COMMENTARY

By Richard Zisko

Co founder of Save Our children from Mediocre Math

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Every Day Math does not meet CA math standards: "Not a Wise Decision"

CVUSD adopted the Everyday Math (EM) curriculum for use in all K-6 classrooms though it is not an approved program of the CA State Board of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/im/documents/adpr2001.pdf

Advocates supporting the EM curriculum made public statements recently which contained misrepresentations of the actual facts. Save Our Children from Mediocre Math (SOCMM) operates a web site at http://socmm.home.att.net; we urge all parents to log on and discover the truth about these issues.

When asked to comment on recent public claims that Everyday Math met or exceeded all of the CA math standards except long division, Dr. R. James Milgram of Stanford University (a reviewer of the EM program for the State Board of Education) gave the following comment, “No way is this correct. In fact in the detailed review of EM for the 2000 adoption, EM was uniformly weak in its coverage of all the standards in the lower grades except for aspects of geometry.” The 2001 Mathematics Adoption Report further documents the State Board of Education’s rejection of Everyday Math as failing to meet standards. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/im/documents/mathrpt.pdf

We invite the district to provide scientific evidence which supports the notion that Everyday Math directly contributes to higher math scores. A great number of EM students attend outside tutoring centers and spend hours drilling at home. Officials can not accurately claim high math scores are the sole result of classroom use of EM. Dr. Robert L. Mandell has documented the mediocre test results of the Reading MA schools which have used Everyday Math for the past 12 years. http://www.iror.org/documentation3/reading_advocate_102804_everyday_math_failing_paper.pdf

Exceptional scientific research indicates that a CA approved curriculum can raise test scores as much as 20 points no matter what socio-economic or language barriers a student may face. The fantastic test scores achieved by the Manhattan Beach schools, as reported in the study by William Hook http://www.nychold.com/talk-hook-040404.pdf, irrefutably attest to the outstanding education results that can be achieved when using a CA approved math textbook. To our knowledge no equivalent research exists, or has been presented which supports the claims made by proponents of the EM curriculum.

While the district is not likely to replace the Everyday Math curriculum anytime soon, SOCMM seeks to immediately ensure that all CVUSD students are given the “choice” to opt out of the EM curriculum, into a math program using CA approved textbooks such as Houghton-Mifflin, Sadlier-Oxford, Saxon Math, and others which are closely aligned to the California math standards and annual exams which students must take. Math “choice” has been successfully implemented in a number of districts where there has been conflict. With CA scores nearing an all time low isn’t it time to implement change for the better?

Originally published In the Ventura County Star, February 28, 2005

Save Our Children from Mediocre Math

Web site: http://socmm.home.att.net

SOCMM CVUSD math choice SOCMM