used from K-6 grade in Reading, in spite of the objective data, which shows it to be not only inferior to our old curriculum but also more expensive. The 1999 curriculum report to the School Committee by the Elementary School Math coordinator did admit that "modifications and adaptations" are being done to the "Chicago Math" program. However, no explanations of what these "modification and adaptations" were discussed. Curriculum changes following the 1989 NCTM standards have been expanded through at least Grade 9, at great expense to the community with questionable results.
As parents we applaud the Board's decision to revise the State Mathematical Frameworks, to be more specific and to specify grade by grade learning objectives. I would be glad to supply any additional supporting documents that the Board would like to examine. The current Mathematical Frameworks have perpetuated poor math skills and, as our experience in Reading illustrates, change has to come from a higher authority than the local school board and school administration if Massachusetts children are to receive adequate math education in the public schools.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Mandell, DMD,MMSc.
Former Chairman of Concerned Parents of Reading, MA
READING'S STANFORD 8 (OLD MATH) VS. STANFORD 9 (NEW MATH)
CPR obtained Stanford "8" examinations for the years 1993-1997 Intermediate #2 Grade 5 @ 5.5-6.5 given at 5.8 (April). Results expressed as Percentile Rank-Stanine. These Stanford 8 scores represent the older curriculum.
| Year | Total Math (118 Items) |
Concepts Math (34 Items) |
Math Computation (44 Items) |
Math Applications (40 Items) |
| 1993 | 87-7 | 84-7 | 81-7 | 89-8 |
| 1994 | 81-7 | 76-6 | 76-6 | 83-7 |
| 1995 | 83-7 | 75-6 | 81-7 | 84-7 |
| 1996 | 77-7 | 72-6 | 73-6 | 81-7 |
| 1997 | 75-6 | 72-6 | 70-6 | 76-6 |
The following Stanford "9" results display the new "Chicago Math" curriculum. The examination was the Intermediate #1 Grade 5 @ 4.5-5.5 given at 5.2 (October). Results Percentile Rank-Stanine.
| Year | Total Math (78 Items) |
Problem Solving (48 Items) |
Procedures (30 Items) |
| 1997 | 73-6 | 76-6 | 67-6 |
Results for Grade 6 October 1998 and October 1999 (Grade 6@ Level 5.5-6.5 given 6.2 October ) Intermediate Level #2 (represents three extra months of study)
| Year | Total Math (78 Items) |
Problem Solving (48 Items) |
Procedures (30 Items) |
| 1998 | 75-6 | 80-7 | 64-6 |
| 1999 | 76-6 | 80-7 | 67-6 |
Charles Sykes, the author of, "Dumbing Down Our Kids" (St. Martin's Press 1995), devotes chapter nine entitled "Why Johnny can't add, subtract, multiply, or divide (but still feels good about himself) (pp. 114-126) to a review of the California Experience and the NCTM Standards (pp. 117-118).
In that year, the NCTM launched the new new math revolution by issuing a comprehensive set of new standards for teaching math. The new standards describe "a vision" for school mathematics that insists that the nations schools embrace a curriculum for teaching mathematics " that capitalizes on children's intuitive insights and language: and that is guided not by the standards of a recognized discipline but by the "children's intellectual, social, and emotional development..." This means that from now on teacher should spend less time on "developmental work that emphasized symbol manipulation and computational rules, and that rely heavily on paper and pencil worksheets...". Such outdated approaches of teaching mathematical rules, the new standards sniffed, "do not fit the natural learning patterns of children and do not contribute to important aspects of children's mathematical development
Sykes then begins to discuss What's in and What's out for the K-4 grades
What's in
What's out
For fifth through eighth graders, the NCTM standards proposed de-emphasizing
........ the NCTM's standards envision a dramatically expanded role for calculators.......
........"Calculators", the NCTM standards declare "must be accepted at the k-4 level as valuable tools for learning
mathematics." The standards argue that calculators have made "computational proficiency" obsolete. And ,since schools
have failed in the past to teach students to master basic computational skills without their aid, the standards read, "we might
argue that further effort toward mastering computational skills are counterproductive." In other words, the standards are a
declaration of surrender.
The results of these early changes in Californian mathematics education were so pernicious , that the 1991 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rated the math skills of California's students in the bottom third of participating states. These poor results caused local math activist parents groups to organize and their efforts over the next several years, caused The California Board of Education to reexamine the 1992 Math Frameworks and in 1996, a New Mathematics Advisory Program was released. The Advisory made it clear that basic mathematics skills should be used routinely and automatically, that these skills should be practiced regularly, and that they should be committed to memory. This Advisory amounts to a repudiation of the NCTM frameworks. However, the damage has been done to California's students and it will take years to repair it. The San Francisco Examiner reported, 2/28/1997, results from the U.S. Department of Education, that California 's fourth graders scored fourth worst in the United States. California has now revised and adopted (1999) their math standards so that clearly defined goals and learning objective and skills are specified for mastery at each grade level. Please note that the new California Frameworks do not tell one how to teach only that each grade level should master certain skills