Math Delusion

by Brian
 

David Horsey of the Seattle PI has weighed in with the best opinion piece about Superintendent Randy Dorn's proposal to modify the math graduation requirement that I have read so far.

We are having parent conferences at my school this week, and yesterday I heard the parents of one of my better Algebra students tell me how frustrated they have been with the WASL. Their daughter is a bright, highly motivated freshman who seems to like my class and be comfortable with the curriculum. But her parents told me she did not meet standard in math on the WASL in 4th grade or 8th grade, and she has a lot of anxiety about taking the state test (whatever it will be) next year. It makes me angry to read the Seattle Times editorial board opposing Dorn's proposal: "It sends a disheartening message to students who want to excel and who understand that the route to higher education — whether college or trade school — is by meeting high standards." What do they think the message has been for the last ten years for the 50% of our students who have not met the math standard? Inspiring?? What makes them think that the WASL has been a reasonable measure of what a high school graduate should know? Not a college-bound student, just a high school graduate ready to go to work. It's time to answer that basic question.

I made an appointment with my Representative today to talk to him about where the bar should be set for graduation. I sent him Horsey's article too. I encourage you to read it, and talk to your Representative too. Our students deserve a realistic standard.

Comments

[Bob Heiny]

Thanks for the response suggestions to those who raise these points. I've tried them too, but perhaps with less positive results than you have obtained from those with whom you speak. That's why I asked you teachers.

The "dumb down" and "anti-intellectual" assertions have existed as frequent descriptors among business people and other taxpayers as well as public education policy makers about public schools for the past several decades, probably before most of you entered the public school educator ranks.

And, yes, I agree that current public education policy aims at teachers to increase student learning whether teachers agree with the political tactics or not. And, as I understand it, that's their legal right, even when educators resist.

Thanks again for your suggestions. And, best wishes with increasing student learning.

[Tom]

Who said I was dumbing anything down? My "post" (actually it was a comment on Brian's post) merely suggested that a concept I was told to teach wasn't relevant to the world these students live in. I would happily teach something smarter, as long as it was relevent. That said, I do agree wholeheartedly with Brian. When you have over half of the student population failing a math test after ten years of school reform, it's time to take a long look at the test itself.

And Bob, you may want to consider the tone with which you express yourself on this blog. You're obviously a passionate and intelligent person, and we all value your insights. But you occasionally come across as negative and narrow-minded. No one likes to be told that they "dumb down" their curriculum. I resent that remark.

[Mark]

I've noticed many anti-teacher sentiments from you, Bob. I don't quite understand why, really. I'm not quite sure how education would function better without teachers.

In the standards argument, think the reality is this:

1. Often, someone not in the classroom, not connected to real students, establishes the standards. If you look at committees who build standards, more often than not, the educators who are involved are administrators, university professors or advanced/honors teachers (not always, but usually). AND as has been in the news recently, those people making the standards are too often also publishing the textbooks and technology which schools are to use to teach to those standards.

2. The teacher who is in the classroom who sees and is connected to real students, looks at the standard, looks at the kid, and looks back at the standard and realizes that given the time constraints (and other factors outside the teacher's control) that said standard may not necessarily be appropriate for that learner at that stage of their development.

3. When the teacher criticizes the standard and asks for a more realistic revision, they are charged with "dumbing down" the system.

4. Rather than "dumb it down," the standard remains, and plenty of good teachers work hard to scaffold their kids toward achieving that standard (despite your apparent position, Bob, that teachers are the only reason kids don't pass tests). Still, fewer than 50% pass...

So what does it say about the standard that less than 50% are able to meet it?

I know that when I set a goal for my students, I build instruction to scaffold them toward that goal. If they do not meet the goal, my first step in reflection is consider whether the goal was appropriate for those learners at that stage of their development. It is possible to set unrealistic goals. My freshmen will not be reading Foucault and Derrida and talking linguistic theory right away...that is not an appropriate goal. However, if I decide that yes, it was an appropriate goal, then I reflect deeper into my practice and examine what I should have done differently to scaffold to that goal. If I realize that in actuality, no, the goal was too lofty, then I recalibrate what interim goals I need to set in order to eventually get them to that loftier goal. Either path I choose, this is apparently called "dumbing down." I'm damned if I do...you know the rest.

You can blame teachers, Bob, as this seems to be your default position. As for some "anti-intellectual" movement, have you seen popular culture targeted at teens for the last thirty years? Our country outside the halls of schools certainly does its part to diminish any value of intellectualism. The kids who are immune to those cultural pressures are the ones who would succeed anyhow (and I'd bet that the x factor there is parental involvement and support), whereas the kids who are susceptible to cultural pressures are coincidentally often the ones not passing the tests. If you want to cite an "anti-intellectual" movement, shadow a typical 15 year old and track just how many times you see the glorification of ignorance and inarticulacy, not to mention the minimalization of the value of being informed and educated. If you want a folk devil for the "dumbing down" of our culture, you can tar and feather teachers because we're low on the societal value totem (despite glowing lip service) but if we're to really pin culpability on what is "dumbing down" our culture, I think a much more convincing devil is found in pop commerce, which profits off of modeling and perpetuating willful stupidity in our culture.

[Brian]

Bob, I take offense to the idea we are dumbing down academic performance. The ad hominem attack on teachers doesn't advance the debate.

[Bob Heiny]

Are you referring to math or arithmetic here?

Your post, Tom, reminds me of two common decades old questions asked by business people and other non-certified teachers (yes, they instruct): Why do public school teachers insist on "dumbing down" academic performance standards to utilitarian criteria? Is this an effort to enforce anti-intellectual communitarianism? Where's the push to better one's self?

I don't know how much I agree with these questions, but I also don't see blog posts that convince these skeptics of the adequacy of public school teacher performance.

How do you suggest responding to their questions?

[Mark]

My question then, which I'm sure you and others are grappling with, it what standard is the appropriate bar?

I think even though counting change may not be necessary, understanding money certainly should be (at the high school level especially). I think schools do more a disservice to kids by sending them out into the world with a better understanding of Algebra II or calculus than how credit cards, car loans and mortgages work--household budgeting, personal financial planning. These ought to be in there somewhere, don't you think? To me, that's real math, and aside from adding up points on my graded homework, the only math I use regularly any more is the math necessary to operate my household.

[Tom]

Horsey rocks. I knew him when his daughter was in my third grade class over twenty years ago. And he's right; we're doing a disservice to our kids by setting an unrealistic math bar.

His essay reminded me of a weird moment I had this week. I was teaching my third graders a lesson from Our New Curriculum. ("Teach every lesson, in sequence. Don't skip anything.") It was how to count out change using coins: “The sandwich cost $2.78. Count out a penny; that's $2.79, another penny; that's $2.80, and then a dime...”

Halfway through the lesson, it occurred to me that not only will these people never have to perform this task, but their parents have never had to perform this task in real life. It's been automated for the last thirty years. Yet here I was, cramming it down their throats because I was supposed to. We need to get real about math.

The trick, though, is to do it without looking like we're surrendering to our own incompetence.