The Stars and Stripes
August 7, 1997
Parent's groups have formed all over the country in an attempt to remove or prevent programs such as MathLand from being implemented in their children's schools. In response to the intense protests from parents, teachers and mathematicians, California issued a Mathematics Program Advisory authorizing schools to adopt non-reform math programs, in their words, "to provide the balance that reform programs lack." MathLand is the most criticized of the reform programs and has 60% of the market in California.
The best organized group is called Mathematically Correct and is based in California. Those folks have been very active in gathering and disseminating information through their internet web site: ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mathman/index.htm
Many mathematicians have expressed their concerns about this "new-new math." According to Dr. Wu, mathematics professor at U.C. Berkeley, the Interactive Math series is, "quite the worst math text I have ever come across." Another mathematician wrote, in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), "I respectfully urge the AMS leadership to withdraw its endorsement of the NCTM Standards. The Standards have paved the way for elementary pedagogies such as MathLand, which fail to develop the standard multiplication algorithm for elementary students." And another, "...the proposed MathLand materials, address neither our children's lack of basic skills nor their poor performance on tests ... it wholeheartedly embraces the philosophy of the "reform" movement ... a movement that is being seriously questioned by the mathematical and educational community ... it would be foolish to adopt something with such obvious inadequacies."
We are a transient community and we have no school board or involvement in the decisions that are made regarding our children's educational curricula. It does not have to be that way. We can be involved. We can collectively demand that DoDEA listen to the concerns of the community it is chartered to serve. These are our schools and our children. DoDEA has put in writing that "parents are key players in all DoDEA endeavors." It has adopted Goals 2000, which claims the goal of "first in the world by the year 2000" and states that "all children will be challenged." Well then, provide what's necessary to achieve the goal.
It is not my intention to attack DoDEA, but to try to find a way to provide the kind of education our kids deserve.
Denise McArthur
Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan
from The Stars and Stripes
August 7, 1997
Reproduced by permission