UW Follow Up Letter

Dear President Emmert, Provost Wise, and Dean Wasley,

In my recent letter, I made the following statement:

"It is one thing to believe in fairy-tales but quite another to advise that important decisions be based upon them. Major research universities should do a lot better than this."

Please review the attached data involving the performance of the Bellevue School District over the last Decade on the 4th, 7th, and 10th grade WASL. Please notice the achievement Gaps for Black and Hispanic students.

Bellevue is often viewed as a leader in Washington State. BSD adopted reform mathematics and a "Fidelity of Implementation" model as advocated by Dr P Uri Triesman. The results of this have been a disaster for Black and Hispanic students in mathematics.

Please compare the growing achievement gaps in mathematics with reading and writing at the 4th, 7th, and 10th grade levels.

Bellevue seems to have done precisely what the UW School of Education advocates as a best practice for urban children in mathematics in their recently published document Research That Matters - Does Modern Math Add Up?

The answer from this data and from the results of so many other Washington School Districts is no this does not add up. The UW department of education recommendations in mathematics do not add up.

Please issue a retraction to the PTA Presidents, the Legislators and anyone else that this booklet was mailed to. The document Research That Matters is propaganda and not worthy of publication by a creditable research university.

Sincerely,

Danaher M. Dempsey, Jr.