tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4983334520933101277.post542636134284336089..comments2024-02-16T06:29:33.587-08:00Comments on Welcome to " The Math UnderGround " -- Seattle & Washington State: A Missouri Math Educator needs to get out moredan dempseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536720661510933983noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4983334520933101277.post-88078594722214288642008-06-18T01:01:00.000-07:002008-06-18T01:01:00.000-07:00Very entertaining piece to readhttp://www.oaknorto...Very entertaining piece to read<BR/><BR/>http://www.oaknorton.com/imathresults27.cfm<BR/><BR/><BR/>Dr. Jim Milgram of Stanford said of this study, it is akin to the tobacco company studies of the 50's and 60's telling everyone "smoking is safe, we've tested it."<BR/><BR/>In preparation for presenting the material to the board, I spent several hours researching and contacting people. One person I was directed to was Sandra Stotsky, who was the assistant commissioner of education in Massachusetts when this study was performed there in 2000. She wrote:<BR/><BR/>“I am aware of several major problems with the MA part of the study. (1) As the Executive Summary admits, mostly high--income "white" schools were using the "reform" programs in the MA grade 4 sample, (2) no information is given on the supplemental tutoring that exists in these suburban communities (a hard factor to get information on without labor-intensive exploration at each school), (3) no information is given about supplemental curriculum materials the teachers themselves may have used--all we are told is that the schools that were contacted said they fully used the reform program. I know that many teachers in these high-income schools use supplemental materials to make up for the "reform" programs deficiencies, (4) no information is given on the amount of professional development the "reform" teachers had (a huge amount in all probability) in comparison to the teachers in the comparison group (if no new math program, no professional development), (5) no information is given on the amount of time spent on math in the reform schools compared to the comparison group (the "reform" programs require a lot more time per week than most schools had been allotting math for many years. For example, I discovered that one Newton elementary school with top scores was considered a model because it taught math one hour each day!), and probably most important and relevant (6) the MCAS grade 4 math test was originally designed with a great deal of advice from TERC. TERC also shaped the math standards in the 1995 standards document that were being assessed by this test in 2000 (it is acknowledged in the intro to this document). TERC's supporters (and EM supporters) were on the assessment advisory committees that made judgments about the test items and their weights for the math tests. It is well-known that the grade 4 test reflects "constructivist" teaching of math. In other words, the grade 4 test in MA in 2000 favored students using a "reform" program. “ <BR/><BR/>I also contacted Dr. Jim Milgram at Stanford. He is on the advisory board of NASA and says that these programs have been around for decades and if they were effective, NASA, IBM and others would be actively looking for high schoolers that went through these programs. He also said it's generally acknowledged that no valid study has ever been performed to show the effectiveness of these programs. I will post his entire fascinating email at the bottom of this page, but I wanted to give you his quotes that I read to the board at the meeting from his review of Connected Math. I gave each member of the board a copy of this document and asked them to read it. ftp://math.stanford.edu/pub/papers/milgram/report-on-cmp.html <BR/><BR/>Page 1 of 22: “If one visits the web site of the program (Connected Math), http://www.math.msu.edu/cmp/Index.html, one finds two preprints, presumably using rigorous methodology and statistical analysis, that are advertised as showing the benefits of CMP. Unfortunately, as we see in the appendix to this report, both studies are fatally flawed and deceptively presented. Additionally, at the website one will find a strong endorsement of the program by the AAAC. They grade it as one of the most effective programs for teaching middle school mathematics Unfortunately, this too must be taken with a grain of salt, as is also discussed in the appendix. In fact, it is generally acknowledged that there are no reputable studies showing that any of the NSF developed mathematics programs actually benefit students in testable ways. <BR/><BR/>....<BR/><BR/><BR/>(Oak's comment: What a sense of humor he has! Then he proceeds to closely examine the three grade levels for connected math and skillfully show this curriculum as one of the worst available.)<BR/><BR/>Page 2 of 22: “Overall, the program seems to be very incomplete, and I would judge that it is aimed at underachieving students rather than normal or higher achieving students. In itself this is not a problem unless, as is the case, the program is advertised as being designed for all students. In fact, as indicated, there is no reputable research at all which supports this.”<BR/><BR/>Page 20 of 22: “There is a second paper extolling CMP at the CMP website by Reys, et.al. In this paper the statistics are done well but the "control group" is not realistic. The paper looks at three programs: CMP, another similar program, and a "control group" that consists of teachers who seem to share the same philosophy as the developers of CMP but are teaching without the assistance of any books or course materials. In other words the control group consists of teachers who are just winging it. <BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, this kind of statistical analysis, poorly done and misleading, appears to be very common in research on NSF funded programs, and the errors all seem to be in the direction most favorable to the programs.” <BR/>Besides presenting this material to the board, I challenged the board to 3 things: <BR/><BR/>1) Don't ever let someone from the district contradict me after I leave and then not tell me about it (which happened in either October or November) and not give me a chance to respond. <BR/><BR/>2) They've acknowledged that teachers are now able to teach anywhere on the spectrum that they think the students need to learn from Investigations to Traditional math, so now put your money where your mouth is and fund teacher choice of curriculum (the statement giving teachers authority to teach without fear of reprimand was read in November at the board meeting and the direct result of my October visit to the board). http://www.oaknorton.com/ASD%20November%20Board%20Meeting%20Statement.doc <BR/><BR/>3) A challenge to find JUST ONE VALID INDEPENDENT STUDY by the end of January that shows these constructivist programs are on par or better than traditional programs. If they find one I agreed to publish it on my website and email it to all of you. I didn't make them promise to drop the programs if they couldn't find one, but hopefully it will make some people think about what's happening as they try to find an untainted study. Of course I'll keep you posted on this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com