Math program’s future has yet to be resolved

By Cheryl Chumley

Published: May 22, 2008

Here it is, mid-May, said one speaker to Prince William School Board members Wednesday evening, and discussions surrounding an elementary math curriculum, Investigations, are still ongoing.

"We're still talking about the same problem," she said, "and barring any change in curriculum, we'll be here in the fall."

Math Investigations is a course instruction that places more emphasis on teaching students to find creative and collaborative solutions to problems—and then explaining how they arrived at those answers—than on rote memorization of basic facts, like multiplication tables.

In response to the board's adoption of this program, characterized as "fuzzy math" by some, more than 1,300 parents and concerned citizens have signed a petition asking the members to reconsider its mandated use and allow teachers to return to a more traditional method of instruction that stresses algorithms.

Not all board members are on the same level of open-mindedness about changing this curriculum, however.

Don Richardson (Gainesville) has stated repeatedly that it's impossible to gauge the success or failure of the program without waiting for test results, and allowing teachers even to supplement Investigations with other types of curriculum could skew how scores are interpreted.

Members Denita Ramirez (Woodbridge District), Betty Covington (Dumfries) and Julie Lucas (Neabsco), meanwhile, have responded to what they have described as numerous telephone calls and e-mails from concerned parents with their own calls for more information on the program.

Wednesday, board members heard yet another view from a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, a group established by executive order by President Bush in 2006 to analyze "the scientific evidence related to the teaching and learning of mathematics, with a specific focus on preparation for and success in learning algebra," a fact sheet from the No Child Left Behind program states.

Vern Williams, a Fairfax teacher with 36 years experience teaching middle school math and one of 19 advisory panel appointees, spoke at the last-minute request of Gil Trenum, Brentsville District representative and the only member of the board who was not seated at the time of Investigations' adoption. Trenum asked that Williams be added to the agenda; the request passed 6-2.

Vice chair Grant Lattin (Occoquan) and Richardson cast nays, saying they preferred to receive a more balanced presentation, as Superintendent Steven L. Walts suggested, and to wait until other advisory members could attend and offer contrasting views of the findings.

Chairman Milt Johns, meanwhile, set aside 10 minutes for Williams to speak, followed by five minutes for board questions.

"Students need to learn and use standard algorithms," Williams began, adding that the panel's work culminated with many findings he had assumed were the obvious.

Other conclusions: Students have to be able to automatically recall facts before they can conquer higher math concepts. Students nationwide are not achieving proficiency in whole numbers and fractions. And textbooks should be "coherent" and easily understood by teachers, parents and students, and claims that these books do not really "set the tone for the curriculum" but are rather secondary sources of teaching are not born by facts.

Toward the last, complaints about Investigations have pointed to the program's substitution of worksheets and work books for traditional textbooks.

"If I had to have a textbook, I'd want one I could look at and find some kind of focus," Williams said. "I want a calculus textbook where I can find the concept … I don't want a story about a giraffe."

Board members, according to a press release earlier this month, are due to hold a work session on Math Investigations on June 4.

Staff writer Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at 703-670-1907.

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