K-8 Math Adoption in Review

The following summary traces some of the events surrounding the K-8 math adoption in San Diego approved on April 9, 1996.

K-8 Pilot Announcement

On December 28, 1995, a notice appeared on the San Diego City Schools' public-access computer describing a pilot to evaluate K-8 math programs prior to the district adoptions for the 1996-1997 school year. Six programs had been selected for evaluation. All of these programs came from the list recommended by the State Curriculum Commission, meaning that they were constructed to be in agreement with the State Math Framework. Grades were broken into three levels, K-2, 3-5, and 7-8, with two programs to be piloted at each level. (Grade 6 programs overlap with adjacent levels). At each level, the two framework texts were to be used for five weeks.

Mathematically Correct Protests Narrow-Focus of Pilot

In a meeting with district curriculum personnel on January 18, 1996, Mathematically Correct members discussed their concerns about changes to the math education programs. In discussion of the K-8 pilot, it was the opinion of group members that the range of materials being evaluated was too narrow. In particular, it seemed unwise not to include those more traditional texts that had been approved by the State Board of Education over objection from the Curriculum Commission. Vance Mills, district math/science instructional team leader, indicated that teachers had made the decision of what to evaluate, suggesting that the matter was beyond his control.

Mathematically Correct Warns Parents about K-8 Math Changes

Following the meeting with district personnel, Mathematically Correct released a warning to parents on January 20, 1996 about the impending changes in elementary school math programs. This warning was based on the following observations:

There is little or no research to support these programs - they are experimental
The curriculum changes are extreme, like Whole Language
Other new programs approved by the state were not being evaluated

The warning raised that concern that children would learn substantially less math from the programs being evaluated.

Letter to the Board of Education Requesting Adoption Delay

On February 1, 1996, members of Mathematically Correct drafted the following letter to the members of the Board of Education.

Dear Members of the Board of Education:

The Board of Education of the San Diego City Schools is scheduled to make decisions on the adoption of new math programs in the near future. These decisions include both K-8 programs and high school programs. Mathematically Correct urges delaying these adoptions until these programs can be shown to be demonstrably better than traditional programs or alternative non-traditional programs which have not been considered. If necessary the Board should request an extension from the state to allow such a course of action.

Mathematically Correct, an organization of parents and citizens concerned about mathematics education in San Diego, has made an intensive study of the influx of "reform" math education programs in our schools. This has included discussions with literally hundreds of individuals -- students, parents, teachers, administrative staff, politicians, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, including national experts in the field of math education -- and studied the limited available evaluative data. This research has lead us to urge you to consider the following points prior to adopting any new text in math.

All of these programs are based on an educational philosophy called constructivism which is substantially and radically different from traditional methods. In practice, such programs lack a balanced approach which would retain an emphasis on computational skills as the basic tools needed for success.
Given the radical nature of the curriculum changes in the programs under consideration, the board should require clear, well supported, overwhelming, quantitative data about the superiority of such programs prior to adoption.
No such clear, well supported, overwhelming, quantitative data exist, while other data suggest that constructivist programs produce less learning than the traditional programs they are designed to replace. Indeed, in some cases, students' basic skills may actually deteriorate with exposure to the new programs.
The driving force for the new curriculum adoptions is the California Mathematics Framework, yet the Framework itself is under attack by mathematicians, parents, and, most significantly, the State Board of Education, which is investigating rewriting the Framework out of cycle to remedy its deficiencies. No consensus in favor of the Framework exists.
The Standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics form the basis of the California Framework. These Standards have been heavily criticized and are currently being revised.
San Diego City Schools cannot afford a repeat in math of the disastrous consequences seen with the introduction of Whole Language. Problems are already arising as parents become aware of both the programs their children are entering and the essentially experimental nature of these programs. Parents cannot be expected to continue to accept such changes complacently.
Teachers are afraid to voice negative opinions about the impending changes to the math curriculum, preventing open evaluation of the programs and leading to a potentially damaging situation in which parents feel that teachers are being less than truthful with them concerning their children's education.

Based on these points, members of Mathematically Correct recommend:

That the Board act with prudence and caution when it comes to the education of our children;
That the Board defer the consideration of the pending mathematics adoptions until such time as adequate efficacy data are available;
That the Board stipulate that existing traditional materials be utilized during this deferral period;
That the Board encourage the District to obtain substantial studies of program effectiveness, including pre-test post-test designs employing national, standardized tests, such as the Stanford Achievement Test or CTBS, that assess computational ability and other skills;
That the Board consider and test other newer but non-constructivist math curricula in addition to the constructivist curricula currently under consideration;
That the Board stipulate that no children shall be enrolled in experimental studies without the informed consent of their parents.

The Membership of Mathematically Correct stands ready to provide supporting materials for their findings and to discuss these issues with board members at their request.

Formal Presentation to the Board of Education

On February 27, 1996, members of Mathematically Correct attended a meeting of the Board of Education. Three members addressed the board, stating their concerns regarding the K-8 adoption plan. The initial installment of what ultimately was nearly 300 signatures on the above letter was presented to the Board.

The purpose of this presentation was to go on record with a public notification to the Board that parents were worried about the plans for adoption.

Elementary School Review of Proposed Adoption Materials

On Monday March 11, the PTA of Spreckels Elementary School sponsored a presentation of the elementary programs recommended for adoption by San Diego Unified School District.

Materials from all three programs were available for inspection by parents and teachers. Because Spreckels goes only from K-5, most discussion centered on the texts for K-5 and not on texts for 6-8.

Attendees were welcomed by Principal Nancy Howard, who then introduced Dr. Vance Mills the Instruction Team Leader for Math and Science within San Diego City Schools. Dr. Mills briefly described the adoption process and then allowed Ms. Janet Trentacosta, District Math Science Specialist, to discuss the particular programs under consideration. Ms. Trentacosta mentioned the NCTM Standards as guiding a new direction in math education, went through some examples of material in the new programs and discussed some studies from the authors of a Whole Math program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) from the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Trentacosta represented these programs as producing almost unbelievably superior results in comparison to more traditional programs. These studies have since been analyzed by QED in Santa Barbara and shown to be flawed in design and interpretation such that the implication of support for any particular Framework text is completely unfounded.

The presentation by the district representatives was followed by reports from Spreckels teachers. The first report was presented by Rose Miller who had pilot taught the two programs under consideration at the first grade level. Ms. Miller's discussion of the two programs she had tested was followed by a report from Gail Kempton, a second grade teacher. Mrs. Kempton represented the views of a group of seven Spreckels teachers who had made a careful examination of the programs and their supporting materials during a Staff Development Day held on March 8. Mrs. Kempton presented seven major criticisms of the programs:

Not enough guided practice;
No examples in the book, no sample problems;
The work sheets are too simple;
The work books are unattractive;
There are few challenges for average or above average children;
Assessment is difficult as there are few tests and most involve observing the performance of the children in the course of group work. Mrs. Kempton made special note that this was a big contrast to the Abbreviated Stanford Achievement Test that the district uses to judge student performance;
The bilingual versions of these programs are difficult for the teachers to use since the coordination of the two languages is unclear and potentially confusing.

An open discussion followed under the moderation of Mary Croft, a community member who has no direct affiliation with either Spreckels or the district. Most comments were directed against the use of these programs or were criticisms of the adoption process itself. One particularly eloquent parent commented that he and his wife had been so distressed at the weakness of the pilot program that they had removed their daughter to a private school rather than subject her to this kind of inferior math program. He than expressed a strong desire that these math programs be kept out of our schools since he couldn't afford private school tuition for his other two children.

In the course of the meeting, it became clear that individual schools do not need to use these programs and that the district can ask for a waiver from the state allowing the use of allocated textbook funds for the purchase of essentially any math program that the district feels suits its needs (State Education Code section 60200). Within recent memory no request for a waiver has been turned down by the state (reported by Elaine Rosenfeld of the State Curriculum Commission at a recent Assembly Education Committee hearing).

Thanks to a high degree of negative reaction to these programs from both teachers and parents, the Principal and staff at Spreckels Elementary subsequently decided not to use these books next year, regardless of the district decision on adoption. In addition, it appears to be the wish of the school to seek a waiver to use more suitable set of texts for the future.

Adoption Proposal Reaches the School Board

On March 28, 1996, the District Instructional Materials Department presented their formal recommendation for the adoption to the Board. Several representatives of the district spoke in favor of their selections. Several parents spoke against the proposed recommendations during the public comment section of the Board meeting. Once again, the Board was clearly notified of the reservations of parents.

The district plan had evolved by this point, to include a phase-in over a two-year period rather than immediately changing all schools to the new materials, and envoking extensive teacher training, raising the cost to $4.8 million.

Board members raised some specific concerns and questions, including:

Member de Beck suggested that to adopt and then have inservice training was inadequate, since the teachers who are expected to teach it can't do it. He warned that the district had a credability problem and that it was unwise to experiment on kids.
Member Braun expressed the opinion the the pilot may not be valid.
Member Ottinger expressed concern over the lack of standards and assessments.
Member Weber suggested that the Board had to to look very carefully at they were doing in this adoption.
Member Armstrong noted that there were a lot of complaints from her district, and expressed concern that the pilot was of only 5-weeks duration.

School Board Votes in Favor of Adoption Plan

On April 9, 1996, the adoption matter came before the Board, and was introduced by a statement of support by Superintendent Pendleton.

The San Diego Unified School District Board of Education voted 4-1 to spend $4.8 million to implement three elementary math programs that all members of the board, plus district staff, feel are sufficiently weak in basic skills and potentially in other areas that they also required:

additional basic skills workbooks that were written as afterthoughts by the publishers
a 75-page district-written supplement for each grade level
keeping the residual textbooks from the last adoption in the classrooms
a district-written instruction materials organizer (to show teachers how to combine the old and new curriculum on a page-by-page basis)
60 hours of in-service training per teacher
having the teachers teach the parents in evening sessions
district standards to be supplied by October 30th
district use of nationally normed tests to assess achievement

The motion to adopt was made by Ron Ottinger, the ayes were Armstrong, Braun, Ottinger and Weber, the Nay was de Beck.

Although much criticism of the programs was voiced and essentially every board member had clear questions about how these programs would be implemented at the district level, board members seemed to accept Vance Mills' assertion that this time, as opposed to the recent science adoptions, staff was really going to get the training and implementation right.

It was particularly telling that all of the "public" supporters of the new adoptions were from out of town and all of the "public" speakers at this and previous meetings who opposed adoptions were concerned parents from within the district, yet the district went with the people who had "spontaneously" and "independently" come to San Diego from Morgan Hill or Lake San Marcos, or Santa Barbara, or Escondido. Even Jack Price came in from Newport Beach to express his concerns for kids from southeast San Diego.

There were some aspects of the meeting seen as positive by Mathematically Correct. As Ron Ottinger said, it was nice to spend time talking about what really happens in the classroom.

It is clear that the feeling of the board is strongly in favor of true standards and of assessments including testing using nationally normed standardized tests. These tests are absolutely essential no matter what math program is adopted. It is critical that the board hold the district staff to the October 30 deadline that was included in the adoption resolution.

Mathematically Correct is likely to be strongly supportive of true learning standards. On the other hand, tests which are as badly flawed as those used to assess the district pilot will not do the job and are likely to be opposed.

No matter what additional new test the district chooses to use next October, it is absolutely critical that the district continue to use an ongoing nationally normed standardized test. Given what is already in place, this test is likely to be the ASAT. Such a test, administered this year and every year for an extended period, is the only way to judge these new programs on the same metric as the old programs. Not to do so is an admission that we do not really want to compare what happens under the new programs with what used to happen. Mathematically Correct is likely to oppose any move to shift away from the previously used baseline tests before it is clear if new programs are succeeding or not.

Dr. Weber was clear in her desire that both waiver schools and non-waiver schools be held to learning standards. Because her comments were centered around making sure that waiver schools were actually getting better, the nature of her remarks with regard to schools that take the district adoptions may have come across as ambiguous. It is critical to have it made clear that both schools that seek waivers and schools that use the district adoptions will be held to the same performance standards, with comparison being made to the standardized tests which have been given regularly in those schools prior to this adoption. Just as schools that choose waiver texts need to know that the district is watching how they are doing and expecting improvement, schools that choose to use the district adoption must know that they are being watched and judged on how well they have chosen and how well they have implemented programs. Test scores and changes in test scores for schools should be publicized. All parents and concerned citizens should know which programs and which schools are improving and succeeding.

The nature of the waiver process remains ambiguous. It is likely that Vance Mills and other district employees will discourage the approval of waivers unless the programs are very similar to the approved programs. Mrs. Armstrong's statement that "The implication of our discussion of waivers is that we will grant them. I can virtually guarantee it," and the inclusion of specific language in the adoption resolution that indicates that waiver requests will come to the Board for review is critical. If district-wide learning standards are established, and if levels of school performance on regular standardized tests are published, then there may be grounds to establish the ability of schools to chose their own textbooks from a wide array of possible books, including from books not on the official state adoption lists.

In summary, the results of the vote are disappointing. True learning standards are an important step. The same tests must continue being given after the switch in curriculum to judge the relative effectiveness of the programs. Waiver schools and schools using the district adoption should be held to the same high standards. Using the district adoptions is not a waiver from the requirement to show improved performance. The waiver process should be such that schools are allowed to choose curricula that come from reputable publishers even if they fall outside the soon-to-be-modified State Framework or are not on the IREP list.

Mathematically Correct began working against this adoption expecting to lose this battle, but feeling that the children deserved the effort. Mathematically Correct leaves this battle having lost. However, the voices of parents have been clear, the importance of basic skills has been stressed, and the weaknesses of the approved texts have been noted.

It is clear that the quality of teachers matters more than the quality of the instructional materials supplied them. A good teacher will be sure the children learn even with a bad text. A weak teacher may not be much help even with a good text. Mathematically Correct believes that parents matter even more than teachers. Now, more than ever, parents must shoulder the burden of insuring that their children develop basic math skills. Mathematically Correct intends to support these efforts.

Mathematically Correct WILL NOT abandon these children