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From: Hung-Hsi Wu <wu@math.berkeley.edu>
Fri, 15 Nov 1996 12:44:38 -0800 (PS
To: rosa@teikyopost.edu
Subject: Re: Andrews' article
Dom,
I read the Andrews article in proofs stage, but am curious to see the
subsequent exchange between him and someone in the reform. But things are
looking up everywhere. See below.
Wu
_____________________o________________________
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 12:26:07 -0800 (PST)
From: david klein <vcmth00m@email.csun.edu>
To: Hung-Hsi Wu <wu@math.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Colvin
Hi Wu,
Below is a copy of the Times article. I don't know the complete list yet
for the Framework committee. Perhaps Mike McKeown or Paul Clopton has one
by now.
Best Wishes, David
Sunday,
November 10, 1996
Appointments Seen as Blow to Math Reforms
Education: Many new members of group that will rewrite state guidelines
are critics of de-emphasis on basic skills.
By RICHARD LEE COLVIN, Times Education Writer
A lengthy campaign by California teachers to improve math instruction by
seeking to make it more interesting and meaningful to students was dealt
a sharp blow this past week when the State Board of Education appointed
many outspoken critics of the reforms to the committee that will rewrite
official state math guidelines.
For the last 15 years, a growing group of math teachers had sought to
update teaching methods that focused more on memorization than on
nderstanding, more on number-crunching than on problem-solving. But the
state board's appointments Friday reflect an extraordinarily quick rise
to prominence of critics who over the past two years have complained that
the reformers had all but ignored basic skills.
JJJJJ
The critics had focused on changes adopted in the state's 1992
instructional guidelines, which had been praised nationally for their
insistence that students be given opportunities to solve complex problems
as well as calculate answers to routine ones. Those critics will now play
a major role in writing a replacement. When finished, the new document
will provide the blueprint for teacher training, textbook selection and
test design.
JJJJJ
The move drew immediate fire from state Supt. of Public Instruction
Delaine Eastin, who said it jeopardized the integrity of the process for
writing the state's guidelines and could produce a document with too
great an emphasis on low-level calculations.
Eastin was particularly angry at state board member Janet Nicholas, who
engineered the rejection of most names recommended by a quasi-independent
advisory group, the state Curriculum Commission. "I have very serious
concerns about what happened," said Eastin, who said she would submit a
letter of protest. "It dishonors the process and says that the opinion of
one board member is more important than the committee."
The Curriculum Commission reviewed about 100 applications and recommended
15 for the task of rewriting the math guidelines. But Nicholas removed 10
of those names and added 14 others, including at least seven people who
have spoken out against the current guidelines. Five of those removed
were made alternates to what is now a 19-member committee.
News of the board's unanimous decision to go along with Nicholas'
recommendations stunned and angered many of the 5,000 math teachers
gathered this weekend for their annual Southern California conference in
Palm Springs.
"They've made it into an ideologicl issue," said Elaine Rosenfield, a
San Luis Obispo teacher who chaired the effort that came up with the
original names. "The board's message is [that] the only thing they value
is basic skills."
The decision comes on top of the appointment of another activist critical
of the reforms, political scientist Bill Evers, to head a committee
developing a separate set of academic standards on which a new statewide
test is to be based.
"It's devastating, it's shocking," said Margaret DeArmond, a Bakersfield
teacher who heads the California Math Council, of the recent actions.
"It's very insulting to be knocked out of the game."
But Nicholas said she expects the committee to recommend a balance among
basic skills, conceptual understanding and problem solving. "There was no
litmus test for this group of people . . . other than having expertise in
the subject matter," she said. Nicholas said she tried to appoint people
who had not been previously active with math policy in order to reflect
diverse views.
One of those appointed was Martha Schwartz of San Pedro, a former high
school math teacher who now teaches math and science part time at Cal
State Dominguez Hills. She has been among the critics of math reform in
the Torrance Unified School District. "I'd like to put the basics back
in and build to a higher level," she said. "I have no problem with new
and innovative ways to understand the math, but you have to practice it."
Among the reform critics appointed at Nicholas' suggestion are Zeev
Wurman, a Palo Alto software firm manager; Ralph Cohen, a former chairman
of the Stanford University math department; Paul Clopton, an Escondido
statistician, and Henry Alder, an emeritus professor of math at UC
Davis. The state board this year called for a rewrite of the state's
framework, several years before such a review would normally be
scheduled, to correct a perceived failure to stress practice and math
skills. The existing framework calls for less lecturing, more group work,
fewer drills and more explorations of real-lfe situations.
Textbooks based on those guidelines entered classrooms only this year in
most districts and have sparked the concern of some parents, who were
more accustomed to seeing their children bring home drill sheets of
computations, and of some teachers, the vast majority of whom have not
been trained to teach in the less structured way called for in the
guidelines. Math teachers said the existing framework has not been given
a chance to work and that problems with student achievement should be
attributed to old methods rather than new ones that have yet to be tried
in most of the state.
JJJJJ
Copyright Los Angeles Times
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