Save Our Children From Mediocre Math (SOCMM)

Public Comments

Conejo Valley Unified School District School Board Meeting

June 14, 2005

Proposed Home School Program Agenda Item      (CVUSD Everyday Math)

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Test scores of home School students using traditional math programs and direct instruction will conceal

Poor CVUSD classroom results from Everyday Math taught with the discovery (Constructivist) pedagogy.

                                               

Keep Home School Test Scores Separate

 

CVUSD officials indicate that allowing home school in the Conejo Valley will provide a sense of “community” to local families that currently must enroll students through other districts.  Area parents and voters would be wise to consider other aspects of this program administrators have failed to mention, chief among them is that test results from home schooled students would be included with the scores from classrooms.

 

The greatest advantage of the proposed home school program for administrators (other than the $6,500 per student from the state) could be that they will manage to dodge the No Child Left Behind bullet that targets schools which fail to show adequate annual improvement on standardized exams, all without having to improve a single classroom result.

 

High proficiency obtained on standardized exams by students receiving “direct” instruction at home, using instructional materials of their own choosing (think traditional math), will help to cover up evidence of low test scores indicative of failure on the part of the CVUSD classroom programs which employ “discovery” teaching methods (Constructivism).  If a large number of home school students participate in future years, scores from all subjects could rise across the district, thus making the task of identifying classroom failures extremely difficult.

http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/comp2001/HomeSchoolAchievement.pdf

http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/    (scroll down to table 3.4 and 3.5 – by the end of 7th grade home school test scores are at a 12th grade equivalent)

 

A startling fact revealed in the home school meeting is that only $100 per pupil per year is made available for books in the CVUSD public school system.  This perhaps explains why our son’s first grade desk in public school contained only 2 workbooks; a writing book more appropriate for a lower grade level, and a math work book which is not approved by the State Board of Education.  The weakness of CVUSD public education became obvious once our child attended 1st grade in a private school where 8 traditional workbooks are employed to provide a thorough educational experience. 

 

The inability for public school funding to trickle down to the individual students is catastrophic and the single most important issue that education officials must address if improvements in classrooms are to be had.  The administration’s lack of will to eliminate bureaucratic waste on experimental programs and improve the quality of classroom resources must end or public education will crumble under the weight of its own mismanagement as parents and voters decide enough is enough.

 

Jo Anne Cobasko

 

Originally Published in the Ventura County Star June 8, 2005   http://blogs.venturacountystar.com/vcs/letters/archives/2005/06/separate_test_s.html

Also in the Thousand Oaks Acorn June 9, 2005

 

                                                                                                                                                                       

 

A comprehensive spelling workbook used by each student was not available for this photograph.

(Note:  the Houghton Mifflin Mathematics workbook is approved by CA State Board of Education)

 

 

Save Our Children from Mediocre Math

Web site:  http://socmm.home.att.net

 

 

CVUSD Everyday Math Rejected by SBE

 

SOCMM Supports CVUSD Math Choice