PLEASESTOP THE MATH DISASTER NOW

Legislators please STOP THE MATH DISASTER NOW.

To improve a system requires the intelligent application of relevant data.
– W. Edwards Deming (1900 – 1993)

Dr Bergeson's stated goal on several occasions is to develop Washington's own world-class math program. This has not worked out well in the last decade. It will be even worse over the next four years. For non-Asian minorities it has been a true decade of math disaster.

In regard to the online math curriculum:
Take a look at "Hey Math" http://www.heymath.com

Then either take the math standards revision out of Dr. Bergeson’s control or continue hiding in the cocoon known as expensive math education Washington style.

--- Dan Dempsey, Jr
SBE Math Panelist and Math teacher; BA in Math, M.Ed.
NCLB Highly Qualified in Math, Chemistry, & Science

Sudhakar Kudva said:
I have been following the debate on WASL with great interest.

The observation about WASL being designed to test to the "unique" state standards means Washington is forever beholden to vendors of expensive custom tests.

It also means Washington's student performance can never be accurately compared to that of any other state or nation.

Our children’s math competence and knowledge are severely compromised relative to their world peers, and our tests are unable to point to a solution.

Incompetence begets more incompetence. Ignorance begets more ignorance. All at taxpayer's expense.

The sooner our state leaders realize we no longer live in a cocoon, and that our future workforce will be severely handicapped because of the low standards (along with custom, expensive tests designed to measure to those standards), the better.

--- Sudhakar Kudva, Ph.D.
retired Intel senior manager from Vancouver, WA


December 4, 2007 draft -- totally ignored the recommendations of HB 1906. This draft appeared to be designed to put one over on the public.

January draft – finally looked like SRT read the law HB 1906 just not many of the comparison standards. Grades 6, 7, 8 standards looked like a Connected Math Project syllabus. The middle school standards would place us severely out of line with the coming national math panel report on March 13, 2008. There were no high school standards worth even commenting on – the Revision was incomplete at this point. The Standards Revision Team did not do the job as described in HB 1906. They appeared to have little interest other than providing shiny wrapping for OSPI’s decade of incompetent math direction.

February 29th draft – looks a lot more like a whole new document not a revision. By the time a process reaches the third draft – it is generally thought that it is in the refinement stage, but not here.
The third draft has an incredible number of changes. Not the least of these is the change in layout. Many content coverage descriptions were moved to the examples from the standards themselves.

The writing often appears to be written by people unfamiliar with writing specifications. This document has many standards that are so ambiguous they tell the teacher nothing. The Standards are supposed to guide the teacher in teaching. There are numerous instances where confusion not effective guidance will be the result of using this product.

It is time to move this revision away from OSPI to the SBE.
Many teachers know how to teacher math successfully. The current problem is how to get OSPI and the NSF to allow them to do so.

It does not take the millions expended by Dr Bergeson over the last decade to solve this supposed problem.

It is a simple as 1…2…3…4
1… Read “Project Follow Though”
2… Read MSSG’s “What is important in School Mathematics?”
3… Try Looking at the data for a change. In education, the judgments of experts frequently appear to be unconstrained by objective research.
4… Watch Singapore

Sincerely, Danaher M. Dempsey