Do NOT Buy a Car

Priscilla,

Parallels drive me crazy.

If you were going to buy a new car, would you not carefully examine the models that you found likely to fill the bill?

Giving a huge weight to reliability based on Consumer Reports reliability rating and perhaps to J.D. Power's initial quality report.

Of course you would NOT do that you are an Educator.

You would imagine what the ideal car would be like based on smell, visual appearance, weight, load capacity, fuel mileage, politically correct country of manufacture, etc etc

You would put together a committee of people who only ride buses and bicycles and are without drivers licenses to help you refine your criteria. Then once the created and approved criteria produced by the automotive ignorant were finalized, an enormous panel of folks which actually had a few individuals that new a bit about cars on it would be convened.

Those who knew about cars were aghast at the criteria, but it did not matter as they were hardly noticeable with the size of the committee doing the ratings.


When finished although many had hoped for a Prius while others a Ferrari Testarosa it was agreed that a Kevlar Ox-Cart best matched the criteria. Now you the educator will drive it. While everyone else goes home and about their normal lives.

If you find this method of vehicle selection objectionable, why keep buying it for textbook decision making?

Suggestion: Check the relevant data this does NOT work for either cars or textbooks.

If you wish to produce positive results check out the reliable stuff that works and use it. The 2004 MSSG says so. Of course how we would determine that in today's climate -- well probably not allowed.

Me, I would use the top performing math curriculum in the English speaking world which even works for ELL and learn to use it.

My God the Israelis translated it into Hebrew, but we like Everyday Math because it smells better.

What a country!!!!

It is time for the Math teachers to discredit this entire process, not by selecting the best books, but by resigning.

Resigning and applying for jobs in the district, state, and national education offices. There is NO accountability for anything having to do with math or science at that level, but even better is the fact you can then base the pathetic performance on the math teachers need for more training. For goodness sakes do not blame it on the teachers lack of content knowledge because in your new position it is required you know absolute zero about math content.

We now have in place a system that expands the number of jobs for those who know nothing about math and has been continually enlarged over the last decade creating more and more math-decision making positions for the math illiterate.

W. Edward Demings said: if you can remove it and it has no detrimental effect on the production process, then do so. Here is something begging for removal that will actually enhance the production process with its removal.

Alas we are unable to see the obvious because we've been conditioned to keep eyes closed and blindly feel about for solutions.

The magic bullet is out there just keep feeling about for it. Good luck with that plan but it is the only plan given credence in this world of make believe.

Dan

Another Vote for FIXED process

Mike Miller votes for FIXED and provides his rationale.

There is no question (in my mind) that the standards revision process was designed at every step to produce a pre-determined outcome. The primary goal of OSPI (TB) was engineer the revision process in such a way, that ultimately the “framework” or “parameters” set forth by the new standards would allow for the continuance of the reform agenda (status quo).

Attached is a letter from Brogan (ISD Asst Sup) to Rasmussen (new incoming ISD Sup) from last summer. The main purpose of the letter is to assure Rasmussen that the recently adopted curricula (Everyday Math) would fit into WA State’s revamped standards & subsequent preferred curricula. This, before the standards revision process even began, and almost 1 full year before the decisions on preferred curricula. Hmmm… How could she (Brogan) have been so certain?

Additionally, it appears (to no surprise) that OSPI has engineered the IMR process to ensure the same pre-determined outcome. The first link in the Brogan/Rasmussen letter… http://www.k12.wa.us/CurriculumInstruct/Mathematics/pubdocs/K-12MathematicsComputationFluencyReportFinal.pdf

... is to the K-12 Computational Fluency Supplemental program review, conducted one year ago. To my un-educated eye, it appears that the review of these curricula was conducted with an entirely different “weighting criterion” than will be used by the present IMR process. Much more weighting appears to have been given to the pre-existing EALR’s in the Supplemental program review, than will be afforded the new standards (which were designed to replace EALR’s) in the present IMR process for curricula selection. Could it be possible that the new standards are given less weight, because it will be more difficult to justify reform curricula alignment than it was with the pre-existing EALR’s? I’ll leave the answer to that question to you… the more informed than I.

--- Mike

Surprise Meeting - didn't you know?

This just in .....

In yet another fine display of open Government OSPI will be holding the following meeting TOMORROW.

This may be the only place in the state you will see this posted.

It has somehow escaped any notification more broadly.

What are the OSPI and SBE websites used for???

The IMR Advisory Group meeting will be held on Wednesday, 5/21.

Location:
* Radisson Hotel Gateway, SeaTac
18118 International Boulevard
Seattle, WA 98188
Phone: 1-206-244-6666

Schedule:
* 8:00 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. Breakfast
* 8:30 a.m. Meeting
Commences
* Noon. - 12:30 p.m. Lunch
* 3:00 p.m. Meeting
Adjourns

Hey they are only finalizing the criteria for selecting the recommended math materials. We spent over a year on the Standards (largely because of OSPI's attempt to arrive at a pre-determined outcome)- only two meetings required for OSPI to foul this up even further.

Business as usual from OSPI
-- In regard to the Instructional Materials Review criteria.....
No notification of meeting #1 and now this for the second and likely last meeting.

Again I say:

Anyone with any confidence left in Dr Bergeson's OSPI is totally uninformed or thinks that thinking is over-rated.

Conflict of interest? In this day and age there is no
such thing. This is just business as usual. It is how businesses promote each other and manage to wangle the $770,000 contracts that roll right into contracts for curriculum materials, that is if things work the way they are supposed to.

Darn those gnats, they keep getting in the way.

Can't we get a bigger fly swatter?

Maybe if we don't tell anybody what, where, and when we are doing our distortions of the intent of the law, the gnats won't bother us.

Write Congress Today

HERE is your link.

Here is my letter.....

To: The Honorable Adam Smith,

I am on the Washington State Board of Education Math Advisory Panel.

It is my recommendation that any NSF activity that does not align with the Report "Foundations for Success" be canceled.

On 5-21-2008 US House Education and Labor Committee is scheduled to have a meeting in regard to the National Math Advisory Panel Report. It is my observation as a math teacher that one of the reasons for the US fall in math education have been actions by the NSF in regard to k-12 math education in the USA.

The USA fell a statistically significant 9 points from 483 to 474 on the PISA math test of 15 years olds from 2003 to 2006. We remain far and away the world's worst scoring English speaking country tested and we are getting worse.

I was involved in an NSF funded math professional development program run through the University of Washington during school year 2006-2007. My only comment is that it was abysmal. The NSF funds have established a math infrastructure that is focused on promotion of professional prejudices rather than on the intelligent application of relevant data needed to produce improvement.

The NMAP points out there are no best practices in Math because there are 16,000 bogus research studies that are used to advance the prejudices of the profession rather than any concern with better results.

If we examine international performance in mathematics not only will you find the USA's performance pathetic but worse yet is our NSF inspired insistence that we know what we are doing in Math-Ed and the rest of the world is uninformed as to our brilliant insights.

Please assist in shutting down from within what has in too many ways become our agency of domestic math terrorism.

The NSF spent close to $100 million dollars in producing 13 math curricula of which not even one has yet demonstrated the ability to produce significant positive achievement.

The NSF runs expensive programs in professional development that are specifically aimed at pushing reform mathematics. We are now the laughing stock of the industrialized world for our failure to mathematically educate our children. Our future economic health is threatened.

A huge number of math teachers are extremely frustrated with Bureaucratic Textbook selections of books filled with words rather than numbers. Then those same Bureaucrats wonder: why the children have little number sense?

Singapore is a nation in which all math instruction is in English and yet over 50% of the children come from homes speaking Tamil, Malay, or Mandarin Chinese not English. Singapore students score #1 in the world on TIMSS Math at both grade 4 and grade 8. In most US states their books would not be used because they do not come with multiple language editions.

The Singapore texts are written in very straight forward simple English and use lots of Numbers - that is a real key MORE NUMBERS and fewer words. The USA thanks to defective leadership still is headed for lots of words available in multiple languages rather than Numbers.

Please Congressman Smith see if you can restore some sanity to this system.

Danaher M. Dempsey Jr.

Washington State Board of Education Math Advisory Panelist
BA in Mathematics, M.Ed.
NCLB Highly Qualified in Math, Chemistry, and Science

and really disgusted with the last 15 years of NSF destructive direction in K-12 mathematics.... and Featuring the Best Math Practices that are NOT.

Capitol Hill to check out NMAP

Full House Committee on Education and Labor hearing
on "The National Mathematics Advisory Panel Report:
Foundations for Success,"

Scheduled at 10:00 a.m. on
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 in room 2175 Rayburn H.O.B.
Witnesses to be announced.

This hearing will be available via live webcast, which can be accessed by going to the Committee website:
http://edlabor.house.gov/contact.shtml

There will be a link to the hearing the day of the hearing.

The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing to examine a recent report released by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel on the state of math education and instruction in the United States. Among other things, the report found that the nation’s system for teaching math is “broken and must be fixed” if the U.S. wants to maintain its competitive edge.

Witnesses:

Dr. Skip Fennell
Member
National Mathematics Advisory Panel
Former President
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Westminster, Maryland

Dr. William Haver
Professor of Mathematics
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia

Laura Slaver
Vice President
Achieve, Inc.
Washington, D.C.

Dr. Wanda T. Staggers
Master Teacher and Dean of
Manufacturing and Engineering
Academy of Engineering
and Biomedical Sciences
Anderson, South Carolina

Mary Ann Wolf
Executive Director
State Education Technology
Directors Association
Glen Burnie, Maryland

Conflict of Interest by Dave Orbits

Any educator, consultant or contractor that has a financial connection to a publisher or provider of educational programs or services should be required to disclose that connection. Is there a state law that requires this disclosure? This is the same problem that the medical community has been dealing with where researchers are taking consulting money from pharma companies. The peer reviewed journals are now requiring these researchers to disclose these connections because of the potential for bias / conflict of interest in both the research being performed and the outcomes.

We have a worse problem in the case of state curriculum selections since district curriculum people will be strongly biased in favor of their prior selections regardless of the fact that the standards have changed. Even if they weren’t their management will be pushing them to get their district curriculum approved as a cost saving measure.

To me this means that no one involved in prior curriculum decisions nor any person that can be pressured into a particular decision (and hence subject to harassment) can be part of the curriculum advisory committee or on the selection team. No one from the education consulting industry or the college Ed community who has provided consulting to publishers or providers of educational programs or services can participate either. They are all tainted. OSPI will of course fight this because they are selecting people aligned with their own math philosophy.

We need people who understand math and can objectively assess curriculum content against the standards. Let them develop their own rubric.

Testimony 5-21-2008 coming

Good Evening, I am Dan Dempsey. 5-21-2008

"The education profession has never been particularly interested in results, especially if they run counter to the prejudices of the profession,"
---Dr. Douglas Carnine

Director Martin-Morris, congratulations on your decision to focus on results and forego waiting on OSPI for Math guidance via the prejudices of the profession.

You may encounter significant problems in attempting to make decisions that can eventually produce positive math materials selections. The Seattle central staff still reference best practices in math. Remember there are none at this time. Differentiated Instruction is NOT a best practice.

Seattle’s selection of Everyday Math in a total collapse of rational process is just one example of the likelihood for failure if you choose to rely on Current Seattle Math decision makers. No one involved with recent math curricular decision-making processes should be acknowledged as a competent decision maker without a critical examination of their supposed qualifications. You will make better progress in achieving your goal by listening to more math teachers and fewer administrators; above all seek relevant data and apply it intelligently.

Dr Bergeson and OSPI are still derailing the process put in place by the legislature. The intent is to bring about better math for Washington Students. It seems clear that Dr Bergeson continues to guide us toward predetermined outcomes: like Connected Math, Core-Plus and Everyday Math.

Dr Bergeson’s selection of the Dana Center for six times the price of the low bidder was a clear vote for Everyday Math and Connected Math. OSPI's biased selection of the Standards Revision Team was a vote for Core-Plus.

Now after a covert selection process the Instructional Materials Review Criteria Panel has already had their first meeting, complete with no public notification and no observers. Math materials used in the districts represented by this hand picked OSPI criteria team and the contents of their first draft reveal this team of school administrators apparently prefers Connected Math and Core-Plus. There are no teachers on this team and no highly skilled math representatives from industry. To be selected to this criteria team knowledge of math was not a requirement..

Harium, help with successful execution of your plan will be needed.... But don't worry your plan will put Seattle in a much better position than where Dr Bergeson has Washington Math headed.

Thanks for your efforts.

You are correct Seattle does not need to waste another year with OSPI’s defective math thoughts.