Monday, April 13, 2009

TMP direction ... more of the old OSPI math failure coming our way

Looking at the following posting about the Transition Math Project, it looks like the current legislative direction toward more internationally competitive math will not be happening in Washington State.

Read this:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:zjlGiTecARwJ:www.transitionmathproject.org/pro-development/fall-convening08/doc/work-in-progress-nov08.doc+Cheryl+Lydon&cd=23&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Some high points (or low points) are:

We recruited a national advisory group of math leaders/experts to help us formulate/sharpen a Phase III agenda and advocate for it:

Uri Treisman, University of Texas and director, Charles Dana Center

Kay Merseth, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Jo Boaler, University of Sussex, math educator and researcher

Mary Kennedy, Michigan State University

Kurt Kreith, UC Davis, professor emeritus in math

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From the excerpt below it appears we will see more funding to extend the current Washington State math disaster.
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We’ve also met with a variety of key math educators and researcher from the public baccalaureates in Washington to explore how TMP might connect to their current projects, including Ginger Warfield, UW math faculty and leader of the Washington Teachers of Teachers of Mathematics, WaToToM, and Ruth Parker, from the Math Education Collaborative-- http://www.mec-math.org/ , who have developed a thoughtful plan for extending Ruth’s excellent work, focused to date mostly on K-8, to high schools with key higher education partners (the proposal was submitted to NSF but turned down); Anita Lenges, The Evergreen State College and Rosemary Sheffield, UW Educational Outreach; and Lani Horn, UW secondary math education, and Jim King, UW math, who are leading a variety of efforts both in Seattle and nationally. You can see a solid if incomplete list of baccalaureate-led math-related projects in a report from WACTE, the organization of the colleges of teacher education.

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WOW!!! a report from WACTE, the organization of the colleges of teacher education. Dr Sandra Stotsky is correct as long as education is controlled by folks like those above there will be little if any improvement.

The above folks are responsible for much of the current math nonsense in wide-spread use in Washington State. They openly advocate plans that are anti National Math Advisory Panel recomendations and seem to have had little use for the ideas expressed in the NCTM focal points prior to their publication.

What we have now appears to be a TMP direction for more of the same.

Here is a link to the WACTE report:
http://www.wacte.org/documents/ImprovingSuccessinMathematics.pdf

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

PLEASE -

what is a QUOTE and
what is YOUR commentary?

;)

just use some consistent formatting / markings ;)

Anonymous said...

Wow! Reform math is finally endemic in Washington. A national first. This should add to the entropy of the universe. Probables or possibles? That is a very interesting question, Didactico Calculigis.

Anonymous said...

We knew our graduates weren't prepared for college, and now we know TMP will be replacing whatever was left of mathematics in college. Now our students can talk about calculas and forget completely about ever doing it ever again. Hurray for our side.

dan dempsey said...

Anon found quotations not properly separated from commentary.
I am guilty as charged.

I've now italicised the quotations.

Hope that helps.
The quotations are easy to find in the original document as it is not particularly long.