Parents: New math just doesn't add up

By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

SENECA, Mo. - Seneca sixth-graders' goat problems have been getting the goat of some of their parents.

About 30 parents recently formed the Disconnected Parents Group to voice opposition to reform-mathematics curricula implemented at the elementary and middle-school levels of the Seneca R-7 School District.

"I'm not a parent who's upset because I have a child who isn't doing well," said Nancy Brownen, the mother of a fifth-grade girl and sixth-grade boy in Seneca schools.

Her children are getting good grades, she said. But the district's new approach to teaching math has left her scratching her head and wondering whether the district is failing to teach pupils the basic math skills they need to succeed in life.

Until recently, the math homework her children and other pupils were taking home was requiring them to spend several hours every night just on math, she said. And it wasn't the type of exercises that comes to mind when most people think of math homework.

For example:

The Jacobsens keep their goat on a 3-meter chain connected to a metal hook in the ground.

A) They chained the goat to the metal hook in the center of their big yard. What area of grass can the goat reach to eat? Sketch a picture and show your work.

B) Sometimes they chain the goat to the corner of a shed that is 5 meters by 4 meters. The 3-meter chain is attached to the base of the wall at ground level. What is the area of grass that the goat can reach? Show and explain your work.

C) What if the hook was attached at ground level to the center of the 4-meter wall? Would the amount of grass it could reach be greater? Justify your answer.

Deeper thinking

Such "new" math is called Connected Mathematics on the middle-school level and Everyday Math on the elementary level. The Seneca School District implemented Everyday Math three years ago at the elementary level. The district started implementing Connected Mathematics last year in grades six through eight and is fully implementing it this year in the sixth grade.

"Teaching traditional math has not been effective," said Georgianna McGriff, director of curriculum for Seneca schools.

Scores for the middle school on the math portion of the Missouri Assessment Program tests in 2003 and 2004 fell short of the federal No Child Left Behind program's requirement that school districts show a certain percentage of students testing out at the top two levels, Proficient or Advanced. So Seneca got placed in the federal School Improvement Program, which required that the district implement a research-based math program.

"What we were seeing is that students didn't understand the connection between all the various strands of mathematics," McGriff said. "These reform-math programs try to teach connections among all the math strands."

She said the focus of Connected Mathematics is on learning the underlying concepts of math through problem-solving and not just repetitive math exercises. Seneca is receiving $69,000 in federal money over the course of two years to implement the program.

The National Science Foundation funded the Connected Mathematics Project between 1991 and 1997 at Michigan State University.

It was an effort to develop a complete mathematics curriculum for the middle-school grades that would begin to address deficiencies in the teaching of mathematics in the United States that were showing up in international studies. The Connected Mathematics Project curriculum underwent a five-year scrutiny beginning in 2000 that included reviews, revision, field-testing and evaluation.

Research-backed

Connected Mathematics has been used in all 50 states and some foreign countries. Seneca is not the only school district in Southwest Missouri to implement it. Webb City schools have had it for a few years, and Springfield schools recently took it up.

The Southwest Center for Educational Excellence in Webb City is administering a $3.5 million project for the National Science Foundation that includes the teaching of Everyday Math and Connected Mathematics in 10 school districts in Southwest Missouri, including McDonald County and Westview Elementary School in Newton County. The project is known as the Ozark Rural Systemic Initiative.

Janna Gordanier, the project director, defends the reform-math programs as highly researched.

"The reason the NSF funded these projects across the nation is because research showed how poorly our students were doing in comparison with students in the rest of the world," Gordanier said.

She said the project is "not a country thing" so much as an attempt to implement the best practices and what research shows works best.

The project, which started in 2002, hasn't produced any pupils yet who have completed grades three through eight under the reform-math curricula. But early results are promising, Gordanier said. Of 21 Southwest Missouri districts using the curricula for three years, 15 improved their numbers of students scoring at the Proficient and Advanced levels on the mathematics portion of MAP tests, four districts stayed the same, and just two districts had declining numbers.

John Lannin, a professor of mathematics education at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said the teaching of math traditionally has involved a heavy emphasis on repetition. Students learn the rules of math through repetitive exercises.

"Many students don't know why, or invent reasons why, these rules work," Lannin said.

He said Japanese mathematics textbooks are much thinner than American textbooks because the emphasis is not on repetition but on spending more time on fewer problems. Similarly, Connected Mathematics seeks to build a deeper understanding of how math works through applied learning.

Criticism

Reform math has done little more than puzzle some parents in the Seneca School District.

"It's not a complete math program for our children," said Robin McAlester, who has a son in Seneca's sixth grade. "It lacks the skills and drills that you and I learned in school."

She said her research of the subject on the Internet has turned up a number of school districts nationwide in which less than desirable results were obtained using reform-math programs, often dubbed "fuzzy math" by its critics.

McAlester also pointed to a recent report from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, urging a return to basics in mathematics teaching. The report's message contrasts sharply with the message of a 1989 report of the council that initiated the debate nationwide by promoting open-ended problem-solving over drilling.

"I know there are states that have banned the use of this program, and there are several school districts where parents have sued over it and won," Brownen, the Seneca parent, said of reform math.

She said the Seneca parents group is not interested in suing the district, but it would like to get the district to back off the approach to some extent. Brownen said there are teachers in the middle school who do not think Connected Mathematics can be a stand-alone curriculum.

"The problem is: It's very time-consuming," Brownen said. "To do one problem takes 25 minutes."

She said it takes teachers so long to get through the Connected Mathematics segments of lessons that they have no time left to teach the basic math skills their students need to fulfill required expectations for grade-level content.

"It would be fine if teachers were allowed to teach the math program they feel is most effective and fulfill those requirements they have to teach, and then use this reform math as a supplement," Brownen said.

Main curriculum

McGriff, the curriculum director, said the aim is to make reform math the main curriculum for the middle school. She said the places where teachers discover holes in that curriculum are where adjustments will be made and basic skills will be taught as a supplement.

Lannin, the MU professor, said that while reform math has units that can be taught in supplementary fashion, and its publisher markets it as both a stand-alone and a supplementary curriculum, it may be most effective when used alone. He said a study of its use on the elementary level found that it improved scores when used alone, but scores declined when it was supplemented with traditional methods.

"I think it's a challenge to go back and forth between the two even though the publisher is marketing it that way," Lannin said.

He said reform math has encountered some opposition from teachers and parents in a number of school districts. He said that's a reflection of how difficult it is to change the nation's way of teaching math.

"The key is to provide professional development for the teachers," Lannin said. "And you have to do it for the parents as well."

He said it is hard for parents to accept reform math because they are used to helping their children with their math by following examples in textbooks or showing them how they used to do it. But reform-math problems take more time and require deeper thinking, which can be frustrating for parents as well as students, he said.

Math meeting

Georgianna McGriff, director of curriculum for Seneca schools, said the school district is listening to the concerns of parents and teachers. The district has scheduled an informational meeting for 6 p.m. Monday at the central office for anyone who wants to learn more about the district's math curricula.

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