Students Know More than Most Senators

http://www.senatorfolmer.com/2014/03/25/putting-students-and-parents-first/

With all the flap in Philly over the new work rules imposed on the teachers, I got upset over this article written by a York/ Lancaster/Lebanon County state senator, Mike Fowler. Here is my reply to him:

Dear Mr. Folmer,

You are no friend of public schools, students, and their teachers. You have swallowed the koolaid handed out by the corporate so-called reformers who have the privatization of the public school system at the heart of their lies and scare tactics.

You recently wrote an article on your website that railed against bad teachers and smart kids. You claimed that students who spoke at his educational summits and knew about the education budget in PA had been ”educated” in advance by “adults with vested interest in the outcomes.” You included the observation that “Students are well versed on the Commonwealth’s education budget but some have little or no knowledge of our Constitutional republic or its history.” And that one student was “so familiar with school funding formulas she knew more than most Senators.”

It appears as though some Senators may need to go back to school.

You blame the fact that the students know so much on the bad teachers who “used (students) to advance a political agenda.”  If the teachers were bad, would their students know about current Issues in Civics? That is a course of study in high school, after all. Sounds like the teachers did their job well with those students, doesn’t it? And of course, no one in the Governor’s seat or the legislature ever uses educational issues to advance their political agenda, right? Excuse me while I laugh.

It’s a travesty that you believe that students who are “college and career ready” would not have thought to educate themselves on hot-button issues in education. They are, after all, affected by these issues today more than ever. These are students who attended schools that in 2010 were found, by the state legislature itself, to be underfunded by at least $4.4 billion. $1.1 billion being the amount that the city of Philadelphia was underfunded by in that year.  These are students who have seen favorite teachers laid off and arts and music classes cut because of this underfunding. In Philadelphia, these students have had to be educated in schools without enough teachers, without extra-curriculars, counselors, nurses, and materials needed for their studies, and with increases in class sizes. Students are affected by underfunding every single day in our state. They have a much bigger stake in it than any of the adults involved.

The City Paper states, “Pennsylvania, under Corbett, scrapped a measure that considers needs, like the number of students who are living in poverty or are English-language learners. The result: huge shortfalls in poorer districts like Philadelphia, and teachers continuing to spend hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to buy paper and other basic supplies. Municipalities throughout Pennsylvania are also wary of further property-tax increases. In 2011, a record 135 school districts raised property taxes above the normal legal limit. AThe education-funding crisis, deepened by the budget cuts, has made Philadelphia’s predicament uncomfortably familiar to people in towns and cities statewide.”

In advancing your own political agenda, you turn away from the very real education budget crisis and write about that tired, old, and inaccurate stereotype of the bad teacher that no one can get rid of, even though everyone knows who they are. Are there bad teachers in PA? Certainly. There might even be as many bad teachers as bad legislators on Capitol Hill. If a school can’t get rid of a bad teacher, then the problem is with the principal, who has always had the power to release a teacher after proving the teacher is ineffective. Principals often choose not to wield this power, instead they “encourage” the teacher to transfer to another school, starting the cycle all over again. The members of the teachers unions do not want bad teachers in the profession either, but they do make sure that there is proof of incompetence and they do provide a hearing for that teacher, through tenure. 

Many people, maybe even the senator, are unaware that tenure in the K-12 school community doesn’t mean a teacher has a job for life, good or bad. It basically means that a teacher is guaranteed a hearing if accused of something. Seems to me that is a basic tenet in our justice system, presumed innocent until proven otherwise. If the process takes too long, it simply means that the administrator did not follow protocol to get that teacher out. Put the blame where it belongs.

You state, “However, every day we fail to provide children with a quality education, we adults fail to meet the mandate of our state Constitution: to provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” I agree wholeheartedly with you here. But where you would rather tear down the public schools at the expense of charters and get rid of tenure, I am for bolstering the public schools so they can offer each child a “thorough and efficient education.”

Fair funding for public schools, increased scrutiny of charters, and respecting the job that hard-working teachers do every day will be a good start.

You should go back to school. There are many things you have yet to learn.

 If you wish to leave Mr. Fowler a note: Go here:
http://www.senatorfolmer.com/voice-your-concerns-2/

Still learning!

The New Math is Old!

(Disclaimer) Methinks the link below goes to a right-wing conservative site which I normally would not recommend to anyone.
But it is a rare fact that for once, conservatives and progressive liberals are on the same page about the Common Core and Standardized Testing.  We’re just coming at it from polar opposite directions regarding education.

Thanks.

That being said however, the example given here is a wonderful explanation of the different processes that various people (including students) use to understand math. I mean really understand, not just to do rote algorithms that they have had to memorize, like math was taught to me. I needed another way than I was taught. I had some serious problems learning fractions, algebra and trig. Even though I got A’s in my high school math courses, I had no idea how to apply it to real life problems. In fact, I aced Trigonometry because I had a great tutor, my hubby (then boyfriend) and because I could memorize formulae, not because I understood anything about Trig. I learned a lot of math I wish I knew long ago when I learned to teach with Everyday Math. We've had it all wrong all these years. We were educating future factory workers who would take direction well and do things efficiently and not future mathematicians and scientists who actually think about multiple possibilities for answers. There needs to be room for both. Take a good look at each way to solve. It might be better to print it out.

http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/common-core-math-problems/

Our school has been using those methods for the past 12 years. We often heard from those parents at school who thought their method of doing math was better, even though many freely admitted they weren't too good at math! All they really needed to do was come to school and learn why we were teaching this way and allow themselves the “fun” of being taught to do the problems and play the games that would reinforce their children’s math skills. If they did that we were usually able to bring them around to agree with us.

Prior to changing math series, 3th, 5th and 6th grade teachers had stopped using the school district’s math series altogether. It was a horrible book to follow and our kids were getting nowhere fast. We taught without a textbook for 3 or 4 years because we thought the texts were inappropriate for our needs. Adopting the new math series was not taken lightly. There were 5 program choices and we examined each one carefully before making a decision. Then we piloted the series in one room in each grade so we could tell whether it was going to work with our inner city kids.

Although the teachers had to learn how to teach math all over again, and the teacher’s guide was permanently attached to our hips for the first two years, we saw an immediate change in standardized math test scores for the better, with 75% of the kids in the pilot classes scoring high on the open-ended questions, while only 35% scored well in the control groups. I won’t tell you the rest of the staff went gently into the new series, Some came through kicking and screaming about how if the old math was good enough for them, it was good enough for their students. But it wasn’t good enough; we had way too many kids scoring way too low. We needed to do something then to reverse the trend. It took a couple years of staff development once a month until most teachers were sort of comfortable with it, but I did have to go around and collect the old math books from the lower grade classes before a couple teachers bought in.

It was a steep learning curve for the teachers, me included, but our kids did so much better with the new series, which used unorthodox methods to do the basic operations. I learned many surprising things while teaching Everyday Math. Did you realize that there are at least two ways to add and not use regrouping? Three ways to subtract without “borrowing”? Three ways to multiply multi-digit numbers? At least three ways to divide? I didn’t know any of that before I was introduced to Everyday Math. In fact, during report card conferences, I heard from a few parents who were born in the Caribbean that some of these “new” ways were the ones they were taught in school in their native land. One mother from the Dominican Republic showed me an astounding way to divide, one I had never seen before. For 18 years I taught remedial math to 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th  graders who just couldn’t get it. I only took the ones below the 27^th percentile, and that was about 25% of the student population. I’d hypothesize that anyone below the 50^th percentile could have used my services, but there weren’t enough hours in the day. The last year I taught, close to 65% of the students were scoring proficient or above on the math PSSAs. We had been using the series for 10 years at that point. The “new” math works.

These are legitimate strategies for doing math. I taught some of them to my remedial math students in the 1980s. Nothing there is new. More kids would learn math well if they were allowed to play with the various methods and choose the one that works for them. If for no one else, kids that don't get the traditional way need alternatives. Adding mentally is quite fast when you get to higher numbers and you are less prone to "carrying" or "borrowing" mistakes. Plus it strengthens their understanding of place value, which will help them in middle school pre-algebra and algebra. The danger is going too fast - you have to play with the place-value blocks until you get it, then go to the lines and x's until you get it, then on to numerical representations. If we want them to move, not at their pace but at ours, it'll never work.

Seriously, the way we were taught is sorely lacking, but you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, I am proof. I didn't learn these methods until I was in my late 30's-early 40's. I so wish I had been taught that way in grade school. Maybe then I would have felt confident in the higher math. But instead I shied away from higher math at all costs. Try it with an open mind. No student should be required to do the numerical representations for regrouping numbers until they are 10 or 11, when they are capable of more abstract thinking.

Please trust me, the methods work. They really, truly do. My students for the last 12 years proved it over and over again. Try it, you might like it.

If you need another explanation, try here:

http://theeducatorsroom.com/2014/01/crazy-new-math/

 And I am not the only one out there who feels this way.
http://themindfulmathematician.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-letter-to-frustrated-parents-of.html?showComment=1395879786610#c4380641401902810822

Still learning!

It Ain't Necessarily So

This is actually a two-part blog, one about misleading names/websites and also about the “new” math, some of which is actually at least 30 years old.

I was reading over some education blogs, as I do every day, and I saw a link to a math-related example of what Joe Public says is new, but some I actually used to teach remedial math in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The sample explanations were quite good and I was impressed with the teacher’s thoroughness in trying to explain to the parents how they were learning to solve basic arithmetic problems. I have hosted Math Nights at our school and wish I had this sheet of paper to hand out. There was no comment along with the example other than “I have no comment.” I got the distinct feeling that the person who put it up there was not happy with it. Lately online there have been many examples of people being outraged by the new methods their children are learning in school. They’re not new!

The website was called Truth in American Education. Red flags immediately went up in my mind. In my experience, organizations and websites that have “truth” or “freedom” or “patriot” or “America” in their titles, are not necessarily telling the truth, promoting freedom, showing patriotism, or espousing American ideals.  I looked around the site for clues about why this example was put up for review. I read the ABOUT section, no problem there. The subsections of the website were against the “right” things according to this liberal activist - Common Core, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Privacy Issues with inBloom. Nevertheless, there was a nagging feeling I was missing something. I didn’t want to recommend this site to friends and find out it was not what it seemed. I finally found a section on Homeschool/Private schools. Hmmmmm, any of the education groups I’m a member of would not be in favor of either of those. I clicked on it and found what I was looking for about 4-5 paragraphs down the page. Why they are opposed to the Common Core and the testing for homeschoolers and private schoolers:

• *Establishes an Uneven Playing Field. The national effort will have a pervasive effect on college admissions and scholarship opportunities. Private and home school children will have to study for the standardized tests, or else be disadvantaged vis-à-vis other students. It also creates challenges for students seeking to transfer credits between private and public schools, and home school and public schools.
• Normalizes Controversial Societal Issues: Controversial societal norms will substantially influence a national curriculum, which would in turn influence the values and beliefs undergirding the teaching-learning process. This was clearly seen in the politicization of the Texas Board of Education curriculum debate in May 2010 as the TX State Board of Education determined the standards for the social studies curriculum.
• Threatens Autonomy of Private, Religious, and Home Schools: A national standard would jeopardize the freedoms of private, religious, and home schools to teach their students in a way which best reflects their core educational and cultural beliefs. A “standardized” method of teaching based on secular formatted standards could impose on the right to teach a child from a religious worldview, ultimately impeding on a school or parent’s mission.

The whole page can be found here:

http://truthinamericaneducation.com/home-schoolprivate-school/

My suspicions were confirmed. Methinks this is a right-wing conservative site which I normally would not recommend to anyone. But it is a rare fact that for once, conservatives and progressive liberals are on the same page about the Common Core and Standardized Testing. But we’re coming at it from polar opposite directions regarding education.

Tomorrow I’ll put up the example.

 

Still learning!