Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Doing what works

http://dww.ed.gov/priority_area/priority_landing.cfm?PA_ID=8

2 comments:

  1. This is asking for trouble - the DOE has nothing more to say about improving educatio?

    How about this quote about Madison Elementary School, Spokane, WA (62% proficient on the WASL Wow! Aren't we smart! This sounds like Dana Center propaganda)

    "Staff are committed to balanced teaching, ensuring that there is attention always to
    developing both conceptual and procedural understanding. Developing strong number
    sense and fluency with arithmetic facts are considered foundational.

    Teachers use open
    number lines and double number lines to teach fractions and a variety of models and
    manipulatives for demonstrations and explicit teaching.


    Madison staff frequently debrief student work, using a formal protocol for structuring
    the discussions. The goal of these discussions is to understand the level of individual
    and group mastery of key topics and skills and identify next teaching steps.

    As part of
    the schoolwide commitment to strengthening mathematics proficiency, all teachers use
    common assessments related to units of instruction at each grade level.

    Assessment
    grids are display formats that facilitate analysis of results by individual, group, and
    grade level for each benchmarks.
    The principal and teachers are strong proponents of the importance of effort and
    persistence in learning mathematics.

    They meet directly with parents to counter any
    negative messages that parents may inadvertently provide to their children about
    mathematics..."

    Blah Blah Blah ....More good teaching practices....What about next year?

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  2. Once again what is the curriculum aka textbook? How long has the school been implementing reform math? When is algebra taught? How many students actually make it to college? The number of minorities attending this school is lower than the state average (13%)?

    This war over math is very lopsided. Everyday math teaches neither standard procedures nor standard concepts. It is far below basic. Washington's math standards fails everybody. Gee lets thank Bergeson, Pearson Testing, and the Dana Center.

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