kitchen table math, the sequel

ESS 102 Math Assessment

Only 16% could solve for x:

y = x/x-1

Cliff Mass of the University of Washington surveyed his Atmospheric Science 101 class at the University of Washington and found the following:

Consider these embarrassing statistics from the exam: The overall grade was 58%

43% did not know the formula for the area of a circle
86% could not do a simple algebra problem (problem 4b)
75% could not do a simple scientific notation problem (1e)
52% could not deal with a negative exponent (2 to the -2)
43% could not do simple long division problem with no remainder!
47% did not know what a cosine was.

Shocking does not begin to describe it. I recommend everyone go over the Seattle's "Where's the Math" website and take a look at the great stuff they've accumulated there as they have been involved in the lawsuit.

Cliff Mass: full post
Cliff Mass: the test (pdf file)
with answers (pdf file)

I'm taking the test now.

Unfortunately, I find I have forgotten what a rational exponent means - and I didn't manage to figure it out just by mulling it over briefly. Which is annoying.


update

I got everything right, and I believe I would have figured out the meaning of a rational exponent if I'd thought about it instead of Googling it.

The reason I got everything right is Saxon Math. I've worked my way through Saxon Math 6/5, 8/7, Algebra 1, and most of Algebra 2.

School administrators who omit public testimony and duly submitted evidence when there are hearings on textbook adoptions from the record provided to the final elected decision makers can now get in trouble. The resulting decision can be subject to judicial challenge.

It's that omission of public information that was contrary to the story they wanted told and might have prevented the textbook decision they wanted reached that set up the "arbitrary and capricious" ruling.

Especially given the State "mathematically unsound" ruling on top of the omissions.

If the Seattle administrators had submitted everything in the public record to the school board, we would likely have a different decision.

New Standard: If you change the public record to influence how the school board sees the evidence, you are setting the board up that its decision will be subject to an arbitrary and capricious challenge.

How is that open-ended? Administrators should not be doctoring the public record to present a one-sided story to the public decision-makers.

=============

I have read all the briefs and corresponded with some of the principals and those omissions were key to the court's ultimate finding.

To insulate themselves School Boards could simply decree that they will accept no public input on textbook decisions but as Barry Garelick notes, that attitude will likely not get them reelected.

I see less downstream craziness but I'm a lawyer so I tend to see the safety devices in place if an informed citizenry knows they exist, how to use them, and appropriately asserts the relevant facts to trigger them.

I think that is in fact what occurred in Seattle.

A chilling effect on wanton disregard of troubling facts and duly submitted evidence by school administrators and elected public officials involved with education is healthy for better decision making.

I think this is an especially important time to be having this discussion because I think we are moving away from any evidence based criteria limiting instructional materials or techniques in the US K-12 classrooms. I see that in every piece of federal legislation or regulations concerning education currently being enacted or discussed.

I'm hoping Robin will fill us in on what she's seeing in federal legislation and regs ----

here

thanks to Cassy T

from Steve H:

At one underperforming high school in our state, the administration got to the point where they fired all of the high school teachers. (They wanted more money.) It recently made national news and even Obama commented on it. Only 7% of the 11th graders met minimal proficiency on the state math test. (Just today, it appears that this leverage has worked and they will come to some sort of agreement with the union.) Ironically, the superintendent of this school system was the one in charge of bringing MathLand to our schools (a different town) years ago. She left to go to this job when my son was in first grade. My son left for a private school after that year and the school started the process of switching to Everyday Math.

I feel that many of us parents are over on the sidelines with our hands raised and asking "Can we say something here?"

At a recent board meeting, when the topic of whether our teachers could 'handle' Singapore Math came up, I raised my hand and asked whether I could say something.

The Interim Director for Curriculum and Instruction said, "No!" Teachers and building principals sitting in the audience were invited to speak; parents had to follow the rules and wait until the end of the very long presentation to make 3-minute comments.

The Interim Director also told us she is recommending that we soldier on with Trailblazers because "there is no perfect curriculum." She said that several times over the course of the evening, with an air of gravitas: There is no perfect curriculum.

Also, we need a math coach, to complement the ELA "teaching learning facilitator" we have now. Plus we need to hire back the teaching-learning facilitator whose position was eliminated last year during the budget fracas.


coming soon to a school district near you

To those of you living in affluent suburban towns: this is the future. Public schools are committed to hiring tenured teachers to teach tenured teachers, and tenured curriculum specialists to "develop" curriculum. Absent tax revolts, there is no conceivable limit to the number of instructional coaches and curriculum specialists affluent schools will attempt to hire in the coming years, because there is no conceivable limit to the amount of "in-house professional development" classroom teachers require and no conceivable limit to the amount of "curriculum development" imperfect curricula require. A whole new tier of administration has been invented and is now in the process of being hired.

This story about Seattle administration tells you where we're headed. Here's Meg Diaz' report. (pdf file)

Do our policy elites have any idea this is going on? Do our newspapers and media outlets?

Dr. M,

In regard to your request for Dempsey & McLaren to define themselves. For the purposes of this discussion we can do a reasonable job in 6 minutes:

Seattle excluded all evidence provided by the public in making the decision to adopt "Discovering" for HS math on May 6, 2009

This was a virtual replay of May 30, 2007 when directors decided to trust their hired professionals instead of using evidence in adopting Everyday Math.

The six minutes is our response to the SPS board on May 20th to their decision to adopt "Discovering" on May 6th.

Let this play past the 4 second intro. Then move the slider to find us from minute 22:15 to minute 28:30

SPS Board meeting video of May 20, 2009 part I:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=4538

Now please define traditionalist.

Thanks,

Dan

The SPS responded in court that "Discovering" was not an inquiry program but a "Balanced" Program. The Judge noticed that all the texts had "Discovering" in the title and on page four the publisher claimed this was an investigative approach to mathematics. She also noticed that every lesson began with an investigation.

Numbers Wars
by Linda Baker

The Honorable Julie Spector

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON IN AND FOR KING COUNTRY

DA-ZANNE PORTER, MARTHA MCLAREN, and CLIFFORD MASS,

Plaintiffs,

v.

SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, IN KING COUNTRY, STATE OF WASHINGTON, BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, and MARIA GOODLOE-JOHNSON, Superintendent and Secretary of the Board,

Defendants.


NO. 09-2-21771-8 SEA



FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND ORDER


THIS MATTER having come on for hearing, and the Court having considered the pleadings, administrative record, and argument in this matter, the Court hereby enters the following Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order:


FINDINGS OF FACT

1. On May 6, 2009, in a 4-3 vote, the Seattle School District Board of Directors chose the Discovering Series as the District’s high school basic math materials.

2. In making its decision, the Board considered:

a. A recommendation from the District’s Selection Committee;

b. A January, 2009 report from the Washington State Office of Public Instruction ranking High School math textbooks, listing a series by the Holt Company as number one, and the Discovering Series as number two;

c. A March 11, 2009, report from the Washington State Board of Education finding that the Discovering Series was “mathematically unsound”;

d. An April 8, 2009 School Board Action Report authored by the Superintendent;

e. The May 6, 2009 recommendation of the OSPI recommending only the Holt Series, and not recommending the Discovering Series;

f. WASL scores showing an achievement gap between racial groups;

g. WASL scores from an experiment with a different inquiry-based math text at Cleveland and Garfield High Schools, showing that WASL scores overall declined using the inquiry-based math texts, and dropped significantly for English Language Learners, including a 0% pass rate at one high school;

h. The National Math Achievement Panel (NMAP) Report;

i. Citizen comments and expert reports criticizing the effectiveness of inquiry-based math and the Discovering Series;

j. Parent reports of difficulty teaching their children using the Discovering Series and inquiry-based math;

k. Other evidence in the Administrative Record;

l. One Board member also considered the ability of her own child to learn math using the Discovering Series.


FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND ORDER - 2

3. The court finds that the Discovering Series is an inquiry-based math program.

4. The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record that there is insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering Series.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

1. The court has jurisdiction under RCW 28A.645.010 to evaluate the Board’s decision for whether it is arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law;

2. The Board’s selection of the Discovering Series was arbitrary;

3. The Board’s selection of the Discovering Series was capricious;

4. This court has the authority to remand the Board’s decision for further review;

5. Any Conclusion of Law which is more appropriately characterized as a Finding of Fact is adopted as such, and any Finding of Fact more appropriately characterized as a Conclusion of Law is adopted as such.


ORDER

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
The decision of the Board to adopt the Discovering Series is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Dated this 4th day of February, 2010

THE HONORABLE JULIE SPECTOR
KING COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE

full text of ruling (pdf file)
support the cause: donate here

I would like to think if we stuck central office administrators in a reform math classroom and forced them to endure the torture they call K-12 math instruction, they would come to see the light, but I fear they would just get out their color-coded sticky notes, their pens and highlighters and happily spend the rest of the day muddling in herds, getting nowhere, certain that their talking, scribbling and checking for group consensus means "real learning" is going on.

Very droll.

I like droll.


Betrayed

Barry clarifies the question of whether the court ordered the Seattle school district to adopt a particular curriculum (which is what I assumed when I read the news):

....the court did not rule on the textbook or curriculum. Rather, it ruled on the school board’s process of decision making—more accurately, the lack thereof. The court ordered the school board to revisit the decision. Judge Julie Spector found that the school board ignored key evidence—like the declaration from the state’s Board of Education that the discovery math series under consideration was “mathematically unsound”, the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction not recommending the curriculum and last but not least, information given to the board by citizens in public testimony.

The decision is an important one because it highlights what parents have known for a long time: School boards generally do what they want to do, evidence be damned. Discovery-type math programs are adopted despite parent protests, despite evidence of experts and—-judging by the case in Seattle—-despite findings from the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Skydiving without Parachutes

Ed says he heard on NPR of a successful court case in which a parent successfully sued a district for failing to teach her child to read -- apparently someone has written a book about the story.

Has anyone heard anything about this?

News report from Seattle Post Intelligencer is here.

From the article:

Those suing to stop Discovering Math in court were Martha McLaren, a retired Seattle high-school math teacher; Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington; and Da-Zanne Porter, mother of a Cleveland High School student.

Mass, a well-known local meteorologist, has said college students' math abilities have been decreasing over the past 10 years.

"I've been giving a math diagnostic exam in my 101 class, and the results are stunning; stunningly bad," Mass said in a story that appeared last month before the lawsuit was argued.

This is stunning news. Every school board should be made aware of this decision. That the ruling was based--in part--on the widening achievement gap attributable to the "discovery" series, raises the spectre of civil rights.

Congratulations to Cliff Mass, Martha McLaren, and Da-Zanne Porter.

The court decision goes a long way in giving parents the credibility they need to stand up to school boards across the country.